Quote:
«I am not putting on a mask. I am becoming”

Benjamin was born a scion of a wealthy socialite dynasty which, for all intents and purposes were a closest equivalent of aristocracy possible in America. Old money, highest connections, and more inbreeding than anyone is comfortable admitting, - which might have explained why some weirdness of young Ben did not cause much more than some raised eyebrows.

And a weird child young Benjamin was, for he had a special, not-quite-imaginary friend. For as long as he could remember himself, there was a presence in his mind, a voice that talked to him in a language unlike any other.
It liked him, to an extent of it’s weird mind. It told him secrets, and it made up most interesting adventures – like electrocuting neighbors’ cat, or adding rat poison to his nanny’s drink. It played with him, in games dangerous and exciting. And sometimes it would change places with him, and he would become a voice and a presence, while it played around with his body – beating up some school bullies, or touching Nancy from third grade in ways that made her bleed and cry.
As he grew he didn’t much like his “friend” – it’s suggestions often inconvenient or improper, and migraines and epilepsy it brought more than marginally painful. Yet he was accustomed to it, much as he grew accustomed to its growing desires, and even learned to enjoy an involuntary, yet pleasant trips to opium dens, or some dark and damp places, where it would fight using his body with grace and strength he could never invoke, the rough sex and long night at clubs of questionable repute. He liked the lack of responsibility the blood lust, the future-be-damned attitude of the creature he could have never hoped to muster himself.
The out-of-court settlements, the shakes and bruises were just a price to pay, and even they had some sort of darker, weirder thrill, sharp tang of pain to spice up the blandness of the mundane.
It was his life, and he never knew any other, at least until he went to college, and started to major in psychology. Research led to interest in his darker friend, and the interest led to experiments. Drugs were easy to come by, research materials were plentiful, and soon, not out of malice, but rather out of idle curiosity he tried to tame his old friend.
It raged, and it pitted it’s power against his, it caused cramps and shakes so bad his muscles ripped. It took his body for days on end, abusing it in ways he never deemed possible, yet he would not yield. He piled hypnosis and conditioning, medication and self-administered shocks, he delved into areas more arcane than psychological, and he pushed it one step at a time, until it’s rage turned to pleas and cries for mercy, until the presence was chained, and bound and confined to the depth of his mind.
Yet he found that experience has changed him in quite more ways than he expected. Creature’s (and he was still not sure whether the thing was a figment of his mind, or some separate entity), hungers stayed with him, clawing and demanding to be sated, it’s dark power at his beck and call, waiting to be released and channeled. The fights he could find in less than reputable places the creature used to frequent were not at all satisfying, and neither were his weak attempts at drugs or any sex he could buy. The hunger and desire were close to driving him insane, until one of his students (and he was a doctor by then, with a tenure at the very same university), came to him with a problem, that was quite close to his own. The voices, the pain, the sudden flashes of anger that were more that his body was able to endure. They talked some, and he tried some simple hypnotic techniques, when the student has.. changed. The creature it became was unlike any other in nature or humanity, nether wolf nor man, but a strange hybrid of both.
The fight that ensued has rocked Benjamin to his core. It was orgasmic, earthshaking, unbelievable experience of pitying his (or rather, his creatures) anger and desire for violence, against the pure animal rage of the creature, it was a brilliant experience, that left him broken, barely breathing and wanting so much, much more of the same.
He disposed of the corpse discretely, for he had some experience in these matters, and since then he ventures to find more of the same, searching for creatures that would match him rage to rage, claw to teeth, and fighting them. He found others of his kind as well, looking for thing that were not supposed to be there, to destroy them, to study them, even to become then, but this mattered little, for he found his place in life.