Humble Beginnings

by Pat Cunningham

My mind’s a blank this week, so I’m resorting to flash fiction to fill up the space. This was intended for a SF/fantasy anthology about, ahem, “professional” ladies and was inspired by a show about brothels I saw on the History Channel. Fortunately a better idea hit, but here’s the beginning of this one. I have no idea where it’s going. Is it horror? Is it a romance? Is it a horrible romance? Suggestions are always welcome.
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“My wife’s a real dog,” the drunk on top of the brothel’s bar told his audience of disinterested hookers. “She’s a pointer-setter. You pointer at the bedroom and setter on her ass. But Siriusly, folks – "
Rob shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Werewolf humor.” Sanders took a sip of his rum and Coke. “Or what passes for humor with them. What do you want? They’re not human.”
Rob glanced nervously at the bored women lounging by the bar. They looked human enough. No hairier than the average prostitute, no tails, and they didn’t growl when they talked to you. Then you started noticing the little details. The hum of energy that seemed to leak off them in spite of their leisurely poses. The slitted yellow eyes that raked the room like a predator’s checking for meat. The lack of makeup and jewelry. It went with the loose, billowy clothing. All the better to change shape, m’dear. If one believed the rumors, of course.
He tried to make a joke of it. “C’mon. They’re not really werewolves, are they?”
“They’re supposed to be. Well, except for Letterman there up on the bar. I think he’s a coyote.”
Rob gulped his drink without tasting it. When Sanders suggested they try out a shifter bar, he’d gone along on the theory his buddy was pulling his leg. Sure, the Lupanara had a rep. What good whorehouse didn’t? But now that he was actually inside self-preservation and not his dick had chosen to rear its head. Rob liked an exotic fuck as much as the next dude, but the next dude was generally human. Watching these women with their athletic bodies and quick animal movements, his second thoughts progressed to thirds and fourths.
Lupanara. House of the She-Wolves.
“We shouldn’t be here,” he muttered.
“You kidding?” Sanders polished off his drink. “Wolf sex, buddy. Ain’t nothing like it. If you can’t run with the big dogs, get your puppy ass back to the car.”
“Hey,” one of the girls yelled at the comedian. “You gonna buy something or you just gonna yap all night?”
“Might as well buy.” The alleged coyote shrugged. “I’m wasting my best material on you hounds. No sense of humor, that’s what’s wrong with you.” He did an eeny, meeny, miney and moe’d the girl who’d jeered him. She shrugged in turn and sashayed away from the bar. The pair left the lounge with the girl in the lead and the coyote at her back, bent slightly forward.
“Is he sniffing her ass?” Rob said.