Tigerheart
He told me he was a tiger.
My heart sped up, and I could feel the hot rush of blood through my body — my fingertips, my chest, my thighs — as I took a deep, gasping breath. My face flushed and there was a thrilling sort of tingle in my body as he stared at me, a half-cocked smile curling one end of his full, pretty mouth. He was sharp — funny and dangerous, and we’d been together for nearly a month when he told me this, when he sat me down close on the rooftop of his apartment building and whispered his secret over a sleeping, neon-laced cityscape.
I loved him so much then it felt like a shard of glass wedged in my heart. I couldn’t pull it out, the shard piercing the soft, inner parts of me — and it bled, pooling and pooling until there was a bottomless lake, my heart never dry, and I was sure that he was mine. I loved him, and he told me he was a tiger, so I believed him. He smiled, gleaming teeth and bright eyes, and when he kissed me he tasted of blood and smoke.
We never met in the daytime. I don’t know what he did during his days, other than wait for me, but I pictured him long and lean, his body bare and strong as he stretched out on the beat-up old sofa in his one room apartment. He loved the sun, he said, his eyelashes black and thick over golden eyes. I imagined the whole breadth of him striped orange with the hot shafts of sunlight that spilled in through his tiny window. And then at sunset he would call, tell me he was waiting, and I would hear his voice so soft and close, the last layers of the peeling sun thrown like scarves across the sky, falling in dusky hues towards the horizon. I still remember his voice, thick with lazy promise. I can’t look at sunsets anymore, though.
The night was for hunting, and we’d prowl the city streets as one, limbs slung around each other, our laughter bubbling together as we stumbled over the sidewalks. He never got tired, and his movements were electric, body limned with the buzzy glow of neon and streetlights.
He’d kiss my neck and ask to take me home, and we’d run through the city, flying across the pavement to his building. When we were laid out together in the dark, his arms around me on the pile of blankets on his floor, he’d whisper that he loved me and I would run trembling hands across skin warm and smooth as velvet.
I never should have believed it could be more. He was beautiful and dangerous and he said he was a tiger. I still remember the look on his face when I told him what I was — that I shared his secret, that I was a tiger — eyes lit up, rapt with awe. He did not change when I did. And there was no way to stop it, no way to keep instincts from taking over, as I shed my soft coat of skin. I could smell the sweet, cloying scent of his fear and when I opened my mouth, fangs sharp and dripping, he fell without ceremony to his knees. I tore him apart — that beautiful, beautiful liar. I shredded the smooth skin of his chest with my claws and cracked open the ivory cage of his ribs. I did not stop or think about what I was doing until my hands had changed from paws to thin, bony fingers, and my fur sloughed off for bare, naked skin. I looked at his broken body, split open and wet with gore. I had eaten his heart.
I wiped tears from my cheeks, aching, a fool for having believed him. I missed him — I still miss him, sorry for what I did. I try to forget. His name and his face are gone, though I still recall the deep song of his voice.
And I remember, in the deepest, darkest parts of me, in perfect, vivid detail, the sweet, bloodied taste of his heart.
