Hungry Like the Wolf

Chapter 1

Spicy Fairytales are exactly what the name of the series would suggest. A series of revisionist fairytales, in which the women are a little older, a little wiser, a little more sexually hungry, and a little more deadly. Why not start this new little series with a new little story about Little Red Ridinghood, who is now a grown woman, her skin is tight with a subtle caramel tan, firm muscles and large breasts that can scarcely hide behind that red riding hood of hers, that is, at least, when she wore it.

Her picnic basket with a baguette, grapes, bottle of red, cheese and a folded checkered blanket was resting on a tree stump. Next to it on the ground was her red riding hood, white blouse, red skirt and wolf’s hide panties all folded prim and proper. On the other side of the tree stump was Little Red Ridinghood, who was not so little anymore.

She gave up her little name years ago, after the incident with the Big Bad Wolf, changing it to Red Ryder to try and distance herself from that story. The village knew all about her past, or at least they thought they did, the real story was a little different, and they also all knew that Red Ryder, the woman, liked men. Men in the plural form. No, she was not a slut, she was not a whore, she was a woman with desires, appetites like a man, a taste for men, she was simply hungry like the wolf. At first the villagers tried to shame her, especially the women folk, which made little sense to her or anyone else, but she showed no shame, and the men she had been with certainly seemed to not care very much either in medias res.

Red Ryder was on the grass under a laughing tree and behind a bush a dozen yards from the dirt road that ran through the woods. Knees in the soil, grass between her fingers, expectant. She had found herself in any number of positions before, and since sex was the most primal and animalistic act a man and a woman can do to each other, taking the bestial stance was ultimately her preference. She was almost dripping with anticipation waiting for the apothecary’s apprentice to remove his tunic and britches when the sound of a horse trotting came up the wooded path.

“Shit,” said the apothecary’s apprentice. It took him several minutes of fussing with the rope he used as a belt to get britches off and now he had to get them back on before anything interesting could happen. “Maybe he won’t notice.”

“Duran,” said the approaching rider. “I know you’re out here, come on, show yourself.”
“Shit,” said Duran, the apothecary’s apprentice, again.

Red shared his own sentiments in her mind while she got off all fours and dressed. First sliding on her wolfs hide panties, then throwing her riding hood over her head. She was slowly pulling up her skirt when the rider approached. He averted his eyes and she rolled her own as she slid the skirt up to her waist, he had seen more of her tight skin and she of his before, why so prudish now?

“Red,” said Jack, in a form of greeting while keeping his eyes averted.

“Jake,” she said in response.

“Where is Duran?”

“I’m here,” said Duran, still fucking with the rope belt around his waist. “It’s not what you think, I was just, administering a treatment.”

“Sure you were,” said Jack.

“Okay, maybe it was what you think, or it would have been,” said Duran, trailing off. “Why are you here anyway?”

“They’ve sent me from the village to fetch you, something has happened to the tanner’s daughter.”

“What happened?” asked Duran, returning to a more professional attitude.

“As of now we don’t know,” said Jack. “But there’s reason to believe that she was hurt.”

“Okay,” said Duran, in a way to suggest that Jack was restating something fairly obvious.

“No, Duran. I mean hurt, by someone, by a man. You understand?”

Duran swore again.

“I better get to the village. Red you better head home, I don’t want you to see something like that.”

“Actually,” said Jack. “It may be good for Red to come along. The girl will not open up to the other men, but perhaps to a woman.”

“I understand,” said Duran. “Why didn’t you go to the apothecary?”

“He’s with the other men of the village, brewing a potion to help pacify the tanner. The rest of the villagers are currently holding him down,” said Jack. “I’ve never seen rage like that before.”

Chapter 2

In the village they found several men standing outside the tanner’s house, as though they were soldiers. They weren’t soldiers, not really even warriors, they were simple peaceful villagers, and this new incident with the tanner’s daughter was the first time anything violent had happened since Red Ryder’s involvement with the wolf many years ago.

There were a few people inside the house, the tanner was laying on the floor, groggy and half-conscious, while the apothecary was treating him, he must have whipped up a strong brew to calm him down that much, a bit too strong perhaps. The little girl, on the other hand, was at the opposite corner of the room, wrapped in a blanket, shivering, and pretending to be invisible. She was a small girl, but she was not that young, a teenager, who, if the rumors were to be believed, was starting to find her own way of having fun from time to time. She was not, however, having fun at that moment.

“Why aren’t you aiding her?” asked Red.

“She won’t let me,” said the apothecary. “Maybe you can try.”

Red walked over to the little girl. When the girl saw that it was a woman approaching her, she relaxed a bit and stopped shivering quite as much. Some clouds moved away from the sun and a ray of light pierced the window, revealing that the little girl had, what looked like, a beard of blood. Red walked away, grabbed a cloth, soaked it in clean water and went back to the little girl to clean her up.
“Who did this to you?” Red asked in a gentle voice as she softly washed the girl’s chin. The girl didn’t say anything. Red wiped away the blood, and the girl to her surprise didn’t wince in the slightest. “It’s okay,” said Red. “You can tell me anything, you won’t get in trouble.” The girl continued not to speak. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” said Red in her most soothing voice yet. “But if you don’t tell me someone else might get hurt. You don’t want anyone else to get hurt do you? She didn’t say anything. “Please talk to me, who cut you?”

“It’s not my blood,” said the little girl in a chocked whisper.

“What?” asked Red. She had heard the girl fine, even with her whispered voice, but she didn’t quite believe what she heard.

“It’s not my blood,” said the little girl again. “He didn’t hurt me. He would have if I was there any longer.”

“Who was it? Where were you? What happened?” Red was not particularly good with children and not particularly patient either. And her patients with the quiet girl was fraying.

“I was at grand.” She shook her head and stopped talking as her eye’s started to well up. Red knew what the end of that sentence was, hadn’t she known all along?

“Your grandmother’s house?” Red asked.

The girl nodded her head yes.

“Talk to me,” said Red.

“I can’t,” said the little girl. “Not in front of them.” her eye’s flickered over to the other side of the room.

“You mean the men?” asked Red.

The little girl nodded her head again.

“Boys,” said Red. “Can you leave us for a few minutes… and go check on her grandmother too while you’re at it.”

The men agreed and left.

“There,” said Red. “That’s better, nice and quiet. Now why don’t you tell me what happened.”
Red already knew what she was about to hear, but she wanted to hear it from the little girl to confirm her suspicions.

“Father sent me to grandmas’ house,” she said. “When I got there, there was, there was someone in her bed. I thought it was her at first, she lived by herself, and she hadn’t been feeling well. That’s why I went over there, to bring her something to eat.”

“Who was in your grandmother’s bed?” asked Red.

“I don’t know who it was,” said the girl. She had a strangely raspy voice for being so young, it made her a good story tell her. “He had big eyes, big hands, big teeth.”

“All the better to eat you with,” said Red, more to herself.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” said Red. “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing,” said the little girl. “I think he would have, but he didn’t get to. He jumped out of the bed and grabbed me. I was so scared.”

“It’s okay,” said Red, rubbing the little girl’s arm. “What happened? How did you get away.”

“I bit him,” she said.

“Bit him?”

“Yes, I sunk my teeth into his neck like a wolf. He kept holding me, but I didn’t let go, and eventually he started to bleed. The blood ran down my face and in my throat. I never tasted blood before. He let me go. I don’t know if he died or not. I think I may have killed him. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” said Red.

“Promise?”

“Yes,” said Red. “I promise I will not tell anyone you killed him if you did. And if you didn’t, I promise you I will kill him.”

“What did he want with me?” she asked.

“You’ll find out when you’re older,” said Red, thought the little girl may have known already. She held the girl against her large bosom, letting the girl cry a little more, and then let her rest. When Red left the tanner’s house, Jack and Duran had returned from the grandmother’s house.

“The grandmother’s dead,” said Duran. “We found her under the bed, her nightcap and glasses were on the bed and there was blood all over the place, but the old woman had been choked, no cuts on her body.”

“Were there any other bodies?” asked Red.

“No,” said Jack. “But whoever was there lost a lot of blood, he can’t be around for too much longer. And good riddance.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Red. “Listen, Jack, you stay here with the girl, make sure she is not disturbed. Keep a few men around the house to keep her protected. Duran, you come with me, we’re going back to my cottage.”

“Oh?” said Duran, his eyebrows raising.

“Not for that,” said Red. “Not today at least, not until we’re done.”

“Okay,” he said, his voice a half octave lower in disappointment. “Wait, what are we doing?”

“You’ll see,” said Red. “I have some things I need to tell you.

Chapter 3

Back at Red’s cottage, she told him her story, her whole story. “You know about me right Duran?”

“You mean that you’ve been with a lot of guys, that’s alright.”

“No, not that,” said Red. “I mean the other thing?”

“What? About the wolf? Of course, everyone in the village knows that story.”

“Sure they do,” said Red. “Tell me what you know.”

“I think, as the story goes, you took a basket to your grandmother’s house one day, and when you got there you found that she was in her bed, but looked strange. You questioned her about her claws, her eyes, her teeth, and she jumped out of the bed, and it had been a big bad wolf, who ate your grandmother and was about to eat you, but you ran out to the woodcutter who shot the wolf and saved you. How’s that?”

“That’s about right, I’ve heard it told better before.”

“Give me a break, I’m not the village storyteller.”

“Truly,” said Red, continuing to look around her cottage. She went over to her bed, bent over, and Duran found a small burst of energy hit below his rope. But then she crawled onto the floor and underneath the bed, which dulled the sensation. “That’s the story we passed along, but it’s not the actual story. We wouldn’t want the children telling the story of what actually happened, not here in our peaceful little village.

“Okay. So what happened?”

“Do you know any wolves that can talk?”

“No, I suppose not, but.”

“Well I do,” said Red, interrupting him. “He wasn’t a wolf, he was a man, a member of the Nightwolves, a group of highwaymen. They are known for wearing wolf head and hide hoods. He didn’t eat my grandmother, he choked her. And I’m sure you can imagine what he wanted to do to me. Most importantly though, it was the kindly old woodcutter that shot him, but he didn’t kill the Big Bad Wolf. The bastard got away, and stayed away from our village, until today.”

She crawled out from under the bed with an old polished wooden box and blew the dust off it.

“What’cha got there Red?”

“Do you know what happened to my grandfather?” asked Red. “Why he wasn’t around to protect my grandmother or me from the Big Bad Wolf?”

“I assume he died.”

“Yes, before I was born,” said Red. “He died in a duel.” she flipped a latch on the old wooden box and opened it. Inside were two very clean and very well kept flintlock dueling pistols. Red started to clean and load the pistols. “We’re going to kill those bastards.”

“Okay,” said Duran. “One for me and one for you?”

“Two for me,” said Red. “I can fire one in each hand. Find an ax or something for yourself, and keep me covered.”

“Sure,” said Duran.

Red continued methodically cleaning and loading the guns with her hands, but with her eyes she looked out the window of her house, talking to herself.

“You smell that sound Nightwolves? I’m on the hunt, I’m after you?”

Duran thought for a moment to question the statement but then thought better of it.

Chapter 4

That night Red Ryder found herself back on the road, just like she had so many years before, being stalked in the forest where it was too close to hide. She was wearing her red riding hood and carrying a basket of goodies, but this basket contained an extra surprise, two of them in fact. She walked in a way that wasn’t so much feminine as it was girly, acting about ten years younger than she actually was, skipping, singing a little song to herself, and getting the lyrics wrong.

“In touch with the crowd, I’m lost in a sound, I say a-hoy I’m after you. In centuries time, my juice is like wine, and I’m hungry like the wolf.”

On cue, two men stepped onto the road and were upon her by the moonlight side. Big men, mighty men, twice her size and three times her mass, rippled with muscles and coarse hair and wearing the telltale wolf hide cloaks.

“Where are you off to little girl,” said one of the men.

“I’m off to see my grandmother,” said Red, adopting a falsetto voice atop her already feminine timbre. “I have three bottles of wine for her, but I think I can share one with you two, I’ve got time.”

Red pulled one of the bottles out of her basket and pulled the cork out of the bottle without any corkscrew or even teeth. The two Nightwolves had seen a lot from there time on the road, but they never saw something like that before. Their eyes opened wide, and a moment later they each took a step toward her. Red put her arm around one of the men, and with her free hand poured a measure of the wine into the other man’s mouth, standing on her toes to do so. In the meantime, Duran waited out of sight, behind a tree, ax at the ready for a surprise attack. The man Red had her arm around, scooped her up in his own arms and Red poured some more of the red into his mouth, and then a little more until he choked a bit.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know how much you wanted.”

“It’s okay little girl,” he said.

“I want some more,” said the other man. Red poured him some more. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Do you have anything else?” he asked. “Desert maybe?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What did you have in mind?”

The Nightwolf not holding her put his hand on her stomach and began to slide it down, beneath her skirt. She opened her legs, dissipating any of the caution the man might have had as his fingers probed a little deeper. But before he could find anything interesting, she smashed the bottle of wine over his head and a shower of glass shards and red wine ran dow his face.

Before the Nightwolf holding her could react she gouged one of his eyes with the broken bottle. He dropped her and she flipped through the air, landing on her feet like a cat. An instant later she sprang, full force into the man who had not been holding her, burying the broken bottle deep into his stomach. She pulled it out with a hooking motion, dragging his entrails out with it. She walked calmly toward to Nightwolf that had held her, still clutching his face with two bleeding fists, and opened his throat with the broken bottle. He gurgled for a moment and then was dead. The other Nightwolf was trying to stuff his entrails back into his open stomach. Red threw the bottle at him and hit him with the point, right in his heart.

Her riding hood showed no sign of the struggle.

“You didn’t need me at all,” said Duran.

“I may, you never know,” said Red. “We’re getting near the rest of them.”

Chapter 5

Red found a little trail leading off the main road that looked as though it led to nothing, it was insignificant, most people would have easily ignored the spur, but Red was not most people.
“This way,” she said to Duran.

Duran didn’t even see the trail they were following, but he had known her long enough not to question her. Soon they could smell smoke from a campfire drifting through the woods, and further in they could hear hushed voices. The trail looked as though it had ended, but just beyond the end, there was a clearing. Red and Duran snuck just beyond the edge of the clearing and saw five men, sitting around a campfire, roasting something on a spit. Around them were several wagons filled with myriad items, all stolen from unsuspecting travelers on the highway. It was a profitable business they had, but one that involved risk and quite a bit of danger. Regardless, none of them had suspected Red being part of that danger.

They snuck closer the campfire. The men were too enthralled by the flames and the fat dripping off the meat to pay the two new arrivals any attention. Red wrapped her hand around one man’s head and spun it, snapping his neck with a popping sound that blended in with the crackling of the meat. Duran, unfortunately, wasn’t so subtle. He tried to slit another man’s throat with the blade of his ax but bungled the attempt. The man was cut but it was only superficial, a shaving cut at best, not that that particular man had ever shaved before.

He stood up, saw Duran and kicked him hard in the chest throwing him several feet backward where he didn’t land on his feet. Red jumped over the fire and smashed her laden picnic basket into the back of the man’s head bringing him down.

The other two men were on top of her in an instant. She bit into one of their arm’s with her own (not so big) claws, finding a nerve, and causing the man to let go out of reflex. Before he overcame this reflex, she had her hand back in the basket, grabbed the barrel of her pistol and swung, hitting the man in the face and knocking lose a couple of the big teeth he had. He stumbled back spitting out blood and bone. She felt the other man who was still holding her reaching one of his big hairy hand underneath her riding hood. She knew was he was looking for.

The butt of the revolver was capped in silver and decorated with a single ball, a bead, no bigger than a pea, at the very bottom. Or, that is it may have seemed like a decoration, but when the butt of the gun was swung full force, and that bead hit someone with the weight of the gun behind it, it was nearly a small bullet it itself.

The bead connected with the man’s temple bringing him down for the count. Unfortunately though he was down on top of Red with all his weight and it would take time to remove herself from beneath his mass, time she didn’t have because by this point the Nightwolf who was spitting blood had recovered. And was making his way back over toward her.

With one free hand, she flipped the pistol, caught it by the hammer, cocked it out of the safety position and into the ready, flipped the gun again, grabbing it this time by the butt, her finger found the trigger, the barrel of the gun found a line for the Nightwolf’s head, and she pulled, all within the time frame of him taking two steps toward her. By his third step he was on his knee, and by his fourth, he was flat on his face in the dirt, a pool of blood slowly growing like a halo around his head.

“Duran,” she said, as the drone of battle in her ears ebbed away to quiet. “Get this fucker off me.” Duran rolled the body off her, which wasn’t all the easy. “There, now you’re helping,” said Red.

“Glad to be of serves,” said Duran, with a hint of sarcasm.

Red took off her riding hood and whipped it in the air to knock the dirt off, the blood splatter on it didn’t matter. They went back to the road and collected the bodies of the two lookouts, and piled them with their comrades. They covered the bodies with wood and oil and set them ablaze.

“What is our body count?” asked Red.

“There were the two on the road, and the five around the fire, that’s seven.”

“Seven,” said Red, more to her self. “Seven, seven, that’s too few, there are supposed to be eight of them. Eight Nightwolves, one for each hour of the night.”

“Didn’t the tanner’s daughter kill one of them herself?”

“The tanner’s daughter,” Red repeated to herself. “Quick, we need to get back to the village. Now!”

Chapter 6

They ran as fast as they could back to the village. And while running, somehow, Red was able to reload the flintlock. She was methodical, it was almost like a magic trick. Duran had never fired a gun before, much less loaded one, which made what Red was doing seem even more amazing, not to mention the fact that she was doing it while running at a full clip, through the woods, jumping over roots and limbs. They reached the village and found the tanner’s house, which appeared to be empty.

“Damn it, I told those men to stand guard.” There was a scream from inside the house. “The little girl,” said Red. “Come on!”

Inside the house, they saw the largest of the Nightwolves. The tanner charged at him, but the Nightwolf swatted him aside as though he were a fly. The tanner was still groggy from the apothecary’s potion, but even if he was fully sentient, the Nightwolf was simply too large and powerful for any normal man to have handled.

“So we meet again,” said Red.

The Nightwolf turned around. He was older now, more scarred, but somehow also larger and fiercer. Along his throat, he had a large gash that was poorly and recently stitched up with catgut. “Little Red Ridinghood,” he said.

She grabbed him by the neck, pushed her face onto his, and gave him a long deep kiss.

“Big Bad,” she said when she finally pulled back. “I wanted to taste you just once.”

“My what a big chest you have,” said the Big Bad Wolf.

Red undid the fastener of her riding hood, exposing her breasts as they rose and fell with her breathing. “All the better to distract you with.”

She removed the two guns from the back of her skirt and trained them on the Big Bad Wolf. But he did not come by his name for nothing, he was startled only for a moment and Red waited just a moment too long before pulling the triggers. With the back of one big meaty hand the Big Bad Wolf, the leader of the Nightwolves (and only one left) slapped her across the face and across both guns knocking all three to the floor.

Duran let out a scream and threw his ax at the outlaw, but the Big Bad Wolf leaned back, dodging the business end of the ax. As it flipped through the air it cut a single hair off Big Bad’s chest.

Red reached for the gun, but the Big Bad Wolf kicked it out of her way. Then he picked her up by the hair, while she kneed him in the groin, and he had to drop her. Duran ran toward him, but the Wolf threw a massive fist and cold-cocked the apothecary’s apprentice, laying him out on the floor. Red did a somersault on the floor trying to a kick the outlaw with both her leg, but the Big Bad Wolf picked her up by the ankles and threw her onto the bed with the little tanner’s daughter.

The Big Bad Wolf picked up one of the guns from the floor and soon realized that his fingers were too big to fit beneath the trigger guard. Duran was starting to come around, and realize he was still in the fight. The tanner was still lying in a heap on the other side of the house. Red realized that the little girl was not in the bed anymore, even though she had been when they entered the house.

The Big Bad Wolf was still messing about with the pistol with one eye and examining the woman that Little Red Ridinghood had turned into with the other. He didn’t have any eyes left to notice the little girl at all. The little tanner’s daughter had snuck out of the bed, around behind the Big Bad Wolf, and found Duran’s ax. With every last bit of strength she had, the little girl lifted the mighty ax over her head and brought it down in the center of the Big Bad Wolf’s skull. There was a crack and a meaty squish. The Big Bad Wolf crossed his eyes to see the point of the Ax protruding from his forehead, then his eyes rolled all the way back and he fell to the floor in a pool of blood.

“You feel my heat?” asked the little girl, rhetorically in her raspy voice. “I’m just a moment behind.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Duran thought to himself, but he didn’t say it out loud.

Chapter 7

As soon as all the action was over, the men returned to the tanner’s house. Along with the Sharif of the Forest. Sharif Bob grabbed the ax handle and the Big Bad Wolf’s head moved with it, but he was not alive. The Sharif placed one boot on the Wolf’s shoulder and prided the deeply wedged ax out from the outlaw’s head.

“Damn that’s in there tight,” said Sharif Bob. “Which one of you buried the hatched?” The Sharif examined the scene. The tanner and Duran were still on the ground, Duran was semiconscious at best, and the tanner was still in a semi-drunken stupor. It couldn’t have been either of them. He looked at the little girl who had a thousand yard stare on her face. Sharif Bob didn’t notice Red Ryder’s eyes, because she still had her breasts exposed, and they were hard not to notice for any man. After a moment he shook his head, and Red put her trademark riding hood back on. “Come on now, who did it?”

“It was me,” said the little girl, speaking before Red could take the blame. Her woman’s intuition had told her to hold her tongue. “Are you going to hang me for it?”

“Hang you?” asked the Sharif. “Little Girl, you just killed the Big Bad Wolf, there’s a bounty on his hide for six gold pieces.” the Sharif threw a small purse of gold to the little girl who caught it as a ray of jubilation started to break through her thousand yard stare.

“How much for the rest of the gang?” asked Red Ryder.

“Two pieces each,” said Sharif Bob. “There was a bounty of 20 gold for the whole set.

Do you know anything about them?”

“Yes I do,” said Red. “But you’ll have to wait a little bit. I have some unfinished business, Duran, come back to my place.”

“Okay!” said Duran.