“Eden!” Now Asher looked normal again, like his own self.

  Had I imagined the whole thing? I didn't think I had. “Take me home, please.”

  Without waiting for his response, I hurried into the front seat, doing up my jeans as I went.

  Asher followed a second later, starting up the car without a word. I didn't look at him. I had no idea what to do or say.

  This drive was as quiet as the one there had been, but the feeling in the car was decidedly different. When we were almost at my place, he finally spoke. “I told you I had secrets, Eden.”

  I swivelled to look at him. “I just don't understand, Asher. Are you... are you even human?”

  It took him a moment to respond. He kept his eyes on the road, even though it was completely empty in front of him. The sporadically placed street lights cast an eerie glow over the scene around us. “No,” he said as he pulled into my building's parking lot. “I'm a werebear.”

  And there you have it, dear Diary. You're all up to speed. I, the nineteen-year-old virgin, had my first kiss and my first orgasm last night. I got fingered and touched a guy's dick for the first time.

  And all of these things... they were all with a werebear.

  Now do you see why I decided to start keeping a diary again?

  I got out of Asher's car. “See you in class tomorrow,” I said before I shut the door.

  I'll write in here again then!

  Two

  Dear Diary,

  I know I said in my last entry I was going to write again tomorrow. It's been a couple weeks instead. Gosh, I'm sorry. (I don't know why I'm apologizing to a stack of pieces of paper, but whatever!) Time has just flown, and there's been so much going on that I just couldn't find the perfect moment to sit down and write.

  Well, now seems like as good a time as any. I'm a little bit worked up at the moment, to be honest. It's been a weird, weird night. I almost want to jump to the end first, but I'll tell you what things happened in the order that they happened. It'll make more sense that way. If I just told you the most recent events, you'd think I was totally out of my mind.

  The day after my last entry, I went to class like usual. Well, not quite like usual. I put on my favorite T-shirt, the one that's more flattering to my overly curvy figure than most of my other clothes, and I dug some ancient lip gloss out of a drawer. I don't usually wear any make-up, but, well... Asher...

  Normally I get to class before him, but this time he was there first. I slid into the chair beside him without saying a word. What can you possibly say when you've just had your first kiss and your first orgasm with your best friend, then find out he's a werebear?

  A bear, of all things! I had never even heard of a werebear before. Aside from the species being completely impossible in the first place, it had to be my best friend and potential boyfriend that was one. Just my luck!

  Asher looked at me pleadingly, but I just pulled out my psychology binder and started to organize my notes. I didn't really want to talk to him - even though I wanted to talk to him so bad!

  The prof came out and began to lecture in his monotone voice. I was trying to take notes, like always, but it was even harder than usual. Normally it's boredom that prevents me from concentrating, but that day it was Asher's presence beside me. He wasn't taking his own notes, the scribbled lines that he would later flesh out with my own notes. He was just sitting there with his arms crossed, staring straight ahead.

  It was freaking me out. Of course I couldn't focus. “What are you doing?” I whispered to him.

  “I don't care about psychology today,” he whispered back. “I have to talk to you.”

  “You're doing a great job of showing it,” I hissed. Even in the large lecture hall that must have held a hundred students, the prof had noticed us talking. He was looking at us now, and he didn't look happy.

  Asher shuffled some papers around, still seeming completely disinterested in the subject matter. “Sorry, Eden. You just came in acting like you hated me. What was I supposed to say?”

  Maybe I hadn't seemed to want to talk to him. I hadn't meant to give him that impression. “If I hated you, I would've found somewhere else to sit,” I whispered.

  The prof was definitely looking at us now.

  “Listen, we're not going to get any work done today. Let's get out of here,” I said. He nodded, and we picked up our stuff and left. I have no idea what the poor prof thought!

  Once we were outside, we just started walking around aimlessly. Neither of us was talking, and I didn't want to be the one to start. It felt more awkward than the first day I even met him. That day, I felt like we had been friends all our lives. This day, I felt like we were complete strangers.

  He was still my friend Asher, but he was also the guy whose lips had been pressed to mine for what had felt like hours. The guy whose hand down my jeans had brought me to absolute ecstasy. He was the only person in the world to have ever watched me reach a climax.

  Worse, I had touched his dick. I had wrapped my hand around it and jerked it off the way men do to themselves. The way women do to men. But I'm not a woman, I'm just a girl, and I had never done that before.

  I had seen his cum shoot out of his dick and splatter all over the back seat of his car. I wasn't the first girl to have done that with him - I didn't know too much about his past experiences, but I knew that much. But he was the first guy I had ever done that with.

  I had no idea how to treat him, based just on all of that. Then to add to that, when he had reached his peak, he had transformed halfway into an animal, a beast like a bear. He had admitted to my face that he wasn't even human, but a werebear. Let me tell you, there isn't much you can say to make things normal again in a situation like that!

  Anyway, it was a bit cool outside what with it being almost mid-November, and after a while he suggested that we head to his car and go somewhere. I wasn't quite sure about it. Like I said, he felt like a stranger to me, and normally I don't get in cars with strangers. But he was my best friend, after all. Or maybe I was just so cold I had to accept.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, buckling up my seatbelt.

  He left his undone as he started up the engine. “I figured we'd go out to the woods.”

  “What for?”

  Pulling out onto the main street, he was silent. “I want to show you something.”

  I looked at his handsome, too-handsome, profile. What was he talking about? Why would he want to take me out into the woods and show me something? I fingered the necklace I always wore around my neck.

  As if he was reading my mind, he added, “You don't have to be scared. Look, Eden, this is a bit weird for me.”

  “For you?” I asked, laughing harder than I had in what felt like weeks. I felt like I had almost forgotten how to laugh until then.

  He didn't make a sound himself, but I did see a slight smile at the corner of his full lips. The day before, I had kissed those lips - but I tried to keep my mind off that. “Sorry. I'm sure this is a lot weirder for you than it is for me, actually. I already knew who I was - what I was. You've probably never met a werebear before.”

  Leaving all the romantic stuff aside, sure, that was a good summary of the situation. “No, I haven't,” I said in the same tone that I might have used to say I had never met a Canadian person before.

  “There aren't many of us,” he said, his eyes on the road. We were out of the city now; this area was all farmland.”I've been alone most of my life. From what I've heard, it's genetic for most of the others. One or both parents are werebears too.”

  I wished he would say something about our relationship and what had happened between us the night before, not about werebear genetics. But I let him talk.

  “For me, it seems to have been an aberration. Some kind of mutation. It's possible that one of my grandparents was a werebear - my parents could never tell me.”

  “They know?” I asked. I was still more interested in what he had to say about me and him, but I couldn't deny that this was also fascinating.

  “It was impossible to hide it from them,” he said, making a left turn onto another street. On the right side, the open fields were turning into a thickly treed area. I wondered if we were close to the woods now. “I couldn't have hidden turning into a bear once a month. Especially not when I was a kid, before I learned some self-control.”

  “You can't control it?”

  “Sometimes.” He glanced over to me, his brown eyes slightly sad now. “I can turn anytime I want to. The bear is there, beneath the surface. I just have to let him out.” I nodded, encouraging him. “Other times, I don't have a choice. Usually it only happens at the full moon. But sometimes, if I don't have control of myself, I turn without meaning to.”

  That must have been what happened the night before. “So anytime you - you...?” I couldn't force myself to say the words; I knew he would be able to figure out what I meant.

  “Not every time,” he said. He signalled right and turned onto a gravel path that I wouldn't even have noticed otherwise. We were heading into the woods now, and my heart beat faster. “If I'm doing it to myself, no. It's like, I know what to expect. It's only if I really lose control.”

  I bit my lip. The words I had said the night before came back to me: “I want you to lose control.” I had only been trying to be sexy - I had never dreamed that my words would turn Asher into a bear! “I'm sorry,” I mumbled.

  “You've got nothing to be sorry for,” he said. We were just reaching a clearing, and he brought the car to a halt. He looked at me and grinned. “That was one of the best orgasms of my life.”

  Before I could collect my thoughts enough to respond, he was out of the car. I followed hesitantly. “What are we doing here?” I asked, looking around at the tall trees and green foliage.

  “I want to show you,” he said quietly.

  I didn't have to ask to know what he meant. My hand moved automatically to my necklace again, fingering it anxiously. I knew his secret now; maybe he didn't want it to get out. He had the ability to turn into a bear, one of the most dangerous animals out there. Did he want to hurt me, even to kill me? I trusted him, but…

  He wasn't done talking. “I want to show you my bear self, so that you'll know you have nothing to be afraid of. I need you not to be afraid of me, Eden.”

  “Why?”

  “Because... The way I feel about you...” He paused. “There are so few people who know, and you...”

  I wanted to yell at him, to beg him to go on. This was what I wanted to hear, not his rambles about why and how he was a werebear. But again, I stayed quiet.

  “It's important for me that you know you can trust me,” he finally said. “Do you trust me?”

  Biting my lip again, I considered his question carefully. “Yeah,” I answered. “I do.”

  “Then watch.”

  I took a step back, leaves squishing under my feet, as he began to transform. This time I knew what to expect, and I could see the details I hadn't seen the night before.

  His gray fur grew quickly, coming out of every part of his body at once and growing longer until it was a few inches thick.

  His features shifted, lengthening, shortening, and moving around until his face was more bear than human. A snout came out of nowhere, replacing his nose, and his human ears transformed into short, round ones.

  Fingers changing into claws, his body dropped to the ground and all of a sudden he was on all fours. He was easily the biggest bear I had ever seen, as tall as me and probably weighing twice as much!

  Without even thinking, I jumped back again. He wasn't Asher anymore, not the guy I adored. The only human part left to him was the intelligent brown eyes. Everything else was gone. The animal before me couldn't be Asher. It was a hunter, a carnivore with a mouth full of sharp teeth.

  The bear walked towards me, its pace slow as if it was trying to reassure me. It was Asher, I tried to tell myself. He probably was trying to reassure me.

  Doing my best to stay calm, I didn't move back again despite my pounding heart. The bear came up to me and stood before me, panting.

  It was beautiful, I had to admit. Its fur was sleek and lush. Reminding myself again that it wasn't really a bear, but Asher, I reached out and touched its soft fur.

  The bear rubbed its head against my hand, clearly enjoying my affection. It was - it was cute!

  I held my hand out to it and let the bear lick it with its pink tongue. The warmth and wetness sent a thrill through my body. The bear lapped gently at my hand, then took one finger between its sharp teeth. “Asher!” I exclaimed. But all the bear did was suck the finger into its mouth, then let it go again.

  That wasn't so bad. In fact, I had kind of liked it.

  The bear nuzzled at my hand again, then wriggled its wet snout into my crotch. I shrieked, laughing. It made me think again about what Asher had done to me the night before.

  Then the bear's legs were straightening and it was on two feet, quickly turning into Asher's normal form. “Too much?” he asked, grinning. He still wore the clothes he had had on before; I almost wished they had been ripped to shreds in his transformation so I could get a good look at his body.

  “No,” I giggled.

  He touched my shoulder, hesitating as if he was nervous.

  “Asher,” I said, “I don't care if you're a werebear or not. I like you.”

  “I like you too,” he said.

  With a bravery I didn't know I had, I pulled him closer to me and gave him a kiss. It was just like the kisses we had shared the night before - maybe even better, since we were getting used to each other now. He wasn't keeping any secrets from me anymore, and I didn't have to be scared of him now.

  “Like” might not even cover the full extent of my feelings for me. I wasn’t sure, but I was starting to think it might even be more than that.

  We got into the car again and he started to drive. “So you're always there, even when you're a bear?” I asked.

  “Pretty much,” he said. “And I'm always a bear, even when I'm me.”

  He was smiling, but I frowned. “What do you mean, pretty much?”

  He kept his eyes fixedly on the gravel road ahead. “I've heard that if I ever turn because of a danger - to myself or to someone else - I could lose control of the human part of me. But that's never actually happened.”

  I didn't like the sound of that. “You mean you did put me in danger just now? You wanted me to trust you, and you didn't tell me there was a chance that you could hurt me?”

  “There's no chance,” he said. There was a tension behind his words that I wasn't too crazy about. “It's never happened. And just now, I turned by choice. There was no danger for me, so there was none for you either.”

  I didn't want to push him when it was clear that this was a sensitive topic. But it was sensitive for a reason. “It's possible that it could be dangerous one day.”

  “It's possible. But a lot of things are possible.” He still wasn't looking at me. “You're talking to a werebear, Eden. There is danger associated with being around me. But there's danger every time you leave your house - you could get hit by a car crossing the street. You still do it, though.”

  “I guess so.”

  Finally he glanced at me, then back to the road. “I like you a lot, Eden. I hope you can live with this. For me, well, I don't have a choice. But I already know I don't want to lose you. I don't know what I would do if I did.”

  I considered it carefully. I didn't like this whole thing at all, but how likely was it that he would ever be in danger? If he was, it would probably be good for him to be able to defend himself. “I guess I can live with it.”

  He turned back onto the main road, and a few minutes later we were in the city again. Back in the real world, where hot guys don't turn into bears at a moment's notice - and where both of us had to catch up on our psychology homework.

  Over the next few weeks, we saw each other almost every day either in or out of class. We held hands constantly, and even though people stared at the handsome jock with the fat girl, I was learning to ignore them. Asher was worth every weird look and rude comment they could offer.

  We went on dates, and we had more sensual moments like the one we had shared that night in the backseat of his car. Never again did he lose control of himself and start to turn into a bear. I was happy for my safety, although I almost hoped to one day do it again - it would mean I had given him a really good orgasm.

  We began to visit each other's places regularly. Since we both had roommates, though, it was impossible to find any time alone there. We could kiss, even make out, behind closed doors. But our more intimate moments would only happen in the back of his car, where we could park somewhere and have a little privacy.

 

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