Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 184(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
I finish my soup in silence. That seems like the safer option. As I eat, I think about all my many failings, and how things seem to incessantly go from bad to worse, and how apparently absolutely nobody can be trusted. Everybody lies, everybody takes advantage, and I always lose.
“At least I no longer have to worry about the possibility of you blowing yourself up with an ill-advised transport,” he muses. “I might be able to give you some freedom — if you can prove to me that you appreciate it and will not do anything stupid.”
“Well, being a great big flaming idiot, that could be really hard for me,” I say, sarcastically.
“You’re right. It could be,” he deadpans.
I flick remnants of soup at him. Orange spatters land across his blue scales. One narrowly avoids his eye.
There’s a moment of silence in which I am not sure what the consequences of my actions will be, and then he lunges for me. Soup flies. I dive away with a screech. He misses on the first lunge, but catches me on the second, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me back toward him.
“Let me go! Let me go, you monster!” I scream at the top of my lungs.
He is laughing, and I am laughing too, even though I do not want to be laughing. He is my sworn enemy, another terrible male I have to suffer with. Men are the worst, with their excessive strength, and their arrogant egos, and their hard fucking cocks throbbing against my sensitive cheeks.
“You are such a bad-tempered little brat,” Manik purrs in my ear. “I thought humans were supposed to be sensible and civilized, but you are wild.”
Wild? Maybe I am. I didn’t used to be wild. I can remember the exact moment I went wild.
* * *
Six months ago…
“Dinner will be ready soon; I’m just finishing up this…”
“I’m leaving, Lyssa, and I’m taking the dog.”
The words don’t really compute. Stan and I have been together for six years. We’re supposed to be married in six days. My wedding dress is hung up in the closet, carefully hidden in a dark dress bag because it would be bad luck for him to see it before the wedding day. The kitchen counter is full of little snackitos, and there’s curled ribbon everywhere from the five hundred goodie bags I put together for the guests. A sash with the word ‘whore’ in glittery gold letters sits jauntily over the back of a chair. My friends have foul senses of humor. The house looks like a party threw up all over it, and now the man who told me as recently as last night that he loved me is telling me he’s leaving.
“What? Is this a joke?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I thought I could make this work, but I can’t. You’re just not marriage material.”
“Then why the fuck would you propose?” I don’t usually swear. Stan doesn’t like it. He wants a proper, ladylike bride. Someone well bred. On the surface I am both of those things. My mother paid good money for finishing school tuition to make me socially acceptable.
“I thought I could make it work with you. But look at this place. Look at yourself. You’re not ready to be a wife. The dishes haven’t been done in three days.”
I look around, wondering if the man knows he has hands. Stan has always been a bit of an asshole, but he is very charming, and everybody tells us that we look good together.
“That’s because I’m preparing for our wedding. Remember?”
“That’s no excuse. We’ve discussed this. You are responsible for the state of our home, and frankly, you’ve always been less than capable. It’s the most basic thing, Lyssa, and you don’t do it. You’re lazy, and I deserve someone who wants to take pride in our marriage, and our home.”
I don’t know what to say, so I revert to basic facts.
“We are supposed to be married in six days.”
“I’m going to stay with Marjorie.”
“Who is Marjorie?”
He doesn’t answer, but as luck would have it, the question answers itself almost immediately. There’s a perky tap at the door, and then it opens without anybody answering.
“Are you ready, sweetheart?”
Marjorie, it turns out, is a pretty girl ten years younger than me with a little dog, who apparently already knows our dog, Fido, by the way Fido responds with excitement, bounding about with shaggy joy, unable to understand that his betrayal most of all is what will later break me completely.
I watch this girl walk into our apartment, ignore me completely, kiss my fiancé on the cheek and tell him that she has his favorite meal ready.
She doesn’t seem to know I’m here. She doesn’t seem to notice the wedding invitations with Stan and Lyssa written on them. She demonstrates zero situational awareness. I stare at her, mouth open. I am not sure what to do. There’s some old feral part of me that’s telling me to do something awful, but I’m paralyzed by propriety and shock alike. What do you say when something like this happens without warning?