Loup Garou Family in Kanata

Night falls over the environs of Kanata, Ontario, and I made sure I am firmly indoors before the darkness comes. It's very important to be inside when it gets dark, not only for the safety of oneself but for that of others. Mother was always very specific about that, and she made sure that I understood the Rules. The Rules are everything in this life and probably the next, no getting around that.

"Jeremiah, you've got the Curse, both from your father's people down in the Caribbean and my own Ojibwe tribe, and I am so sorry," Mother told me, right before I began my freshman year at Carleton University. The previous spring I graduated top of my class at Ellsworth Kingsley Academy, a private school located in Kanata which takes only the cream of the crop. Mom teaches Mathematics there. How I got in is a story for another time, ladies and gentlemen. This right here is more important...

"Yes Mom," I replied, as though I understood. I was quite naïve in those days, a burly, dark-skinned young man with an Afro, the unlikely result of an Afro-Caribbean restaurateur and a proud Ojibwe First Nations woman getting together. As it turns out, underneath it all, my Haitian father and my First Nations mother had a lot more in common than most people realized. For starters, they were both born under a bad sign, the Sign of the Wolf.

"Son, what we are is a gift, not a curse," my father, Eric Marseille, hotly countered, and he shot my mother a reproachful look. For a moment, my parents stared each other down while I watched silently. Such a contrast between them. My father is six-foot-four, chubby, with charcoal skin, a smooth shaved head, and lively brown eyes. NBA legend Kevin Garnett always reminded me of my old man.

My mother is a wee woman at five-foot-seven, and she's thin and wiry, with dark bronze skin, sharp features, and long dark hair. Those dark eyes of hers locked onto my father's, and after a brief moment, he shook his head and looked away. That's how things always worked in our household. Dad and I learned a long time ago that Mom always gets her way.

The three of us sat at the dinner table in our townhouse located in the Hazel-Dean area of Kanata, just a normal family having supper. On that night, supper consisted of buttered bread, orange juice, and of course, lots and lots of meat. We're big meat eaters in the Marseille family. I've been eating meat my whole life. The only difference between myself and you is the fact that I like my meat kind of...raw.

"Eric, if you're teaching our son to give in to his worst half, you're doing him a great disservice," protested my mother. Mom is no stranger to protests. She's been protesting her whole life. She was taken from her family and brought to the Residential Schools, where some well-meaning white folks made her forget what it means to be First Nations and forced her to embrace the ways of the White man. They even gave her a new name, Annabelle St-Preux.

To this day, Mom bristles when people bring up the history of the Residential Schools, and what the Canadian government did to thousands upon thousands of First Nations people in the name of progress and integration. When Prime Ministers Harper and Trudeau apologized on national television for those terrible things, Mom scoffed and told me she hoped they burned in hell. It's a sore subject in our household, to say the least...

There's a lot of things that we the Marseille clan don't discuss, and my worst half, a s Mom puts it, is one of those things. In private talks, when Mom isn't around, my father told me of his idyllic youth in the Quartier Morin region of northern Haiti, where he was born and raised. Apparently, there are many of our kind there, and they live peacefully among the people of Haiti, who accept the Loup Garou as agents of mother nature, rather than something to be feared.

I know the province of Ontario like the back of my hand, and although family have trips have taken me to places like Winnipeg, Manitoba, and even Boston, Massachusetts, I've never been to the island of Haiti. I long to visit it, though my father told me he left because of a family feud which he won't discuss. My mother dislikes the idea of my going there because the island is full of our kind, and therefore off-limits...

"Don't I get a say in this?" I asked, timidly raising my hand, and Mom and Dad looked at me as though I had two heads. I may not be the most normal guy in the cosmos but at eighteen years old, I was sick and tired of my parents always acting as though I had no say in my life. Given what we are, I knew that deviating from the Rules or calling attention to myself was to invite disaster. Still, enough was enough...

"Jeremiah, son, of course you do, it is your life," Dad replied, and Mom looked at me, with a sad little smile that made my heart wince. She nodded in agreement with Dad, but otherwise remained silent. Believe it or not, Mom has always been a woman of few words. Dad and I kind of have a way of understanding her, and of relating to one another. It's not just because we're a family. It's because of what we are...

"Mom, Dad, I want to see the world, I was thinking of taking September to December off and start school at Carleton University in January instead," I replied, and I sighed, and waited. It didn't take my parents long to blow up. Mom's eyes turned bright yellow for a moment, something which happens when she's really angry or scared. It was over in an instant, and her eyes resumed their normal dark brown color. Phew.

"Jeremiah Taylor Marseille, your father and I worked our butts off to pay for your school, and this is how you repay us?" Mom said, her voice quiet and full of wrath. I looked at my mother and father, and braced myself for the storm. For the next hour, Mom railed against my life choices, and my foolishness and youthful arrogance. I argued with her while Dad wisely kept his mouth shut. In the end, I would not budge, and neither would Mom...

"I'm going," I said, and I rose from the family table and walked away from Mom and Dad without another word. I locked myself in my room, my nice, spacious bedroom, filled with posters of everyone from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, whom I learned about during a trip to Boston a few years back. I admire liberal political figures from around the world the way other young guys and gals admire professional athletes and Hollywood celebrities. Don't ask.

Lying in bed, I thought of all the twists and turns my life has taken recently. After my days at Ellsworth Kingsley ended, I kept in touch with this young woman named Megan Westward, whom I've always had a crush on. Tall and willowy, with reddish hair and lively brown eyes, porcelain skin and the most generous mouth, Megan is the gal who has haunted my dreams ever since, well, forever.

"You should come to the University of Ottawa with me," Megan said to me, a few months ago. We were hanging out inside the Rideau Shopping Center, the busiest place in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. Unlike my friends, I seldom come to the city, finding the noise overwhelming. Also, the smell of so many humans packed in one place awakens parts of me I prefer not to believe even exist, thank you very much.

I tell myself that I'm a human being, but I know I'm not. The average human being cannot smell things from a distance of three miles, or hear the sound of a heartbeat from a hundred meters. The average human being does not eat raw meat because their body cannot process it. Oh, and the average human being doesn't feel an unnatural, maddening and almost irresistible hunger when surrounded by the smell of human sweat or human blood...

"Sorry, cutie, I prefer Carleton University," I replied, and Megan playfully slapped my arm, calling me a lump head. After walking around the mall for some time, venturing into places like Nordstrom and Sephora, we checked out Nyx and then somehow ended up inside the busy food court. Megan and I sat down and she had some Chinese food while I sipped on a Pepsi.

"Jerry, why aren't you eating?" Megan asks, and I make up something about being on a diet. I'm six-foot-two by two hundred and fifty pounds. I'm only eighteen years old and I'm built like an NFL offensive lineman. When I walk around Kanata, people gawk at me because my skin is dark, and I have thick hair styled into an Afro, just like the one my father had when he was my age.

"Got to watch my figure," I reply, and Megan scoffs, and shovels some orange chicken and shrimp fried rice into her succulent mouth. I hate eating in public. I cannot stand the smell of cooked meat. Imagine if someone decided to boil all the taste and smell out of your food, would you still want it? My body can only process raw meat, though I can tolerate mundane beverages like coffee, hot chocolate, tea and of course, pop drinks. I really, really like pop, and I don't know why.

"Jerry, I've known you my whole life and I never see you eat," Megan teases, holding a forkful of orange chicken in front of my mouth. The revoltingly flavorless piece of meat, prepared by human hands is absolutely disgusting. I'd sooner eat dog poop than feast on that. Um, I also love Megan. My heart soars when she comes near. I want her. I love her. I need her.

"How about now?" I ask as I grab the fork and swallow the piece of orange chicken without tasting it. My insides churn. I feel the way I imagine a person who's just eaten a piece of cardboard must feel. I'm definitely going to feel this when I go to the bathroom in a little while. Megan smiles and then leans closer, pressing her lips against mine. She kisses me and I kiss her back. It's all worth it. I love this woman. Love makes you do crazy things.

"Jerry, you don't have to eat meat to impress me, I like you the way you are, if you're a frigging vegan, be man enough to admit it," Megan says sweetly, and she rubs her hand against my inner thigh under the table. I manage to stay calm even as I feel my sex gain weight in my pants. Megan's touch arouses me like nothing else ever has, and this is dangerous for us both...

"Alright, you got it," I reply absentmindedly, and I look at Megan, even I feel myself...change. When you are what I am, you must be careful. People think that my kind are human beings turned into feral beasts by the light of the moon. We're not. We are a normal species of beings that happen to look human but aren't. The moon doesn't transform us. It simply allows us to show our true selves, when we want to, of course.

"I want you so bad," Megan whispers, and my sharper-than-human nose senses that her body is flush with desire. Her pulse quickens, and I can even smell the wetness accumulating between her legs. My manhood definitely hardens and lengthens. I want her bad. We pack up our food and then walk around the mall, looking for a safe place to do it. We find an unlocked door leading to an area that's definitely employees only. We go in, find a janitor's room, and it's blissfully empty...

"I want you too, my love," I say to Megan, and she presses her slender yet curvy body against me, hot with desire. I kiss her passionately and embrace her, and her hands unzip my pants. I caress her breasts, and grope her rather nice, round bum. I sigh as she grasps my manhood and strokes it. Down come her booty shorts, and she hikes up her tank top, revealing small, round, milky white breasts...

"Fuck me," Megan demands, and I push her against the wall, and enter her with a swift thrust. Megan's hot, tight vagina grips my manhood like a vise. I thrust into her, and she wraps herself around me, making soft moaning sounds as I fuck her. Megan wasn't my first but she was definitely special to me. The gal I'd always wanted, and at last she was mine...

We got so into each other that we didn't notice the Rideau Shopping Center kitchen staff and the security guard who came with them until they were right on us, glaring at us after swinging the door open. I stared at them like a dude with his hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar while Megan simply burst out laughing. Long story short? We're banned from the Rideau Shopping Center for the next year, on penalty of arrest. How cool is that?

Megan and I were escorted from the Rideau Shopping Center by the infamous mall security team, and then we hopped on a bus back to Kanata, laughing all the way. That was months ago, and I'd like to think I've changed since then. I want to be with Megan but I am what I am, and she's a human being. Humans have proven abundantly that they can't accept those who are different from their so-called norm.

This is the same human race where people persecute others based on differences in skin color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. This is the same human race where gay men and lesbians feel perfectly okay discriminating against bisexual men and bisexual women. Oh, and those same gays, lesbians and bisexuals who claim to be oppressed turn around and treat transgender people like garbage. The same human race where a 'pure blood' First Nations person can feel superior to a half-blood or Metis person. Or vice versa. Imagine that...

I'm talking about the same human race where people following different ideologies within the same religion feel justified in murdering one another. The same human race where men of a certain faith deny women of their faith the right to enjoy the same freedoms they enjoy as far as style of dress, and legal rights. Humans hate their own for a multitude of reasons. How are they supposed to accept what I am?

I love Megan, but I must leave her behind. Not because I don't love her but because I truly love her. In a few years, Megan will find a wonderful guy or gal to marry, and she'll have an outstanding career after university and forget all about me. That's our fate, those of my blood. We are blessed with extraordinary abilities and extreme longevity, but we must always hide in plain sight...

The other day I went to a Canadian government office and furnished them with documents in preparation for obtaining a passport. With my Canadian passport in hand, I will visit the Embassy of Haiti, located in downtown Ottawa, not far from the Rideau Shopping Center. I will travel to that distant, beautiful and troubled nation, where my father's kind await.

I will be among my fellow Loup Garou, embrace who and what I am, and know what it means to be one of us. I will stop running from what I am. Perhaps I shall find a bride among my people, and continue my bloodline. It will be a good life. Good enough. When the time is right, I will bring my bride back to the City of Ottawa, Capital of Canada, to meet my parents. As humanity continues to hurtle toward glory or doom, my kind will do what we have always done. We will survive.