Not-So-Lone Wolf

PG

By Shotzette

This is a work of fan fiction only and is not intended to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights or intellectual properties.  It was written for grins and giggles, not dollars and cents.

Laverne ran as fast as she could down Patterson Boulevard, painfully gasping for air.  She was dimly aware that her high heels were loudly clicking against the rain-slicked pavement, announcing her location to her pursuer.  She ran up the seven steps of her building’s stoop as she mentally kicked herself for running all the way home—his home too—instead of ducking into one of the two churches that she had passed on her frightening run from the playground.

Her attention was drawn to the sharp pain in her knee as her heel skidded down the last two steps to her front door, causing her to crash painfully into her front door.  She remembered she’d left her purse dangling from the swing set at the playground and clutched the doorknob hysterically.

The door immediately swung open to reveal her roommate in all of her cold-creamed, curler-capped, and terry-clad glory.

“Shirl!” 

“What is your problem, Laverne?  I could hear you running all the way down the stairs.  It’s a Tuesday night, most people,” Shirley said in a superior tone, “ have to get up early on Wednesday mornings and therefore aren’t out and about carousing with married men—“

“Shirl!”  She gasped again before forcing herself to take a few deep breaths.  Must tell her-- must warn her!

About what?  That she was being chased by a werewolf?  Weredog?  Naked Lenny?  Of the three options, she knew which one would unhinge her roommate the most.  Why not?  She didn’t believe you when you thought that guy was an industrial spy last year, why would she believe this?  Momentarily, Laverne wondered if she’d hallucinated—dreamed the whole thing.  She wouldn’t put it past that creep Tony to have slipped something into her milk and Pepsi when she wasn’t looking…

A scratching noise at the door made Laverne realize the bad news; she wasn’t insane or drugged.  Lenny, the Weredog, was really chasing her.

Shirley‘s brow furrowed in confusion as she reached for the doorknob.  “What the…?”

“Shirl, don’t!” Laverne wheezed, hysteria pushing her aching lungs to their breaking point.

It was too late.  Her roommate had flung open the door to reveal the big white German shepherd that she had seen at the playground.

“Well, hello!”  Shirley squealed in her high pitched annoying tone that seemed to frighten the animals that she wanted to befriend.  The shepherd sat as nice as you please in their doorway, tongue lolling out of his mouth, and tail wagging.  “Are you lost?”

Usually, Laverne thought sourly.  “Hey Shirl, what are you doing?”

Shirley spared her roommate an irritated glance as the dog pranced through their open door.  “Laverne!  It’s the middle of the night and this poor thing is out roaming the streets.  He must have gotten lost.”

“He’s probably just a stray,” Laverne said, her eyes narrowing as her fear was quickly superseded by anger, “A big, greasy stray.”

The dog whined piteously at her words, and edged closer to Shirley’s knee.

Shirley’s face reddened and her features scrunched up in anger.  “How can you be so mean, Laverne?”  She then sat down on the step by the dog, all the while petting it soothingly.  “She didn’t mean it, Sweetie.  Big, mean old Laverne didn’t mean to hurt your little doggie-woggie feelings.”

An even more frightening thought occurred to Laverne.  “Shirl, we can’t keep him.”

Without making eye contact with Laverne, Shirley replied, “We’re not going to keep him, Laverne.  We’ll just take care of him tonight and then go post some signs around town saying that we found him.  I’m sure his family misses him a lot, don’t they, Sweetie?”  Further comments on Shirley’s part were interspersed with frequent kissing sounds.

“Mrs. Babbish ain’t gonna like that too much,” Laverne said, going for what was usually her ace in the hole.  Shirley used the Mrs. Babbish argument on her all the time when she wanted her date to stay later, or wanted to invite a few more people to a party.

“Mrs. Babbish doesn’t have to know.  I’m sure that we’ll reunite King here with his owners by tomorrow afternoon.”

“King?”  More like an exiled Count.

Shirley glanced at Laverne, and after gently nudging the dog’s questing nose from the opening of her robe, she said, “I have to call him something, don’t I?  Good boy, what a good boy—watch your nose, there, King.  Who’s a hungry boy?”

The dog looked at Shirley with slavish adoration and then looked back at Laverne who saw its blue eyes narrow momentarily before turning back to its benefactress.  “We have some leftover meatloaf,” Shirley said in a wheedling, childlike tone.  “How does that sound?”

Laverne’s jaw threatened to collide with the living room floor.  “Shirley!  That was going to be for my sandwich for work tomorrow.”

“My, my, my, how selfish can you be, Laverne?  Heaven only knows how long it’s been since this poor creature has had a meal.  You can take the leftover egg salad for lunch tomorrow.”

“That’s a week old,” Laverne whined.

“You’ll live.”   The irritating sing-song voice was back as Shirley placed a—to Laverne’s eyes—very delicious looking bowl of meatloaf on the ground in front of the dog who tore into it with about as much grace as human Lenny would have.  “Here you go, King.  What a good boy!  You must be starving,” Shirley said as she looked up to briefly shoot daggers at Laverne with her eyes.  “I can only imagine how long it’s been since you’ve eaten.”

The image of Lenny sloppily eating a fudgsicle in the Shotz break room earlier that afternoon galvanized Laverne and she stormed thru the bedroom door.

Rotten miserable night…She cursed silently under her breath as she began to undress, her blouse and not-too-short skirt landing in a heap on the floor in front of her where they were shortly joined by her slip and hose.  The light cotton of her nightgown was just falling over her skin when she heard toenails clicking on the hardwood floor.  She spun around and instantly regretted her actions since she realized she’d just given Lenny more of an eyeful than he’d had a moment before.  “Shirl!” she gasped as her head finally cleared the suddenly restrictive yoke of fabric.  Shirley was gaping at her as if she’d lost her mind while the dog vigorously licked himself, his tail thumping gleefully against the floor.  “Why are you bringing him in here?”

“Why not?”

Laverne opened her mouth but closed it when “Lenny the were-dog will see me naked” didn’t really seem like an ideal answer.  “I just thought he’d stay in the living room, that’s all,” she murmured sulkily as she yanked the covers back on her bed and prepared to climb in. 

The bedsprings squeaked noisily as the dog leaped the seven feet from the doorway to her bed in a single bound.  He looked at her with those disconcerting blue eyes and panted expectantly.  If he starts biting his paw, even Shirley will be able to put two and two together. 

“No!”

The dog cringed at her tone, and then whined at her, an eerily familiar sound, before hopping off of the bed to skulk back to Shirley.

“What is with you, Laverne?”

The dog looked up at Shirley and slowly put his paw on her bed, as if asking for her permission. 

“What a polite little gentleman,” Shirley began.

“He’s grimy and might have fleas,” Laverne said.

“Who will be perfectly comfortable on the rug right here,” Shirley said, smoothly switching gears. 

The dog sighed and walked around the old frayed rug three times before lying down on it—and stretching out one foreleg so his paw touched Laverne’s discarded bra.

“Shirl…”

Her roommate spared her a withering look before shucking off her robe and crawling into her bed.  “It’s on the floor, so I‘m assuming you were going to wash it anyhow, weren’t you Laverne?”

Laverne grumbled a response and pulled the covers over her head, willing herself to wake up and get out of this insane dream.

Laverne’s eyes flew open in the light of early morning.  Shirley snored quietly and rhythmically from the other twin bed.  Disoriented, she squinted, and rolled to her side.  The illuminated dial of her alarm clock read five thirty five.  A sound from the living room jolted her back into full awareness of what had happened the night before and she hurriedly climbed out of her bed and tiptoed into her living room

The sight of Lenny’s oh-so-white buttocks first thing in the morning did little to improve her mood.

“What are you doing?” she said in a stage whisper and was amused to see him choke back a muffled shriek and whirl around.  She was less amused to see him covering himself with her beloved “Hello, Sailor!” pillow.

“You’ll wake Shirley,” he said, his blue eyes darting manically back towards the bedroom door.

“Let me worry about, Shirley, Mr. Peeping Jo-Jo, the dog faced Teamster!”

“Hey!  That ain’t nice!”

“I’m not in the mood to be nice after the night I just had.”

“Yeah, your date with Tony sounded pretty awful.  I can’t believe that you didn’t know that he’s married.”

“This ain’t about Tony!  It’s about you, and your—your—“

“Condition?”

“I guess that’s a nice way to put it.”

“I’d never hurt you, Laverne.  You know that, don’t ya?”

Still angry, she didn’t want to answer him.  She just nodded curtly as she sat down on the couch.  She winced as he sat his naked keister down at the opposite end.  Another thing to never tell Shirley about…

“Len…” The questions in her mind became too difficult to voice.  How?  When? Why?

He nodded at her, apparently not needing to hear her words aloud.  “It’s sort of a family thing,” he began, picking nervously at the decorative ruffle on the pillow covering his groin before he must have realized how it looked and stopped himself, purposefully gripping the arm of the sofa.  “Remember when I took you to that debutante ball?”

She stared at him blankly before she realized that it wasn’t a rhetorical question.  “Yeah, I remember; hoopskirt, stage, punchbowl…” She shot him an angry look as he guffawed.

“Sorry,” he said before continuing.  “Well, there’s kinda a reason that the Count of Kulakowski got hisself exiled.”  He looked at her blankly, until his eyes began to drift lower down her torso.

Laverne’s cheeks reddened as she was reminded of her bra-less state, the thinness of her nightgown, and the chilliness of the living room.  Scowling, she grabbed the afghan draped over the back of the sofa and wrapped herself into it.  “And?”

“Oh.”  He blinked and his eyes refocused upwards on her eyes.  “Well, I’m really not to sure of the details.  Grandpa Kosnowski told me about it when I was in Junior High—the first time, when you and I were there together—and his English wasn’t too good, and my Polish is a lot worse than that.  Something about villagers and torches…I dunno…  Anywho, it only started happening with me a couple years ago.  It usually starts earlier on and my Pop had thought I had lucked out and the curse had skipped me.”

Laverne blinked in surprise.  “Your father goes through this too?”

Lenny nodded.  “Yeah.  It used to be kinda rough when I was a kid.  My mom had left when I was five, and if he didn’t get dinner on the table by the time the moon was out, I was on my own.  Then again,” he said, as his usual insanely goofy grin played across his face, “that’s how I discovered the true versatility of Bosco…”

“Oh my…”

Lenny smiled and shook his head.  “Don’t worry about my Pop, Laverne.  Since he took that job in Wyoming, it’s a lot safer for him.  He don’t live near that many people, so when he changes, he don’t have to worry as much about getting caught.  He’s actually really happy out there.  He’s met a coyote that he really likes.  She don’t have a name or nothing, but he calls her Brenda and he really seems to enjoy dating her three days out of every month.  I’m pretty sure that he still sees other women during the rest of the month, but I don’t know about Brenda…  Are you okay?  You look kinda sick.”

“I’m fine, Lenny.  Why wouldn’t I be fine?  I hear news like this all the time.  By the way, did you know that Carmine is a zombie and Mr. Shotz is the Mummy from the Tomb?”

Lenny yelped and backed away from her on the couch.  “Don’t make up scary stuff like that, Laverne.  Do you wanna give me nightmares?”

“No.  I don’t wanna do that.”  Curiosity over took her.  “How do you manage this for all of these years?”

Lenny squirmed uncomfortably and she tried not to think about his rear grinding into her sofa.  “It ain’t all that hard.  I just tell Squiggy I gotta date, or something and then I head to the playground.  It’s safer than the park and I can usually avoid the dogcatcher.”

She blinked in surprise.  “Squig don’t know?”

“No, and he can’t.  I mean, I love the little guy and all, but he can’t keep a secret.    Laverne, you’re the only non-Kosnowski that knows about this.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  Please don’t tell nobody, not even Shirley.”

The gravity of his request hit her like a ton of bricks.  If he ever got caught…  The implications were too horrible to even imagine.  “I won’t, Len.  I promise.”

“Really?”  Hope warred with suspicion on his always-mobile features.

She touched his arm gently, feeling almost honored that he trusted her that much.  “Yeah.”

Lenny’s standard goofy grin sprawled across his face.  “You’re swell, Vernie.  “

“Yeah, I’m that too.  Len, if—just if--it’s too cold for the park one night, or—or if you just don’t want to be out doors, you can stay here.” 

“Really?”  His voice dropped an octave and his eyes lit up with a look she was all too familiar with.

“On the couch--more likely, on the floor,” she clarified.  “Not the bedroom.  Ever.”

Clumsily, he bit his palm and leered at her, his eyes briefly skimming over her torso.   “That’s a taller order now than it was yesterday.”

Involuntarily, she clutched the afghan around her more tightly.  “Len, Len…I mean it.  You can stay here if you need to.”  Embarrassed, she looked down at the afghan, as if the interwoven brown, cream, and yellow yarn had suddenly become the most fascinating sight in the world.  “I don’t want nothing bad to happen to you,” she mumbled as she finally raised her gaze to look him in the eye.

“Thanks, Vernie.”  He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips.

Laverne braced herself for one of his aggressive grabs, getting ready to kick him where it counted, but none came.  She was startled by the fluttering sensation in her stomach and the sense of loss as he pulled away from her after the brief, and downright harmless, kiss.

“Thank you.  I really mean it, Laverne.”

Laverne’s eyes reflectively looked down and she was amused to see the ‘Hello, Sailor’ pillow was further away from his body than it had been a moment before.

Lenny’s eyes followed her gaze and he looked downwards and his cheeks flamed bright pink.  “Well, uh,” he said awkwardly as he got up, seemingly conscious of his nudity once again and backed away from her until his backside slammed into the front door.  “I should get outta here.  Gotta get back before Squiggy wakes up.  Gotta get to work on time.  The world works on a Wednesday, y’know…” he babbled.

Laverne grinned, glad that he seemed relieved to break the mood as well.  “Yeah, our alarm’s gonna go off in a few minutes too.”  She grimaced.  “I’m really not looking forward to have to see Tony today.”

Lenny smirked.  “Don’t worry about him.  I think he’s gonna have a lot more on his mind than you tomorrow morning when he finds out a stray dog messed in his new convertible overnight.”

Despite herself, Laverne chuckled at her occasionally four-legged white knight.  “Thanks, Len. You’re a great guy, really.”

“Yeah,” he said as an expectant look crept onto his face.

“Len?”

“Yeah, Vernie?”  He took a step towards her.

She winced slightly as she glanced downward.  “I really don’t want my pillow back.”

FIN