Happy New Year

The third story in my ’12 stories in 12 months’ challenge. This is a short fable inspired by some recent reading, and by the following prompt from Creative Writing Ink:

It’s half past eleven when they step out of the apartment and into the corridor. The vacuum of cold air and sudden silence make his breath sound loud as he appraises his partner. She’s older than she appeared inside, in the dim haze trance music, low conversations and cannabis smoke. She’s also stunningly beautiful. Her long black hair is thick and silken to the touch, her tight red dress hugs her voluptuous frame, and her caramel skin looks warm even in the fluorescent brightness of the hallway.

“Let’s go,” she says, and fastens her coat. If he is surprised by her age, she is nonplussed by any similar revelation on her part. He knows he wears the face of an awkward boy with the distant potential of a handsome man. Bright eyes and a sharp jaw cowering far behind his self-consciousness​, timidity and acne. He stoops, still uncomfortably unused to the full height nature has so recently bestowed on him.

They walk in the dark for a long time to her home. He walks a step behind her, following the bright red hem of her dress fluttering beneath her coat like a fish following a lure. They make many turns and take many shortcuts, and soon he thinks, he might be lost. She turns back to him once, when they’re almost there.

“What time is it?”

He checks his watch.

“Eleven fifteen.”

Inside her home it’s dark and dusty. She has too many things and not enough space. Cat fur lies thick on the upholstery and dirty clothes litter the floor. It smells like incense and laundry and burnt toast. She offers him a drink. He takes a beer. It’s bitter after the glasses of sweet champagne she poured for him at the party. He swigs it anyway. She pats the seat on the sofa next to her and, obedient, he sits.

She sidles close to him, snaking a long arm around his bony shoulders and presses her lips behind his ear. He thinks about trying to finish the beer, but then the fingers of her hand sink into his knee.

“I’m a virgin,” he stutters.

And she purrs, “I know.”

He puts the beer down and she asks him again, “What time is it?”

“It’s almost midnight.”

She pounces then and seals herself to him in a kiss. In it is every kiss he has ever dreamt of. Every romantic fairytale, every obscene fantasy. Her lips are meltingly soft, and between the wet warmth of her mouth and the radiating heat from his groin, his entire body is reduced to two burning points of heat and light. Their lips part and, bereft, he reaches for her. His hand comes short as he falls towards the ground, the world swelling and blurring around him. He screams and he squeaks. Where there stood a frightened boy now stands a frightened mouse.

“Shhhh. You mustn’t be scared,” she says, “I’ll change too,” and she turns out the light. And when he sees her green eyes glint in the dark, and hears her claws catch in the rug that he knows, beyond any doubt, that he is lost.