Monster

“You’re a monster,” she said through a gentle coo, as if they were meant to be words of comfort. “You must always remember that.”

He gritted his teeth and bit back a hiss as she filed down his claws until his nerve-endings screamed. Tears welled in his eyes, and he blinked them away as fast as he could, his vision becoming a camera shutter, flickering over and over as he forced the dam to seal tight.

“Do you understand me?”

He shook his head. “Yes, ma’am,” he grunted out as sweat beaded on his forehead.

The pain spiked when she slapped the back of his hand, fire alight in her eyes. “Do not grunt at me, beast!”

He nodded again, almost choking on the words. “Yes, ma’am.”

The fire dimmed, and she continued. “Now hold still, I’m almost done.”

His heart pounded against his ribcage, and he curled his toes until they popped, forcing his breathing into a steady rhythm rather than the gasping huffs his lungs were demanding.

“There,” she said, tossing the file aside and grasping a new, smaller one. “Now, open wide.”

He gulped. “D-don’t you want to shave my fur first?”

Her mouth tightened. She set the file down in her lap and offered her hands. “Do you see these hands, beast?”

He nodded, staring at her hands. Pale and soft, with red paint delicately brushed on her nails.

“Describe them.”

“They’re pretty.”

“Pretty? That’s all you can muster?”

“Um…” he rubbed the back of his neck. His fur always seemed the worst there, matted from where the cage bars always pressed against the back of his head. He would have spent an eternity in that blasted cage if it had meant avoiding this day. “Delicate?”

Her face relaxed. “Exactly. Delicate. So believe me when I say that I take no pleasure in placing these hands in your filthy mouth. But I’m afraid this must be done. For the sake of your future victims, I must ensure they have the highest chance of survival possible.”

Don’t say it. “B–”

She froze midway to picking the file back up, one thin eyebrow raised.

He shut his mouth. But I would never…

She resumed her movement, motioning for him to open wide.

Just like with his nails, it didn’t hurt at first. In fact, it was almost pleasant. The coarse vibrations sending minor tremors to his brain dulled his mind enough that, for a brief few moments, he didn’t have to hear her words echoing behind every thought. But it only lasted so long before they came flooding.

I won’t hurt anyone. Yes, you will.

I can be good. No, you can’t.

I’m not a beast. You will always be a creature of violence.

But I can learn! You are incapable of changing.

The pain followed soon after, when she shaved away the enamel around his fangs and scraped against the raw nerves, sparking to life with agony.

He gripped his knees tight but felt nothing but the pads of his fingertips. Instead, he could only pull at the fur around his legs, desperate to distract himself with other areas of pain—a trick he had taught himself long ago. The pain was an army, and he needed to separate them, divert the soldiers to different areas to lessen the aching.

But even when his pull tufts of fur out of his thighs, it didn’t stop the anguish of the file scraping relentlessly against his fangs. He whined and spread his jaw wider to stop from snapping it closed. If he did, he would only prove her right—that he was a monster. A beast with bloodlust. He couldn’t disappoint her like that. So he let the dam finally burst as tears leaked from his eyes and pulled more and more tufts of fur out of his body, until finally, after what felt like hours, she removed her hands from his maw.

“It would’ve been faster had you not been squirming.”

He couldn’t decide whether to close or open his mouth. Closed, his teeth would scrape against each other, reigniting the pain. But keeping it open only invited the bitter basement air in, drifting past each fang and sending them all into a frenzy.

Instead, he settled for a half-open, half-closed state that he knew made him look stupid, especially as her face twisted into disgust.

More than anything, he yearned to speak to her, to tell her that he had been listening; that he had learned; that he would never, ever hurt another soul. He’d been trained for this. But the last time he’d spoken up, he’d been shaven bald and left in the cage for a day longer, shivering in the frosty, damp air.

So he kept his mouth half-shut and awaited the next step of his grooming.

But she sighed. “I’m exhausted. You’re never grateful of the effort I put into civilizing you. And look at the mess you’ve made on my floor!” She gestured to the patches of loose fur he’d ripped away. “Well, fine. If you want to groom yourself, I’ll allow you to do it this time. I will come back down here tomorrow, and I expect every strand of that fur to be off your body.”

He blinked, torn between the sadness of disappointing her and the excitement at a chance at his own independence. “Of course!” His tail wagged, but he grabbed it and tucked it under himself. It pinched and screamed at being sat upon, but she hated it when his tail wagged. ‘A beastly sight’, she’d said.

But his tail didn’t need to be hidden when she shoved the rusted scissors and dull razors in her bag and started upstairs.

“Wait,” he called, keeping his voice low and unimposing, just as he was trained to. “The blades.”

Her grin was half as wide as it was malicious. “I will not trust a beast with blades.” She took another step up, then paused. “And besides, you seem to enjoy pulling your own fur out. Go ahead, pull the rest of it out. Remember, every strand.” She chuckled and trudged up the stairs, shutting and locking the door behind her.

Darkness befell the dingy basement, but it wasn’t long before his night vision kicked in, dulled over the years of her placing mysterious drops in his eyes. But it made him less beastly, he reminded himself. Just that one step closer to being human. To being like her. So that he wouldn’t commit one of the many atrocities his kind had committed. The stories she’d told him of the acts kept him up at night, reminding him that he would be different. They were all beasts. He wouldn’t be. He would endure the pain if it meant being normal. Being loved. Being anything besides what he was.

A monster.