Nightbitch

Nightbitch wonders about Wanda White, author of the Field Guide to Magical Women, and who she is. She finds that White is part of the philosophy department at the University of Sacramento. Nightbitch locates an email address and sends her a message. She asks White if her research is true in a “scientific and rational sense” or whether it represents an experimental “performance” of scholarship to make a broader point (70).

In the middle of a deep sleep, Nightbitch is awoken by the sound of dogs scratching and huffing outside of her bedroom window. She goes out to meet them, finding that they are the same three dogs from the previous day. The dogs pull and rip her clothes off with their mouths and push her onto her hands and knees. At this moment, Nightbitch starts to feel like a dog, experiencing no thought, only instinct and the power of her body.

Nightbitch wakes up the next morning and discovers that her clothes are whole, despite the rending of them by the dogs the previous evening. She feels “a near religious ecstasy,” experiencing a new strength and love in her body (75). Nightbitch eats raw steak and finds a pile of dead animals left outside her door by the dogs.

Nightbitch and her son go to an upmarket café that they like. Nightbitch discovers a profound delight in eating meatloaf and devours it in an animalistic fashion, drawing attention from the other diners. She barks, with her son mimicking her, and for the first time she genuinely enjoys being a mother. An old woman greets her in a friendly way, and Nightbitch reflects wistfully on her poor relationship with her mother.

Nightbitch tells her husband on the phone about the pile of dead animals, but he is uninterested. She sends another email to Wanda White in which she asks White about the relative values of art and motherhood, and whether motherhood might in fact be more important.

Nightbitch stays in her house, playing joyously with her son, feeling that she is now undergoing a deep emotional transformation alongside her physical one. Nightbitch starts to strongly identify with her body and the animal instincts that are part of it. She feels that she is becoming a better mother because of this change.

In the evening, Nightbitch reads a passage from White’s book that discusses the magical powers available to mothers. These stem, White argues, from the primal need of the mother to care for her young, and from the liminal place she occupies between the animal and the human. White goes on to say that most mothers are unaware of their powers.

Nightbitch’s husband returns home on Friday evening to discover, in place of his wife, an enormous wolf-like dog sitting beside their son. Unbeknownst to him, Nightbitch is this dog; she has entirely transformed. Nightbitch, in dog form, snarls and sprints out of the house.

As a dog, Nightbitch defecates on the lawn of an old man she does not like. She wanders through the park, chasing and killing a rabbit with her mouth. She buries the rabbit, “her treasure, her prize” (91), in her back garden and curls up in the grass to sleep.

Nightbitch wakes up after her night as a dog, feeling both more awake and alive than she had since the birth of her son, despite getting only a few hours of sleep. She goes inside her house to shower. She feels a “profound sanity” overcoming her, and lies in bed between her husband and son.

Nightbitch is vindicated by her transformation. She feels that her growing hair and teeth were part of a real process and not illusory, and that she was right to be angry about sacrificing her career while her husband continued his. However, Nightbitch still feels that she cannot tell her husband any of this as he might make her see a psychiatrist.

In the morning Nightbitch’s husband confronts her about her absence the previous night. Nightbitch refuses to explain or apologize, recalling that he never apologized for knocking over and killing her peanut plant. Her husband says that he “was afraid for a second you were that dog” (98), and they laugh together and sit on the floor telling stories. Nightbitch and her husband then make love more passionately than they ever had before.

On Monday morning, with her husband leaving, Nightbitch feels resentment and that their recent “honeymoon” is over.

Nightbitch goes to the library to meet other women and prove to herself that her perception is not breaking from reality. There, she sees Jen, “the Big Blonde,” and other mothers. Jen gives Nightbitch her card for her herb-selling business. Nightbitch notices that Jen has the same smell as one of the dogs that came to her house.

Nightbitch receives a message from Jen asking if she wants to attend an herb-selling seminar, to which Nightbitch responds “maybe.” Nightbitch goes to the park beside the library with her son and plays uninhibitedly with him, pretending to be a dog. The other children there join in the game, gleefully following Nightbitch as her “pack.” When these children have gone, Nightbitch catches and kills a bird with her mouth.

Nightbitch takes her son for a communal hike and is worried when her son insists on behaving like a dog. With her son playing “doggy games,” Nightbitch speaks to an unbothered Jen, who invites her again to join her herb-selling group. Jen reveals that the group is really just about escaping and relaxing for a few hours.

When she gets home, Nightbitch is annoyed by the formulaic message from Jen about the herbs, which seems to have been copied and pasted from a recruitment magazine.