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“How did you…”
She shrugged. “Life and death, fuck or fight. So…” A slow smile spread across her face. “Fuck it is then. So, was it the Ozymandias looking aristocrat or…? No, it was Doppelganger Dude, wasn’t it. Finally found out just what kind of wand Merlin was packing, did ya? By proxy, of course. So what are we talking here? Some little Harry Potter unicorn hair shit or the whole Gandalf staff?” I looked away and she chuckled. “Staff, huh? Well, well, well, Miss Tess has a couple of fish on her line.”
“Dinner’s up!” Flea called from inside the house.
“Hmm, that’s a complication,” Jez said, her eyes jerking over her shoulder. “You gonna tell him?”
I should, I just wasn’t real sure what the etiquette was for telling one prospective boyfriend that you had sex with the other prospective boyfriend. Or was Keel even a prospect? Maybe he was just caught up in the moment like I had been, hadn’t I?
“If you want a tip from your Aunty Jez—?”
“Jez, we’re the same fucking age.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been around the block a lot more times than you. There was that time with those twins, and then their cousin found out I was two-timing them and then he—”
“We are not doing ‘Highlights from Jez’s Sex Life’. I stink, am hungry and thirsty and may have to fight monster spiders to have a shower.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna be an issue anymore.”
“Oh, thank God. The one sitting on the toilet lid this morning looked like he was about to ask me the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow before he’d let me pass. So did you guys get some poison or something?”
“Not quite. Well, you’re going for a wash anyway, so you may as well take a look.” Jez lead me up the hall to the bathroom door where weirdly I could hear a low growling sound. What could possibly be growling in the bathroom? I opened it a crack and heard a rapid scuffle as I did so. I opened the door wider, Jez’s head popping up over my shoulder. Inside it looked like a battlefield and the war had been waged unsuccessfully by a surprising number of dead spiders and one hunched up miffle, protecting its latest kill.
“Oh my God, a miffle!” I shrieked which just resulted in the poor beastie shrinking away, his tiny ears lying flat on his round head. “Shit, sorry little dude,” I whispered. This seemed to allay his fears slightly, his back flattening from the furious hoop he had contorted into. He settled down on the tiles, gnawing at the remains of an alarmingly large spider.
I crept in, shoving the dismembered corpses of arachnids to one side as I went. I only screamed once when a limb twitched, something that had the miffle skittering back under the bathroom sink, but he came out not long afterward when I stopped making strange noises. He dropped the leg he was chewing on as I crawled closer, his little button nose flaring as he scented me. I’m guessing he liked beer as he chirruped, then trotted over with a weird lolloping gait. He sniffed at my leg, starting backwards when I chuckled, but the lure of hops was too great. He was back again minutes later, a little paw landing on my knee and his rough tongue licking at my skin, methodically removing all the beer residue. I lifted a hand, slowly, slowly, his brown eyes taking my movement in, but he didn’t pull away. Holding my breath, I gently traced a finger over the tips of his fur. He went still, eyes flicking back, tongue still for a moment, then something magic happened. Emboldened, I stroked the fur back across his head, my caress growing firmer as his eyes closed and he began to purr.
“Looks like you’ve found a friend,” Jez said in a whisper.
“Grab one of the half full bottles of beer in the kitchen. We’ll put it out for him in a saucer.”
“You sure about that? You want Fluffy the Arachnid Destroyer getting on the piss?”
“Just a bit,” I said, “otherwise I’m never having a shower.”
Fluffy kept up the good work, his eyes flicking up when Jez reappeared. She passed the saucer to me and I placed it before him. He gave another cute chirp of appreciation and dropped down to lap from that.
I got my shower, glad to wash off all the stink, washing my hair twice until it smelled like herbs and flowers rather than beer and found Fluffy curled up next to his saucer, his paws tucked in tight to his tubby little brown mottled body. We had a quick slap-up meal of sandwiches and I shared the details of my day, well, all except the last part. Afterwards I did the dishes, then looked at the pile of books calling my name but had a Shay with the guys instead. Flea smiled and wrapped his arm around me when I settled down on the couch, but didn’t have much to say until we went to bed hours later.
The moon shone brightly through the window at the back of the room as I stripped off my clothes. “Hey,” Flea said, coming in close and resting his forearms on my shoulders, “you OK?”
I thought I should step free of his embrace, put some distance between us to tell him the truth but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If he took the welcome warmth of his body away, that would be his choice.
“Jumping off the back of a dragon mid-air.” He shook his head. “Wouldn’t catch me doing that. You got some guts, girl.”
“I slept with someone else,” I said, looking up at him, watching his murky eyes to catch every response to my bald words. I’d made myself clear as to where I was with us, but I wasn’t going to let myself pretend everything was hunky-dory unless it actually was. A small frown formed, his lips went slack, then tightening as he considered what I’d said. “It was Keel,” I said, figuring I may as well hammer that last nail into the coffin.
He didn’t move his arms or pull away, but his hips shifted from side to side as if he struggled to find a comfortable position and couldn’t. Finally he said, “You didn’t have to tell me.”
“OK, I’ll make sure—”
“But I’m glad you’re being honest with me. I gotta admit, I don’t know if I need to know each and every time you end up in the sack with someone.” He straightened up and stared straight into my eyes. “What I really need to know is, do I still have a chance?”
“Of course,” I said and moved in closer so his arms were forced to encircle me and my cheek came to rest on his chest. “It was…stress relief more than anything.”
His lips grazed the top of my head. “Well, that’s OK then.”
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