Read by Grace Cookey-Gam
My lover used to bring me birds. He caught them with his quick claws, pouncing and ripping off their heads with his sharp, feline teeth, their feathery bodies bleeding into the carpet. I felt triumphant, a queen. He just wanted to please me.
‘I love you,’ he purred and brushed against my legs, his fur soft as syrup. I looked at him then, lustfully, at his whiskers and claws, at the gliding machinery of his hips and spine, his innate desire to kill. I desired him as animal, and man. Both, at once.
He hunted at night. I imagined him stalking prey down by the canal at the back of the flats. I’d often hear the great caterwauling of casual sex, and I’d be jealous, transfixed. Later, though, when he came to bed, a flesh and blood man again, I’d smell cold air and earth on him, see soil and slaughter under his fingernails. Then …oh, then … I would shiver with pleasure at the otherness of him.
In those days, he would clean himself diligently, slowly, and when he was done he would clean me too, taking his time, his rough tongue scouring every inch of my skin, licking my hair. He was such an attentive lover, and I’ll never forget that.
Tom was unemployed, but I didn’t care. It was enough that he was there when I came home, making dinner, or unfurled on the sofa, watching TV, bathed in a lemon patch of sunlight. He was exquisite.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when Tom was restless, we would race each other to the roof terrace, taking the stairs two at a time, excited and breathless. The sky was always splintered with stars, the city an exotic shipwreck. And Tom would ambush pigeons nesting on the ledge, dozens of them, knowing I revelled in the carnage of blood and feathers and entrails. He was so romantic back then.
‘I won’t always be here, you know, Tom,’ I said to him one day. ‘I’ve only one life, and you have many.’
He put his arms around me then, and I felt the scalpel-keenness of his claws on my back. ‘You are wrong,’ he said. ‘I had eight lives before I ever met you.’
I was panic-stricken to learn that; the thought that I might lose him.
Gradually, however, things changed between us. Over the years Tom put on weight, became too lazy to hunt or to keep the two of us clean, and was always sleepy. He was ageing, he no longer had the same control over his transformations, and the birds he brought me were dead and scavenged. His eyesight was failing; he got spiteful and paranoid, accused me of creeping up behind him; spat and hissed over nothing.
‘Forgive me,’ he would say afterwards, and I could see his pain. ‘Forgive me.’
I stopped sleeping with him; I couldn’t trust him not to claw my face in the night, or to soil the sheets.
Besides, I’d met someone else, someone much younger, feral, a more voracious hunter.
‘Are you sure you’ve had all eight lives?’ I asked Tom one day. I so wanted him to start a new life, be like he once was. Young. Dangerous.
He sensed my disappointment. ‘Are you going to abandon me?’
‘No, Tom. I could never do that.’ It was the truth, for I knew he would suffer on the streets, no matter how many cat ladies put food out for him. I would never let that happen.
One day Tom lashed out and caught me at the corner of my right eye with his claw, tearing a groove down to my chin that would scar. My sudden movement had unnerved him. I cleaned my wound, dabbed on antiseptic and said nothing. Tom turned away contrite and hid his face in his paws. We both knew it was over.
‘Do you know, Tom, we haven’t seen the stars for so long,’ I said. I wanted to resolve things between us, move on. ‘Or hunted pigeons.’ I stroked him, tracing my hand from his forehead, over his ears and down the length of his back. He was moulting, great bald patches opening up. But he purred and patted my face, gently, like the old days and I felt regret. ‘Let’s go up to the roof,’ I said. ‘I’ll carry you.’
He smiled, pink-tongued, and tried to stretch out the stiffness in his back legs. ‘And I’ll kill pigeons for you.’
‘I’d like that,’ I said, though I knew he couldn’t do it.
He was heavy and I had to take the lift. I stepped out onto the roof expecting a sky full of jewels, like the old days. But it looked different. Clouds shut out the stars and the pigeons were gone. I saw the city for what it was, a grimy slew of dark tower blocks and sluggish canals backlit by dirty, orange streetlamps. But the feral was there, close by, in the shadows, I knew him by the spray of his scent, male and territorial, the way Tom used to be.
‘I don’t like it here,’ complained Tom and squirmed in my arms.
‘I know, darling. I know.’ I fussed him between the ears and kissed him, enjoying the needle of his whiskers on my lips. Then, quite suddenly, with all my strength, I hurled him over the side of the building.
Tom didn’t know it was coming. I watched him fall, flailing, his hurt expression turning to fury, his body growing smaller and more distant, then utterly still, leaking darkness. I waited for a while, anxious; I had to be sure his ninth life was spent.
Then I walked away, taking the stairs casually, in my own time, feeling lighter, wondering if the new male that stalked me would be like my darling Tom – and bring me birds.
(c) Cheryl Powell, 2025
Expect a dark read from Cheryl Powell. And knife-slide humour. A Worcestershire writer of short fiction, Cheryl’s work has been published by Coffin Bell, Litro, Spelk, Storgy, Reflex Fiction, The Mechanics’ Institute Review, Boudicca Press and Floodgate Press, and performed by actors at Liars’ League in Hong Kong and London.
Grace Cookey-Gam is an actress, voiceover artist and classically trained singer who loves stories and Radio 4. Recent credits include Pygmalion (Old Vic), The Tempest (RSC) and a bit of Eastenders in their upcoming 40th birthday edition. She is represented by http://www.rebeccasingermanagement.com.
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