12 Fairtale Close
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I do love her.
I know it's hard to believe when I'm sitting here and she's just standing there. My arms are on the sides of the ridge-backed chair, my body is warmed by the heat from the softly flickering fire behind the grate. I know it's hard to believe when I don't smile, but look at her with half-closed eyes, and don't move to take her hand.
She sighs, her perfumed smile breaking into a frown made of perfection. She thinks I don't care - but she's wrong. I know how much that cost her - the suit she was wearing. All lace and leather, black - like some mistress of the night. It went well with her red fur. I was almost surprised.
Almost.
No, I care a lot. My eyes follow the way it clings to her breasts, holding them tightly-bound against her body. They look perky and welcoming, the nipples only just obscured by the fabric which wove in and out like waves across her features. She has one arm above her head as she leans against the door frame. She's done her eyes as well. They too look black in that way which is meant to make them look big and hungry like a cats, but only made it look like someone had given her too black eyes in reality.
I still don't move.
Her panties cling to her front, and it takes little imagination to see her pert red rear in the mind's eye, held tight by the string and weave. Her tail was swishing down behind her before it had become suddenly still.
I still held the drink in my hand. Was I scowling? I suppose I might have been. I don't remember now.
She turned away and I started breathing again.
When I finally got up, she was already gone. In the bedroom she had left the lace. I had paid for it, after all. I suppose she thought it was only fair, but that was silly. I had never meant it as a gift for myself. She had wanted it. I suppose she had wanted it for me. I suppose she was giving it back. The sheets still smelled of her. Her sweat.
I rested on the covers, facing straight up, staring at the plain white ceiling. My hands were cold. My feet were cold. I missed the warmth of that fire. Staring into those flames, those insubstantial destructive curves in which something becomes nothing. In which matter becomes immaterial. In which pain becomes painless.
"You're leaving..." I had said.
"Yes... but not quite yet."
A pause.
"Do you like it?"
Silence.
The fireman's report would describe how the likely culprit was the centrepiece of the living room. It had seemed deliberate, as there were traces of broken wine bottle, a heavy duvet and some manner of clothing in the remains of what was the suspected origin point. The doors had not been locked or obstructed, and so the single casualty had likely been passed out at the time.
Perhaps, suggests a note attached from the first attending, the lonely man had been sleeping too close.