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“Thank you, Aaron, now will you please display your teeth to the jury?”

My pulse quickens. I’m always aware of my own pulse. Vigilantly aware. It quickens now because showing my teeth goes against every instinct I have. Showing my teeth inspires questions. Showing my teeth induces ridicule. Showing my teeth has often gotten me beat up, and worse.

“Please, Aaron, this is important.”

Dance for us, monkey boy.

Not wanting to see their reactions, I close my eyes and turn my face toward the jury box. And open my mouth. I might not see their faces, but I hear the gasps. I hear their fervent whisperings.

I am more than my teeth.

“That’s quite enough, Aaron,” my attorney says. “Thank you.”

Now they know you’re a freak.

Yeah? So what else is new?

I close my mouth and slump back in the chair, trying unsuccessfully to hide.

I find myself staring up once again at the defense attorney.

He’s indeed good-looking: muscular neck, strong jaw, square shoulders.

I go back to his clean-shaven neck, roped with thick muscle. I keep looking, searching really...

Ah, there it is.

His jugular vein, pulsing steadily, strongly. My stomach growls. Loudly.

The attorney hears my stomach growl, sees the laser-focused intent in my eyes. He pauses in mid-pace.

Despite himself, he swallows.

But I’m no longer thinking of the attorney. As I gaze upon his neck, I find myself thinking of Annie Hox. Specifically, her blood. Her sweet, salty, precious, delicious blood.

I feel an immediate swelling in my pants.

The attorney, who finds my gaze disconcerting at best, stammers slightly as he speaks again. “So, your problems began, Aaron, when your teeth grew in?”

“Yes.”

“In particular, the canines.”

“Yes.”

He moves over to the defense table, picks up an index card, and reads from it: “Abnormal or excessive canine growth is a rare phenomenon, afflicting one in eleven million. It’s considered an atavism, or a throwback gene, something that was necessary to our species hundreds of thousands of years ago, but not so much now. ”

“Lucky me.”

“How old were you when your adult canines grew in, Aaron?”

“Seven.”

“Did the other kids ever call you names?”

“Of course.”

“Kids can be mean. Cruel, even. What sort of names did they call you, Aaron?”

I’ve spent a lifetime trying to forget the names, trying to forget the nightmare that was my childhood. But here, in this courtroom, there’s no forgetting.

Not after what you’ve done.

“Aaron-cula was a favorite. So was Scarin’ Aaron. But mostly they just called me Fang.”