Four A.M.
Four a.m. is a bitch no matter what angle you look at her and that’s the nice word I use to describe her.
Fortunately for most people they were clever enough to sleep right on through her, ignoring her like a cheap hooker west of 5th ave.
She felt worse than the walk of shame after a physics final at Berkley. However I was an insomniac — therefore four a.m. and I were bosom buddies.
I heard the crash from my living room and seriously debated just rolling over and continuing to read my pathetic excuse of a raunchy romance novel. The Gods — and everyone else — knew I wasn’t getting any in real life.
Of course a normal person’s common sense would demand they check loud crashes out — especially loud crashes originating from inside their abode.
Preferably with a bat in hand. Of course a grandparent’s / much beloved pet’s urn worked too in a pinch — as long as it was solid and you had good aim. But I wasn’t exactly normal.
Besides I usually worked the graveyard shift at Nether — Hell’s premier and most exclusive BDSM club. Which meant my cat — the no doubt origin of aforementioned crash — probably didn’t even realize I was home — and I really didn’t want to interrupt whatever she was doing this time.
I’d made that mistake before.
Twice.
I was still trying to white wash those mental images from my brain.
And unfortunately even Hell’s top tier benefit plan didn’t cover that many counselling sessions.
There was another crash, followed by some banging.
And snarling.
The snarling didn’t worry me. A part of me was hoping she was getting some — at least one of us would be — maybe then she wouldn’t be such a raging cunt...
No, no — what got my undivided attention was the custom size sixteen, four inch Alexander White & Red Brianna Embroidered Pump that came hurdling through my wall — pinning itself to my red oak California king sized bed head board.
Hell that got me out of bed.
There are definite cardinal rules when you’re a Dominatrix — the fourth being Honour thine footwear.
Reaching up I pried the shoe from my headboard, which took an Arthurian amount of effort before B-lining it an entire 5 steps to my bedroom door.
Someone started to blast Fleetwood Mac 2004 Remastered The Chain outside. Good song, but not the best neighbourhood to broadcast it — or any songs — loudly in. Unless you wanted to attract all those things that thrived going bump in the night.
Normally I would have given the delinquents a heads up that it wasn’t a good idea to jam so loud. It gave the wrong impression — like an ice cream truck at a diabetic camp during a heat wave — with them being the crunchy, creamy oh so melty treats — however I was beyond pissed and the guitar rift would nicely cover up the next four minutes and thirty seconds of me yelling about respecting other people’s mortal possessions.
I couldn’t fix stupid.
But I could fix this.
… Probably.
You see I lived in the perfect New York Fifth Floor Walk Up and I mean perfect. All night take out Chinese two blocks away. Exposed red brickwork, original beams along with a 1920s cage elevator that only worked if it liked you. Spoiler alert — it liked me (most days).
It had been in my family for three generations, courtesy of my Mémere Phryne circa 1915. She still haunted the place on occasion, although “haunt” wasn’t exactly the right word. She only ever really turned up when things got interesting, of course her definition of interesting was something straight out of a Vladimir Nabokov novel — dude who wrote Lolita.
The place itself had pulled through a lot in the past and the walls could take a serious beating. However since my cat had moved in... let’s just say I wasn’t entirely sure it would survive for future generations.
Adjusting my Millennium Falcon tank top I flung my door open dramatically, trying to look oh so formidable in said afore mentioned tank and boxer/briefs combo. I’d already formulated something appropriately snarky and it was literally on the tip of my tongue when I tripped. Inelegantly falling ass over teakettle onto something that was hard and yet still somehow went squish, landing with an awkward and totally ungraceful oomph!
Opening my eyes in a slow blink it took me a third of a second to register I was nipple to nipple and nose to nose with a young Clint Eastwood — circa 1965 — only prettier. And by prettier I was referencing the slightly askew Marylin Monroe wig, full matte red lips, perfect cat eye eyeliner and four inch pumps — well pump.
The matching one being firmly gripped in my right hand.
I glanced down trying to ascertain the situation at hand.
The man was wearing a dress that was most definitely illegal in all the Bible Belt states. And hot damn did he ever have delectable ankles.
He was also — as far as I could tell — dead.
Combating a cocktail of horror and rage I scrambled off him at break neck speed and slipped on something gooey — causing me to slide backwards awkwardly onto my right elbow hard enough that it cracked — but at least I was no longer on top of the corpse.
Silver linings right?
Scanning my living room — which currently looked like Jackson Pollock had gone overboard with the red — I honed in on the only other breathing thing around.
“What,” I grit out, “did this one do?!”
That’s another reason four a.m. was a bitch. Only insomniacs, young Shakespearean lovers and homicidal vigilante reincarnations of Egyptian cat goddesses took their time to get to know her.
Bastet — Bast for short a.k.a my murderess cunt of a cat — had started bringing me dead stuff within a week of my adopting her… Of me being adopted by her? We had a complicated relationship.
I’d been gifted pigeons, far too many rats and a corn snake. Oh and you know... gang bangers... would be rapists and child molesters. Not to mention those sociopathic asshats in skinny jeans who cut the line at Starbucks and then didn’t tip the barista after making them cry.
I was clearly a sub par hunter in her mind.
Ah cat love.
I suppose I should have considered myself lucky that they’d never been half dead and still twitching. Of course there was a first time for everything.
Case in point.
It was the snake and rats I’d had the biggest issue with strangely enough.
The cops had definitely noticed a significant drop in crime — and coffee lines — but they were still scratching their heads utterly baffled as to the cause of the shorter cues. Half the precincts were convinced there was an underground turf war going on. The gang bangers themselves were getting seriously twitchy, some had rethought their life choices and turned to God. Too bad it was the wrong God.
Even I didn’t have a clue as to where Bast stashed the bodies.
One of the perks of being able to walk through dimensions I suppose.
I knew I needed to work on that particular side of her but I was just proud she’d started to, you know, wear pants when out and about in human form — admittedly they were skin tight black leather and it looked like she’d been poured into them — but it was still a win.
The whole bra thing was a work in progress but with tits like hers she really didn’t need one.
Bast’s bright whiskey green eyes regarded me for a long second before shrugging her bronze skinned shoulder in typical cat fashion.
I resisted the urge to growl in frustration as she proceeded to lick her crimson finger tips — insert disgusted shudder here — before pouncing onto the back of my brand new mah jong sofa, a contemplative look on her face.
“You—” I began trying to keep my voice neutral — torn between throwing another innocent house plant at her or spraying her with a water gun (both punishments in no way appropriate for the crime) — when Pretty Clint gasped, sputtering up blood and bile and the dirty tequila.
“Holy funky butt loving.” I gulped, scrambling back on top of him and thanking the Groupon Gods for their 68% discount Standard First Aid & CPR C course.
Technically I hadn’t needed it — working with demons and all — I’d simply taken it for shits and giggles. Both of which had come to pass as some of my coworkers had also decided to join the course last minute for a “team building experience”.
The poor instructor had just been trying to break the ice when he’d said this was the place to get messy and make mistakes because he could fix a headless manikin in the course but not in real life. How was he supposed to know that you could indeed fix a headless man in real life too?
Pretty Clint coughed again, aspirating on his own fluids.
Dropping the pump and wiping my already gorey hands on my tank — sorry Chewie! I opened his airway and checked for any chunky bits, thankfully he was clear, cause I really didn’t want to start scooping anything out.
Mind racing I went over my ABCs.
Airway? Check.
Breathing. Iffy.
Circulation? Bad.
Dude should have been dead. There was enough blood on my walls and ceiling to recreate that scene from Carrie... times two. I couldn’t tell where the blood was coming from. It was just there.
Shoving him into recovery position so that he wouldn’t continue to aspirate on his own vomit, I turned towards Bast and was about to yell at her to explain thineself, so that I would at least know where to start patching him up — when someone broke down my door.
For the love of all things juicy it was going to be a long freaking night.
