But' it doesn't. Each gust of wind seems to make it stronger. I breathe it in, savor it even as it overcomes me. This, I think, must be how a beast in rut feels. I grow hard again, painfully rigid, and Maria shifts position, and says, "Can't we wait awhile before we try again?"
I grunt assent and withdraw from her, but my lust only increases. The first twinges of change roil my body and I gasp when I realize that if the scent doesn't fade soon, I'll lose all control.
I feel as if I'm drowning in cinnamon and cloves. My back tightens. My shoulders begin to swell. Maria tenses in my arms and I sigh. I can't bear the possibility that she'll see me as I truly am. I don't want to hear her screams, see the inevitable look of revulsion come over her face. And I don't want her to die racked with terror, sobbing and pleading for my mercy.
The change torments my body again. I sense the skin in the middle of my back begin to split, my jaw begin to widen and I hug Maria, one last time. She relaxes in my arms and I nuzzle the nape of her neck again, hold it lightly in my open mouth. She sighs and I embrace her like this for a few more moments… then snap my jaws shut.
Maria trembles once, then goes slack. Her blood fills my mouth and a loud sob fills the room. At first I think it's her, but then I realize she died instantly, as I wished. I hear the sob again and this time I know it's me.
My entire life I've wished I'd been born human, but this is the first time I've truly hated my heritage. Cinnamon and cloves consume me. I roll off the bed and surrender to what I am.
Pain and relief, shame and freedom. I try to howl my sadness to the night and find that I roar instead. My skin tightens, then thickens and ripples as it turns color and takes shape. Soon, deep green, armored scales protect my body everywhere but underneath, which is covered with beige scales, twice as thick.
Father has assured me that at eighteen feet from the tip of my nose to the end of my tail, I've grown to full maturity. My wingspan is more than two times that.
I stretch my wings, sigh at the relief of unfolding them. But even though I open them until they reach from wall to wall, I still can't extend them fully. The twelve-foot ceiling prevents me from standing to full height on my rear legs and I approach the bed on all fours, examine Maria's still body and the blood pooling around it.
Grief overwhelms me and I roar again.
"Peter?" Father mindspeaks.
"Go away!"
"Is it the girl? When are you going to learn not to care about them ? You always get too involved.…"
"Leave me be, Father. I have things to do. I'll visit you later."
"Peter? They're only humans."
I roar and shut myself off from him. I know Father will be angry over that. It's something I've hardly ever done to him. But this time, I decide he'll just have to cope.
The cinnamon smell returns, intermixes with the scent of fresh blood and I pace the room, alternately consumed with lust and hunger. I approach the still body on my bed, then back away. At last hunger wins out, and closing my eyes, I approach again, nuzzle against the carcass and feed.
Finally, when I'm satiated, I stretch out on the floor next to the bed and allow myself to doze.
The night's still dark when I awake from a troubled sleep full of changing shapes and terrifying images. The air smells deliciously free of any taint of cinnamon and I breathe it in, take great gulps of it, as if to cleanse my lungs of all memories of that strange and wicked scent. I force myself to look toward the bed where Maria lies, her limbs askew, her body rent and torn.
A shudder runs through my body and I look away. Sadness and grief, guilt and shame fill my soul and I will myself to change back to my human form. As a man, at least, I can honor her with my tears.
I sit on the bed next to Maria's despoiled body and sob, tears flowing down my cheeks, streaking my naked bloodstained chest.
Just before dawn, I stop and turn my attention to what must be done.
Father has taught me to despise waste. "We can live the way we want," he's told me many times, "because we preserve our wealth."
Even though we now have enormous investments on the mainland, treasury notes, real estate holdings, stocks and bonds, jumbo certificates of deposit-all of them earning more wealth every day, thanks to our human lawyers and advisors and the miracle of compound growth-Father still insists we maintain at least a portion of our riches ourselves.
Tears return to my eyes as I remove Maria's Swiss Army watch, her gold belly-button ring, her gold high school graduation ring, two other rings of questionable value, her two small diamond stud earrings and her gold necklace with the four-leaf clover charm and put them all in a small pile on a nearby night table. Later, I'll take them downstairs to the treasure room and add them to the gold and silver, gems and jewelry my family's been collecting as long as they've existed.
I gather up her clothes, breathe and cherish the scent of her they still carry, and place them in a pile near the door. Then I pick up her small cloth purse and search through it, removing any change, finding a surprising three hundred and eighty-six dollars in bills in her wallet.
The money goes in the top drawer of my dresser-the purse on top of the pile of clothes. I look through her wallet one last time before I drop it on the pile too, gaze at the pictures inside and wonder who the people are in the photographs she carried, whether they will mourn her passage too. One picture catches my attention especially. Maria, in a bikini, a little younger than now, sitting on the deck of a Hobie catamaran, being embraced by a young man with piercing black eyes and a large, drooping mustache. The man also wears only a bathing suit and the boat's yellow-and-white, diagonally striped mainsail is behind them. A rush of jealousy hits me and, for a moment, I hate that person. Then I realize how much the man looks like Maria and I think, this must be Jorge. I blush that I could be jealous of a brother's hug.
I drop the wallet and the pictures on top of the pile of clothing. All of it will be reduced to ashes before the end of day.
By now the sun has begun to burn its way into my room. Blinking at its brightness, hating the glare of it on the dead body on my bed, I scoop Maria up and carry her to my door. I shudder at her lifelessness and weep as I take her through the inner doors to the dim interior of the house.
Had she lived, I would have shown her the wide corridor that circles the great spiral staircase which services all the floors of the house. Now I barely glance up as I walk around the corridor to the massive heavy oak doors that open to Father's chamber.
Father's shades are drawn and, no matter the brightness outside, the room remains as dim and murky as the dark middle of the house. He is asleep when I enter, his breathing irregular and shallow. I can make out his form in the shadows of the far corner of the room, a dark shape sprawled on a bed of hay.
I shake my head at the sight of him. There was a time his mere visage could terrify me, but now, he seems to grow a little smaller each time I see him.
In his old age Father has given up shape changing, telling me his natural body is the most efficient way for him to live. And as the years have passed, he's embraced the old ways, refusing to converse out loud, insisting on hay for his bedding, refusing any trace of human craft in his stone-walled, furnitureless room.
"Father?" I mindspeak. "I've brought you something."
The shape turns in my direction, coughs and scratches.
Two emerald-green eyes stare at me. "You shut me off, Peter. There was a time you wouldn't have dared. …"
I return his stare. We both know he's no longer the imposing figure he once was. At best, Father can't be any more than eleven feet long. His color, once as richly green as mine, now has a sickly yellow pallor to it. Age has slowed his movements, buckled and rippled his scales. "I'm sorry, Father," I say.