He was a strong, sleek, beautiful animal. She loved to show him off at her frequent and lavish dinner parties, such as the one in which she was currently engaged. Her laughter rang out, sweet and melodic to her guests. To him, this laughter covered up the true woman inside. A careful sort of look-away-my-dears-and-laugh-with-me type of laugh. She laughed this way often. But never to him. When she laughed to him, it was a laugh one makes while finding pleasure in someone else's pain.

She turned now and snapped her fingers once. “Come here, dear boy, where are you?” she let out another girlish giggle as her guests sat forward in their seats. From the shadows of the stairs he regarded her coolly. He would procrastinate, wait for her second snap, and then he would calmly approach her as if he were prepared to do her bidding. This was his life. Or rather, her life for him.

As expected, the second snap came briskly, within seconds of the first. (Come! Now, or you'll bleed for it.) She thought to him. His golden gaze shuddered, and closing his eyes for a split second, he opened them and stepped out obediently. He went up to her and allowed her rough petting.

The guests oohed and aahed, each aching to touch him as she did, but without the courage to do so. Or perhaps without the foolishness to do so. Maybe they simply had more intelligence, a mind that warned against this thing, this creature, that clearly was divine and did not belong in such an environment.

One bawdy guest stepped forward with a laugh like that of his mistress, yet what it held dear and hidden was different. This laugh concealed, as it well should, fear. The guest, a young woman with flashy gems adorning her throat, knelt near him. His eyes slit, turning from shimmering gold to stormy brown with hints of jet black. His jaw lowered just enough to show the tips of long, hard, glossy teeth. The guest patted him quickly on the head, barely touching him at all really, and then stood, smiling uneasily, and briskly returned to her seat.

(Mistress, do you wish anything else?) He thought to her.

Her response was swift. (What do you think, mangy animal?)

One guest's voice rose slightly. “My, what scars he has! What would dare attack a creature such as he?”

(Only you dare attack, Mistress. Will you tell her so?)

She smiled tightly. “Oh, he gets into fights all the time. I can't keep him out of them! He was in one just this morning. I had to save him.” The guests squealed in fright over their hostess's intervening in a fight between this creature and something else so daring as to provoke this creature.

(You lie too well, Mistress.)

(And you cannot tell the truth either, so we are at a stalemate, no?)

(Perhaps.) He watched her, fixing his now pale yellow gaze upon her as she carefully and daintily shoveled food into her mouth, answering queries between bites. The guest closest to him noticed.

“Darling, he looks so hungry. Do feed him so we may watch!”

His mistress laughed again and explained that he can only be fed outside as he is such a messy eater. (No dinner at all if you continue to stare like that!)

(I have not eaten since this time yesterday eve, Mistress.)

(Do you think I care?)

(Do you want me dead?)

(Mangy animal! You will live, you ungrateful wretch.) She slammed her fork down indelicately.

(Indeed. Indeed, I will live. Will you?)

Her cheeks were turning a deep red and a sheen of angry sweat shone on her forehead. She struggled to keep her composure. Her guests noticed and suddenly were in an adoring uproar about her, declaring that she looked ill and should lie down immediately. She played along, all the while feeling uneasy in the gaze of the animal. The guests apologized for her sickness and promised to check with her tomorrow. She nodded stiffly and agreed to lie down.

Only when she reached her room did she look for her animal. Aloud she said angrily, “Come here, you dratted thing!”

He more than obeyed. She screamed in fear as she glimpsed the fire in his eyes while he leapt, paws flared out. She glimpsed eyes that were a shocking bronze, flashing metallic burgundy. His huge paws landed on her chest, knocking her down. (See if you whip me again.) As he lowered his head, her shrill screams died quickly.


•
•
•

The man walked quickly to the newspaper stand and grabbed a copy. “Anything interesting in the news today, Arnold?”

Arnold peeked from behind a stack of paper-filled crates. “No, sir, not ­really. Oh! Oh, yes, I forgot! Page seven! You must read it! Most outrageous! I met the thing myself once. It looked trained to me, though husky and scarred like a war veteran. Read and let me know what you think on it,” Arnold declared.

The man nodded and laughed, barely hearing what the paper man was saying, but flipping to page seven anyhow. As he walked away, he skimmed the headline: SOCIETY WOMAN KILLED BY PET. He slowed down, a strange look crossing his shadowed face, and ambled over to a bench to sit, reading further in the story of the wealthy woman who lived alone with her large trained bobcat, which one night turned wild and killed her. The cat had ­disappeared much to the panic of the town.

Idiots, he thought. Who would dare try to tame such a wild animal?

He shook his head and dropped the paper into a trash can as he stood to continue on his way. Some people, he thought, as he stepped off the curb into the street. His golden-bronze eyes flashed to copper in the sun. Some people almost don't deserve to live.