Between a rope and a pair of giant tits, I know which I’d rather suffocate from, and I doubt I’m alone in my learned opinion here. I doubt it sincerely. Ask any man. Ask any woman, too, for that matter. We’re all heroes, so why not go out like one?
I should be standing in that line, back there in history, with a big fucking smile on my fucking face. But it doesn’t hurt to swallow. Why is that?
Fuck!
Red, the lizard cat, bewildered once again by vague, troubling memories of walking on two feet and wearing clothes, stared at the two figures sitting side by side on the bed. He owned one of them, the one with the soft belly and the soft things above it that he liked to lie across when she slept. The other one, with his hands that slithered and his smells of lust wafting from him in pungent, whisker-twitching clouds, he didn’t like at all.
Among his memories was the even stranger notion that once, long ago, there were more of him. He’d been dangerous back then, capable of ganging up on and then dragging down and killing men who bellowed and then shrieked and screamed that they wanted their eyes back, until jaws closed around the poor fool’s throat and ripped and tore until it was all bloody and in shreds, with air bubbles frothing out and spurts that came in quick succession only to slow down, and finally fade into trickles. That was when he would feed, every one of him growing fat and torpid and eyeing places to lie up for a day or two.
Red wanted to kill the man on the bed.
What made things all the more infuriating, the lizard cat understood everything these two-legged creatures said, but his own fang-filled mouth ever failed to speak, and from his throat came nothing but incomprehensible purrs, hisses, moans and wavering wails.
Lying atop the dresser, Red was silent for the moment, eyes unblinking and fixed on the man’s throat. Every now and then his thin, scaled tail twitched and curled.
The pink-throated man with the slithering hands was speaking. ‘… not thinking clearly, that’s for sure. Hah hah! But there’s no telling how long it’ll last, Felittle.’
‘You can always hear her on the stairs, silly. Besides, we’re not doing nothing, are we?’
‘I shouldn’t be in here. She’s forbidden it.’
‘When I live in Elin, in that city, where you’re taking me, there won’t be nobody to tell me I can’t have men in my room. So I will! Lots and lots of men, you’ll see.’
‘Well, of course you will, darling,’ the man replied, with a tight smile that made Red’s scales crackle down the length of his serrated back. ‘But then, you know, you might not want that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘One man might be enough for you, is what I’m saying, my love.’
Felittle was blinking rapidly, her carmine lips parted in the way that always made Red want to slide his head between them, to look into the cavern of her mouth. Of course, his head was too big for that, but still, he longed to try. ‘One man? But … no woman wants just one man! No matter how much he pays! Where’s the … the … variety? One man!’ She yelped a laugh at her companion and punched him on the shoulder.
Such gestures were appallingly useless, with the nails folded in like that. Far better, Red knew, if those short claws lashed out, slicing that shoulder to ribbons. There was no doubt in the lizard cat’s mind that she needed proper protection, the kind of protection that Red could give. He rose slowly, affecting indifference, and lazily stretched out his back.
But the man noticed and his eyes narrowed. ‘Your damned cat’s getting ready again. I swear, Felittle, when we go it’s not coming with us. If it attacks me again, I’ll punch it again, hard as I can.’
‘Oh, you’re cruel!’ cried Felittle, jumping from the bed and hurrying over to take Red into her arms. Over her shoulder, the lizard cat met the man’s eyes and something passed between them that both instinctively understood.
By the time the flying scales and bits of flesh settled, one of them would stand triumphant. One of them, and only one, would possess this soft creature with the wide eyes. Red snuggled tighter and stretched open his mouth in a yawn, showing his rival his fangs. See them, man-named-Spilgit?
The display stole all colour from the man’s face and he quickly looked away.
She snuggled Red closer. ‘My baby, ooh, my baby, it’s all right. I won’t let the big man hurt you again. I promise.’
‘It can’t come with us,’ the man said.
‘Of course he will!’
‘Then you’d better forget about having lots of men in your room, Felittle. Unless you want them all sliced up and enraged and liable to take it out on the both of you.’
Cooing, she slipped her hand to the back of Red’s round head and held him so that she could peer into his face, only whiskers apart. ‘You’ll get used to them, won’t you, sweetie?’
Used to them? Yes. Used to killing them. Bellows, shrieks, screams about the eyes and then gurgles. But this elaborate and detailed answer came out as a low purr and a snuffle. Red exposed his claws and batted one paw in the man’s direction.
At that he grunted and stood. ‘The problem with lizard cats,’ he said, ‘is that they kill the furry kind. Angry neighbours are never good, Felittle. In Elin, why, someone will strangle this thing before the first week’s out.’
‘Oh, you’re horrible! Not my Red!’
‘If you want him to live for, er, however many years lizard cats live, you should leave him here. That’s the best way of showing your love for Red.’
No, the best way is tying you up and leaving you on the floor while she goes down for supper. I don’t need long.
‘Then maybe I won’t go! Oh, Red, I so love your purring.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Oh, I don’t know anymore! I’m confused!’
During this, Red had been gathering his limbs under him, moving slowly up onto her shoulder. Without warning, he launched himself at the man’s face.
A fist collided with Red’s nose, and then he was flying sideways, into the wall. Stunned, he fell to the floor beside the dresser. Something buzzed in his skull and he tasted blood. As if from a great distance, Red heard the man say, ‘You know, if that thing had any brains to speak of, it would try something different for a change.’
Red felt hands slip under him and then he was lifted into the air, back into her arms. ‘Oh, you poor thing! Was Slippy mean to you again? Oh, he’s so mean, isn’t he?’
Something different? Now there’s an idea. I need to remember this. I need to … oh, she’s so soft, isn’t she? Soft here, and soft here, too, and …
Whuffine Gaggs hummed under his breath as he pulled the silver ring from the severed finger and then tossed the finger into the spume-laden surf. It rolled back onto the sands with the next wave, as if trying to make a point, and then joined the others, jostling like sausages in a mostly even row above the fringe. A brief glance at them made his stomach rumble. Sighing, he squinted at the ring, which was thin but bore runic sigils running all the way round its surface. He saw the mark of the Elder God of the Seas, Mael, but little good that prayer had done the poor fool. Glancing down at the now-naked corpse at his feet, he studied her fleshy form for a moment longer, before shaking himself and with a muttered curse turned away.
A sharp grating sound made him look up to see a battered boat grounding prow-first against the wrack twenty paces up the beach. It looked abandoned, its oar-locks empty and the gunnels mostly chewed away, as if subject to frenzied jaws. Waves thumped into its stern, foamed over its square splashboard.
Grunting, Whuffine made his way over. As he drew near, cavalry boots crunching smartly in the sand with the jab of the walking stick making sweet punching sounds, he saw a man’s head rise into view, and then a bandaged hand lifted in a frail wave. The face was deathly pale, except where a burn had taken away half the beard. Rimed in salt, the man could have crawled out from a pickling barrel.