I’m not particularly into werewolves, or supernatural stuff at all, but fiction has served me up not one, but three, gay werewolves in the last couple of weeks. Well, sort of.

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This past weekend, I read the three Bones books by Kim Fielding (author of the sweet sword-and-sorcery gay romance “Brute”). Geeky architect Dylan tricks with hot sleazeball Andy, then catches him at the full moon as he transforms… and bites Dylan. Oops. So now Dylan has his own time-of-the-month problem in downtown Portland. He decides to move to the country where he can be away from (and not endanger) people and run free in the woods at the full moon. (and then he meets redneck-but-way-smart hot next door neighbor and luv happens, which is awesome) But then has to deal with Andy, still, and Andy’s pack and their possessive and dangerous ways.

I really enjoyed the two books that focused on Dylan and Chris; the third one, which featured a friend and his own supernatural lover (a water spirit), didn’t do a lot for me. But in general, would recommend. Both characters are interesting and fun to spend time with, and it is a fun thought exercise of ‘how would one be a werewolf in modern times when you’re generally a nice person and don’t want to kill or infect people’ – including the parallels and possibilities of infecting someone through sex.

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As mentioned previously, my favorite part of KJ Charles’s Society of Gentleman series was (to my surprise and not at all to my inclination) the handling of the S/M relationship of Silas, a radical rabble-rousing commoner who would like all rank and privilege abolished, and Dominic, one of the ‘gentlemen’ of the title. (Amusingly enough, Dom is the sub. Got that?) Since the end result of their story is they go from a structured anonymous once-a-week playdate to actually being lovers, with their huge disparity in rank, the society of gentlemen is suddenly dealing with the frequent presence of this very rough guy, who the sharp-tongued Julius immediate dubs “Dominic’s werewolf”. In a special coda to the series, Julius comments in a letter to another gentleman that “Dominic is to have a knighthood. His werewolf’s howls are, I am assured, plangent and dismayed.” Hee! Anyway, good nickname for Silas, and a great character anyway.

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The last one is our beloved Remus Lupin from Harry Potter, probably my favorite character. Here, he’s definitely really a werewolf, but not actually gay in canon. I include him here because there was definitely a point in the series after Remus and Sirius had been introduced, but before the books were finished, where JKR could have very easily indicated that they were a couple without changing the story or frightening the horses – and I was somewhat surprised that she didn’t go in this direction. (Anyone who wants to jump in now and comment on JKR’s current TERF war, I understand the impulse, but that’s not really what I’m talking about here.)

But Remus, when he’s packing to leave at the end of Azkaban, basically says that Snape has ‘outed’ him as a werewolf and Remus thinks it’s best if he leave before the owls start arriving from parents who don’t want ‘a werewolf teaching their children’. Boy, did this seem like a gay metaphor to me.

Also, Remus is one of the few adults that is kind and helpful to Harry, and I was sorry to see him lose his place as a principal from that point on. In general, it’s kind of a plot hole in the HP universe that Harry didn’t take opportunities at Hogwarts to grill every professor in sight about his parents (and other magic-world stuff that we find out in dribs and drabs throughout). I have to remind myself that Harry has been conditioned throughout his childhood that adults are completely untrustworthy, and even when it should be dead obvious that he needs to go to the adults for help (such as when he ends up as a Triwizard Tournament champion), it doesn’t occur to him that that’s an option.

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Anyway, that was that. What next – lesbian zombies?