“I love you as I have not loved any woman for centuries. In fact, never. If you marry me, I will bite you, not hard, just enough to break the skin. That will give you the same span of time as I have left. Then, we will live centuries together.”
I would have pulled away if he weren’t blocking my way. I scooted backwards. “You’re serious, then. You think you are a shape changing animal that can become a wild black stallion or a cat or a . . .”
“Yes,” he said, nodding his head and looking completely serious. “Would you like me to show you? What would you like me to become? My most prevalent changeover is the stallion you met, but I can be something else if you’d feel better about that.”
I shook my head. “I’d feel better if you saw a psychiatrist, Timothy. I know you can afford one.”
Ok, that was a cheap shot, but this whole line of conversation was dropping all my hopes into the dumpster. I was going from high on the beginnings of love to ” just get me out of here” — and fast.
Timothy let go of my hands and stepped away. “I will change into the stallion, then. You are acquainted with him, but remember, I won’t hurt you.”
I couldn’t take my eyes away, spellbound by his air of drama. I didn’t believe him, of course, but there was still the panicky question about what he’d do when his fantasy didn’t materialize. Would he go berserk then, or would he believe he’d actually transformed into an animal?
It was called illusional lycanthropy, which I’d learned about through my roommate, Cara. That was where a person thought he could turn into a wolf. Would the psychiatrist call it lycanthropy when his patient thought he could become a horse? Maybe this psychosis was the beginning of schizophrenia? There were meds for that. Perhaps, Timothy could be helped.
I saw a brief blurring in the air. Not a color change or a wind. It was just the oddest sensation, like looking in a mirror that rippled, if such a thing were possible.
I’d once seen a silly TV movie where the werewolves were changing their shapes. They were human until the moon came out, but then their bodies contorted. Pain wracked them. Their faces turned nightmarish from the agony their bodies were undergoing, all that twisting, bone breaking, and transforming into something they weren’t supposed to be.
But that didn’t happen with Timothy. As I said, there was nothing more than a ripple of air, something I’d never seen before and couldn’t really describe. Timothy had been human, standing right in front of me, his eyes focused on me, then, that strange wave-like flash of air, and what was in his place was no longer Timothy, but the black stallion from my dreams.