J. Tamsin
Final Form
Every inch of Raulin itched, coated in tiny needles of hair.
He could do without the tedious ritual, the dusting of flinders marking him for days, but a part of him loved the large spiky clumps decorating the mint tile at his feet, begging to be stepped on. That airy resistance followed by a grainy crunch, splintering under his clammy sole—he could practically taste it, feel the hairs rolling between his teeth.
“No daydreaming,” Hem said, flicking him in the ear with his left hand as his right ran the razor along Raulin’s skull. “You want a clean shave, don’t you?” His reflection grinned at Raulin through the medicine cabinet, flaunting his yellow, crooked teeth.
What a feral thing Hem was. With his long fingers and long legs and long neck. Even his hair—not quite brown, not quite gray—was long. And stringy, not washed for days. You’d think Raulin would be the one prancing around the bathroom in nothing but his unders, shaving off Hem’s greasy locks once a month. But no. When and how they’d even agreed to such an asinine arrangement was beyond him.
“Close your eyes,” Hem snickered, pinching him in the ass with a brazen laugh as the razor fell quiet. “I want to trim up those brows.”
“No,” Raulin protested, swatting him away. “I don’t trust you with that thing.”
Hem frowned, but his gaunt expression shifted to a smirk, then a wink. “I’ll do it real good, I promise. Every bit counts.”
“Fine.” Raulin sighed, closing his eyes, as if it mattered. As if he wasn’t begging to scratch and claw at the hairs already wedged between his lashes.
His entire face rattled as the sharp toothy edge ran across his brow in one fell swoop.
“Hey! That’s not—” Raulin gaped at the fallout—one brow completely gone, the other nothing but a fine fuzz—and the shaver, buzzing in the sink.
No Hem. Only Raulin, standing in nothing but his unders, gawking at his hairless skull in the mirror, backdropped by the tiled walls.
The faucet dripped. A sniff of his neighbor’s cigarette wafted in from the cracked window. And Raulin stormed into the next room.
Hem sat like some pretentious spider at the green formica table, one ankle perched on a knee, reading the paper. His hairy, bony legs remained bare, but he’d at least put on a shirt—which was more than Raulin could say for himself—some disgusting mustard-yellow Mr. Peanut top with a huge hole above his belly button.
“I hate when you do that,” Raulin grumbled, stalking to the fridge and pulling out a slippery pack of bologna.
Hem peeked from behind the dirty-gray page. “No eyebrows, eh? How very bold of you.”
Raulin huffed. “Don’t act like you—” His gaze snagged on the headline: FAMILY OF THREE FOUND MURDERED IN HAGA PARK, RAISING CONCERNS OF SERIAL KILLINGS. “Is that today’s paper?”
“Yes,” Hem drawled, snapping the fold with a crack and slipping beneath the paper’s surface once more.
“Well are you actually reading it? Look. It says there’s some killer out there.”
“And?”
“And?” Raulin shook his head and turned back to the yellow counter, tugging free a few slick slices and slapping them onto the chipped frying pan. “You’re unbelievably irritating sometimes.”
Hem scoffed. “And you’re unbelievably obtuse.”
Raulin rolled his lips into his mouth, counting the seconds with each of his breaths. He hated how Hem drove him mad like this, knowing exactly what buttons to push. But he’d told himself a long time ago he needed to be patient with the man, to keep his anger leashed.
So, he cleared his throat. “Would you like some meat?”
The neighbor down the hall slammed a door. The bologna’s salty vapor sizzled into the air. And Raulin cocked an ear.
“Hem?” He turned, finding nothing but the folded paper atop the table. A rustle came from the bedroom. “Hem,” he growled, killing the burner with a furious twist and stomping down the hall.
Hem stood at the closet, having donned a pair of jean cutoffs, rifling through the hangers.
“Will you please stop doing that,” Raulin hissed.
As always, Hem ignored him, wrenching out a red flannel top. “How about this for tonight? Seems…I don’t know, on-brand.”
“Yes, fine.” Raulin snatched the top, met by Hem’s pleased smirk.
“With cargo pants,” Hem insisted, stalking to the dark window as Raulin shrugged on the shirt and worked the buttons. He brushed the sheer curtain aside, gazing down, his face cast in uplit shadow from the streetlights. “It’s really not that high. Even from the roof, I bet you could make it.” He glanced back, flashing his disgusting teeth, far too long for any civilized person. “You know, for a quick exit.”
Raulin stepped into one leg of his pants, then the other, hoisting them high and zipping them tight. Hem watched, licking his chapped lips, until his stare snapped back outside, where a new light illuminated his pallid face. His yellow eyes widened. “Better get going.”
He hooked Raulin by the elbow, forcing Raulin to drop the boot he’d not yet slipped on, and dragged him out the door.
The air in the stairwell was rotten, rich with some neighbor’s old trout. Still, Raulin’s mouth watered as Hem towed him up the single flight to the roof. He’d not had his snack.
“After you,” Hem said, shoving Raulin through the roof’s creaky, rusted hatch.
The icy tar bit at Raulin’s bare feet as he stumbled into the moonlight. The door slammed shut, enveloping him in silence, no trailing footsteps. And Raulin smiled.
Whatever Hem was up to, he’d not joined Raulin on the roof, likely locking him out in the cold as some prank. But Raulin couldn’t care less. A minute without Hem was a gift. An hour? A whole night? Of course it wasn’t ideal, he was shivering and hungry. But he was alone.
At last.
Hem tsked in his ear. “As if I’d go so easy.”
A sharp pain shot through Raulin’s bones and he cried out in a howl.
“Give it to me,” Hem demanded from everywhere and nowhere all at once, sinking his jagged nails into Raulin’s mind, clawing for control.
“No,” Raulin whimpered, his skin stretching, his organs shifting as Hem writhed inside him, staking claim to their shared flesh. “Please, no.”
“Yes,” Hem seethed. “Now!”
Raulin’s clothes burst at the seams, falling from his body—Hem’s body—but he didn’t shrink from the frigid air. He burned with it, weeping as their fingers pulled into long, boney sticks tipped with thorns. As their feet lengthened, twisting their legs, their spine, into a horrific hunch. As their gums ached while their teeth swelled, elongating until their canines drew blood from their lower lip. As their skin prickled with the million needle-sharp hairs erupting from their pores.
Hem tightened his relentless grip, one final throttle, and the last of Raulin submitted, forced down, down, down, until he was nothing but a mewling afterthought. A cowering sheep buried deep beneath Hem’s wolf skin.
“Good,” Hem cooed, still panting with the pain of the shift, sounding too much like Raulin for his liking.
But at least he had a whole evening before he’d have to deal with Raulin again, the helpless, pathetic fool. Always crying and whining and denying himself the pleasures he craved.
Nothing Hem couldn’t take care of in a night’s hunt.
He padded to the edge of the roof, gazing down at the moonlit trees of Haga Park. A lovely place to start.
A siren wailed in the distance. A breeze rustled through his renewed grayish-brown fur.
And Hem jumped.
Tamsin is an emerging author living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. She was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest by a SFF-loving father and Hitchcock-loving mother, all of which she holds personally responsible for her affinity for the weird, fantastic, and spooky. She has two short stories forthcoming in Allegory and Gradaran Literary Magazine.
Learn more at jtamsin.com
Banner Art:
Self-Portrait, Henri Fantin-Latour, ca. 1858, The MET
