It would remain a mystery. The mess grossed me out but I didn’t have the energy to clean it up right away (and didn’t want to disturb Clinton-ette any further) so I just left it there and wandered back out to the kitchen.
The dream stuck with me, though, wild and vivid and real. In my ‘just woken up’ sleep haze it seemed much more real to me than this moment, as though the world around me were the dream and making love on a mountaintop had been the reality.
“I’m probably just coming down with the flu,” I said to nobody, running my hands through my hair and trying to make sense of the situation. “I was out in the cold. That’s probably it.”
I sank into the chair next to my small kitchen table. There was the briefest of silences, then,
“Libby?”
I practically jumped out of my skin, shrieking and flailing my hands uselessly, knocking my purse off the table and scattering its contents all over the floor. I turned around, nearly snapping my neck.
It was just Katelyn, clad in her underwear and wearing a sleepy expression.
“Who are you talking to?”
“I…” My heart was beating fifty million beats a second. “Jesus, Katelyn, don’t scare me like that! Holy shit!”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Sorry, I just came over here after the storm last night. My roof collapsed and I didn’t know where to go. I tried calling you but your phone was off, so I thought I’d crash on your couch. I thought you’d be cool with it.”
My hands trembled slightly as I slowly began to calm down. “Okay, that’s fine. Sorry I shouted.” I remembered the broken window and put my head in my hands again. “Sorry about the glass too.”
“Glass?”
Strangely wide awake now that I’d been scared out of my skin, I pointed a finger to the window near my door. “Yeah, the window, I had to b-”
It was intact, a clear pane of glass exactly where the last one had been. There wasn’t a single hint of any glass on the floor, or anywhere.
“Libby?” asked Katelyn, moving to stand over beside me. “You okay?”
“T-The window,” I stammered, “I broke it last night. I broke it with my phone, because I’d dropped my keys…”
“Doesn’t look broken to me.”
It didn’t make any sense. I had a clear, vivid memory of being outside, freezing, and throwing my dead phone through the window. I remembered the shattering glass. I remembered gingerly reaching in to turn the handle. “No, I smashed it, I did. I had to, to get in.”
“But it looks just the way it always did. Hang on, look.” Katelyn skipped towards the window, tapping on it with a finger. “There’s scratches on this glass. Remember when you just got Clinton and that bird kept coming by the glass, and how Clinton would paw at it to try and get it? Those scratches are still here.”
“But I broke it with my iPhone. Last night.”
“Doesn’t look that way.”
I stared, dumbfounded, at the glass. Even from where I was sitting I could see that she was right—little tiny scratch marks, from a young kitten, all over it.
I remembered Clinton’s little surprise. “Speaking of kittens…”
Katelyn looked at me oddly. “I-… what?”
I grimaced slightly. “Sorry, I was just thinking out loud. Clinton—I’m not sure I can call her that anymore—had a bunch of kittens last night. I think they’re sleeping at the moment.”
“Huh? But Clinton’s male.”
“No, she’s actually… she’s female.”
Katelyn stared at me without saying anything.
I waved a hand down the hallway. “Check the cupboard down the hall. I have no idea how he—she—got knocked up, but… God.”
Katelyn continued to stare at me, slowly slipping into the seat beside me, reaching out and touching my knee. “Libby?”
“Umm. Yeah?”
She took a deep breath. “Look, um, I know things haven’t been going well for you recently, but you’re my best friend, okay? You know I’m always here for you. If the going out thing is starting to get to you, we can do something else on Friday night, okay? We don’t have to. I know this-”
I boggled. “I’m not crazy, okay?”
“Really? Because, like, you’re going on about breaking glass that isn’t broken, about losing your keys that aren’t lost, and about cats that turn from male to female and get pregnant. You’re sure sounding crazy.”
“Go check the hall!” I tilted my head. “And how did you know my keys aren’t lost?”
She pointed at my hip. “They’re in your pocket.”
They were, too, the black lanyard poking out. I pulled them out with a jingle and vaguely remembered putting them in there at the club. “Well,” I sighed, “At least I didn’t lose my keys.” I put them back in my pocket. “Anyway, where’s… Jack?”
“Who?”
I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “No, I didn’t imagine that. Last night, you picked up this guy, with the-”
“Oh! Jacques. Yeah, um, when he discovered my house had kind of collapsed he buggered off. I got his number, though.”
“Well that’s something, at least.” I pushed myself up to my feet. “Let’s go see these horrid little things.”
*****
“They are so cute!”
I groaned as Katelyn continued to play with the sleepy kittens, alternating between patting them and patting Clintonette. “Yeah,” I murmured, “the vet bills are going to be so cute. Can you imagine how many shots these little squealers are going to need?”
“Oh, who cares. They’re adorable!”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you were saying about me becoming a cat lady? This. This is the day everything went horribly wrong.”
“I’ll adopt one, if you want,” Katelyn said, gently patting one of the kittens on the head.
“Okay, but only if you get it neutered first.”
She laughed and nodded, giggling inanely at the prospect. “Sure, sure. I’ll make sure.”
I wanted to say something but there was a polite knocking at the door. I shot Katelyn a confused look and then hopped up to answer it, making my way down the corridor to the entrance, putting my eye up against the peephole.
And I found myself looking right into a set of bright blue eyes.
It was him. It was the guy from the club—the guy from my dream. Ishan Kari. I still remembered his name. I gave a little squeak of surprise and fear.
“Hello?” He’d heard me.
“… hi! Just a second!”
I fumbled with the latch, pulling it back then opening the door wide open. “Hello?”
He smiled at me, a curious expression painted on his face. “Nice pyjamas?” he remarked.
I stared at him blankly. “Huh?”
“Your… um. Pyjamas. That you’re wearing.”
I hadn’t even got out of the pyjama top. “Oh. One moment.”
I sheepishly stepped back and eased the door closed. A mad scramble was made for clothes from the dirty clothes basket—a loose fitting T-shirt and an old, ill fitting bra— and I threw them on as quickly as I could. On the way back I stepped around Katelyn still fawning over the kittens, then I returned to the front door.
“So, um, hi.” My initial surprise faded and I realised that, aside from my dream, I had barely said two words to this man. Further, I realised in a sudden spike of panic that he was now outside my door. How had he found where I lived?
“Hi. I’m Ishan Kari. We met, briefly, last night at the Hole.”
So that was his name. I nodded awkwardly. “Oh, uhh, sure. Okay. I’m Libby.” I looked around, as though expecting a band of ninjas to leap out and attack me. “Can I ask what you’re, uh, doing here?”
He didn’t answer right away, just looked at me with those bright blue eyes of his, staring at me. I felt comfortable, though, looking at him. It wasn’t creepy, although it really should have been.
“It’s… a little hard to explain.”
I put a hand on my
hip. “Well, I mean, I don’t know who you are, and I met you last night at a kind of dodgy club—and all of a sudden you’re showing up at my house like some kind of crazy serial killer or rapist or something, so I mean, if you can’t explain what you’re doing here in about fifteen seconds I’m going to shut the door and call the cops.”
Ishan held up his hands to placate me. “Okay, look, I’ll try, but can I come in first?”
“Going to be honest, I’d rather you explained while you were standing…” I jabbed a finger at his feet. “There, if you don’t mind.”
He laughed at that, a pleasant laugh that made me a little better about the situation. You could tell a lot about someone by how they laughed and this Ishan guy didn’t seem to have the serial killer vibe. “Sure. Okay, um.” He gave a cocked smile, shrugging his shoulders. “I-”
A line of fluid spurted out over my shoulder, hitting him in the face. Ishan howled and clutched his face.
“Take that!” Katelyn shrieked from behind me, “You fucking psycho!”
“KATE?!”
Ishan thrashed, clutching his eyes. “Ahh! AHH! What the hell!?”
Katelyn pushed past me, a can of pepper spray in her hand. She gave him another squirt, the jet hitting Ishan over his chest and shoulders. “Fuck off! Don’t you touch her!”
I grabbed hold of the can, pointing the jet of stinging fluid away from him. “Kate?! Kate, stop it, stop it! For God’s sake, stop it! What the fuck?”
Katelyn wheeled on me. “Libby, he followed you home! He must have!”
I grabbed her shoulders. “What? How do you know?”
“How else would he know where you live? He must have been stalking you!”
I extracted the can from her hand and turned back to Ishan. “I am so sor-”
But he was gone.
Katelyn and I exchanged a confused stare.
*****
“Sorry, I thought he was the Champawat Tiger.”
The door was securely closed, now, and Katelyn and I sat in the middle of the living room floor, rattled after what had happened.
“Who?”
She rolled her eyes. “Jeez, Libby. Don’t you read the news?”
I shook my head. “Not really,” I admitted.
“Well, he’s this dude, right? Goes to all the clubs—meets people. Not necessarily chicks, but guys, too. Has a drink with them, hooks up, whatever… then either that night or shortly after, they go missing. They’re calling him a serial killer.”
“So you thought he was this… Champ-a-lot Tiger, then?”
Katelyn just laughed, sighing in bemusement. “You are Indian, aren’t you? It’s Champawat. You know, the famous Champawat Tiger? Back ages ago, in the twenties and thirties, there was this tiger on the Indian subcontinent that was attacking people, right? It ate something like four hundred and thirty people, more than any other human serial killer.”
I felt the colour drain away from my face. “How many people has the human version killed?”
“Something like ten or eleven, all in the last year.”
My voice rose up an octave. “And… and you think that could have been him?”
Katelyn shrugged. “It could have been. I dunno. Nobody knows what the killer looks like, but that guy was creepy and followed you home… he looks strong, too, you know? Like a murderer?”
I didn’t think he looked like a murderer, but my ability to read people was legendarily bad. “Wow. Do you think we should call the cops?”
“If you want to, I dunno.”
I found my eyes drifting back to the window near my door, the one I’d sworn was broken. My mind went to all kinds of strange places. Had I really broken it? May be the creeper had come in at night, replaced the glass with an identical one, then snuck away to return in the morning.
That sounded more insane in my head than I was prepared to deal with, so I forced myself to look back at Katelyn.
“Okay. I will later.”
She nodded again, jiggling her can of pepper spray. “Glad to hear it works.”
I gave a slight wince. “Hopefully we won’t need to test it again, huh.”
Katelyn shuffled over towards me, resting both her hands on my knees. “Did you want me to stay here tonight? You know, just in case he comes back?”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’d be perfect.”
Katelyn stayed with me the whole day, blowing off uni and keeping me company. As twilight began to fall we made a call to the local pizza place. Katelyn went to the door to pick it up, then we stayed up late watching chick flicks and pigging out on greasy pizza and garlic bread, laughing like we were twelve.
When it finally came time to sleep, I dreamed again.
Chapter III
Bloodlines
“Sorry for startling you when I visited.” Ishan’s voice, deep and calming, caused me to open my eyes. I was back on the hill again, surrounded by impossibly green grass and a brilliant azure sky. Ishan was resting on his side, looking across at me with a warm smile.
“I don’t think it was your fault,” I answered, sitting up. Once again we were both naked and I was completely at ease with this. “And I think it’s me who should be saying sorry to you after Katelyn gave you a face full of mace.” I hesitated slightly. “You’re… not mad, are you?”
He shook his head. “No. And, I meant the last time we were here.”
The dream world seemed just as it was before, bright and wonderful. “I wasn’t startled. In fact, I rather enjoyed it.” How strange to hear such confident, bold words from my lips.
“Then why did you leave, suddenly?”
I tilted my head. “I didn’t. It was the eclipse. It cast the land in shadow, then I woke up.”
He seemed confused. “I didn’t see any eclipse. I just saw you disappear. I assumed someone had woken you from the other side.”
I smiled warmly. “My cat had kittens. Maybe that’s it. I could hear their crying from my room.”
He didn’t seem convinced. “Maybe.”
I didn’t like seeing him unhappy. I slid closer to him. “Sorry about Katelyn, too.”
Ishan didn’t seem worried. His hand reached out for my thigh, touching it gently. I could see, now, the faint outlines of black tiger stripes along my leg, as though I had them tattooed on decades ago, but the ink had since faded. “Your friend is a good friend. She was just trying to protect you.”
My left hand reached out for him, resting over his toned and fit chest, slowly stroking up and down his muscled torso. The same markings appeared on my arm, too. Black tiger stripes along the insides of my arm, stopping at the elbow. “She seems to have a strange way of going about it. She drags me out to seedy clubs so I can meet people, but then leaves me to hook up with guys… and when one finally does talk to me, she assaults him.”
“Her reaction is understandable.” His hand slowly journeyed northward, settling over my groin, cupping my pubic region. I felt his finger squirm against me and closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation, my hand slowly stroking over his abdomen. “She didn’t know me, she didn’t have the dream you and I shared.”
I felt his finger slide into me, parting my lips, wiggling against my warm inner passage. “Mmm. The dream last night? This dream?”
“This dream,” Ishan confirmed, sliding his digit further into me, right up to the palm. He curled it inside me and I inhaled, breathing in the sweet, pure air, mixed in with the faintest whiff of what I knew was his scent. My hand slid to his groin, feeling his package, my fingers gently tracing around the base, then slowly finger-walking up the length.
It was something Katelyn had told me once. One step is no fun, two will leave you feeling blue, for three you’ll give it up for free, but four will leave you begging for more…
Slowly my fingers stepped up his length, feeling his warm flesh pulse gently below my fingertip. One, two, three… four. Glad that he met Katelyn’s seal of approval, I slowly wrapped all of my fingers around his shaft, feeling it throb gently
in my hands. My thumb began to play around the tip, stroking teasingly, playing around in small circles.
“This is nice,” I said.
Ishan gave a teasing wiggle of his finger within me, a second gently pushing in to join the first. “I’m glad you agree…”
I giggled, shaking my head, slowly stroking my hand up and down his thick, eager shaft. “I… didn’t mean this and that. I meant… this whole place. It’s beautiful. Real. I know it’s a dream but it seems so real.”
Ishan began to move a little faster and, following his lead, so did I. We pleasured each other and my breathing quickened. Once again, the wind continued to flick the grass, but the sound became muted and dull.
“It is,” he said, “in a sense. The dream is the first step towards your new life. A much better life.”
My palm stroked back and forth against his shaft, rubbing from the tip to the base, stroking smoothly and evenly. “I’m afraid I—mmm—don’t quite follow.”
Ishan’s other hand rubbed up and down my thigh as he fingered me. “The Rakshasa… the were-Tigers of India… are an ancient people, physically identical to humans, at least until their bloodline begins to manifest as an adult. Through the years their power has been diminished, but we still possess… amazing gifts. When a Rakshasa’s bloodline begins to manifest, it sometimes does so through close proximity to another one of our kind. A bond is formed, and then the transformation begins.”
“Transformation?” I subconsciously shuffled closer to him. It was hard listening to him, as he continued to work this finger inside me, and as his musk rose. I could feel his shaft pulse in my grip and I knew it was time.
His finger slid out of my damp passage and his hand slipped over my shoulder, easing me onto my back, settling me into the soft, plush grass. “Enough words,” he whispered, his face close to mine, kissing me. “I’ll explain in time.”
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