Last Kiss

This is the first chapter of my first work. Bear with me. It is after all, a work in progress.

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I was having the absolute best dream of my life. I was lying on a soft bed, so soft that I was sinking into it. The sheets were the smoothest, most comfortable material I had ever felt. The bed was outdoors and the blue sky was full of those white, puffy clouds that only seem to exist on a few days out of the year. The exhaustion that had accumulated on my shoulders for the last three years was being released little by little and I was almost asleep when someone hit my aching chest.

“Jonas! Wake the hell up man!”

I groaned and tried to roll over. Someone hit my chest again.

“Dude, get the hell up, there’s some crazy chick on the couch!”

My eyes opened and the fog of sleep left me, and the unimaginably soft bed suddenly became my normal one. I propped myself up on one elbow and rubbed my eyes.
“What?” I asked, in a daze.

“There’s some random cosplay chick sleeping on our sofa dammit!”

My eyes flew open; I jumped out of bed, knocking my roommate Steele over, and ran to the door connecting my room to the living room. Sure enough, there was a woman who looked to be wearing a cosplay costume sleeping on our couch. Like being hit in the face with a particularly heavy sledgehammer, my hangover and memories of the night before came back. I groaned and leaned against the door jam and slid down it.

“What the hell is with you? And where the hell did she come from?” Steele motioned towards the woman.

“I could tell you, but I’d rather have some coffee in me and some breakfast first.”
Steele smiled. “One of my famous detox breakfasts coming right up.”

“Make that two. I’m sure she’ll want to make her head feel better too.”

“You look like hell, clean up and I’ll cook.” He headed off towards the kitchen behind the living room. “I swear, you’re the reason I stay away from booze.”

A shower, a shave and half an hour later I sat down at the kitchen table. Stared at the pancakes, toast and bacon that Steele had made for me.

“Thanks.” I said as I grabbed a fork and tore into the food. I swear, Steele’s alcoholic dad had taught him how to make one hell of a detox breakfast, possibly the only good thing that can come from having a dad that killed a fifth of cheap whiskey a night.

“Ok Jonas, spill it. Where’d the girl come from? Did you go to some crazy costume party or what?”

“Well, we finished Smash ‘em Up last night. So the whole office hit the pub last night. After three years of working with that deadline over our heads, we figured we deserved a drink. Or fifteen.”

Steele’s eyes widened. “You guys finished it?! I can’t wait to play it again.”

“Don’t get too worked up, there’s still a few months before the release. Besides, you’re lucky I managed to get you on the beta testing team.”

“I know, I owe you big for that. But still, I can’t wait to put it in and smash some poor bastards up online.” He chuckled at his pun.

I work for Video Engineering Entertainment inc., we make video games. VEE was a smalltime company until it created a division for video games and then they grew to rival many of the other video game companies. We’ve released some huge video game titles and gained some notoriety in the past few years. I got a job with them right out of college and all is well. We’ve been working on a new game for the past three years and we had just put the finishing touches on it before manufacture and shipping the previous day. Understandably, three years of tension released itself in the form of some serious binge drinking.

“Anyways, we’re at the bar and the chick on the couch walks in, around 11 o’clock. Turns out she’s a NeB. And you know how it goes, most people are fine with them nowadays, but when people start drinking, they get back into their old ways. Some asshole that wasn’t with us started yelling at her and calling her names.”

Steele covered his eyes. “Oh God. I hate it when people do that. NeBs are people too, might not be exactly like us, but they’re people too dammit. Is he alive?”

“Yeah, he's alive. But, you know how I am when I start with tequila, so I get up in his face about it. I told him to back off and basically everything you just said, then I told him he was a bigot. He decked me in the side of the face, hence the swollen cheek, and the whole bar freaking exploded. Chairs flying, tables tipped over and it just became a free for all. I grabbed her and we ran outside but not after I caught a punch in the gut and she clawed some faces.”

“Wait, wait, and wait. You started a bar fight, again?” Steele looked at me, incredulous.

“Tequila man, tequila. Besides, it was worth it. Anyways, we head outside and I blacked out, threw up some. I guess she managed to get our address out of me and she got a cab back here. That is the extent of my knowledge.”

“Great story man. I applaud you on that. However, you expect me to believe that a stranger brought you back, cleaned you up, and even changed your clothes and then didn’t bolt out of here?”

“Hey, I’m as surprised as you. My reputation usually precedes me.”

“Guess you should wake her up before that breakfast gets cold. However, I’m off to work, because unlike you, my work schedule continues through the weekend.”

“Have fun at the shop. If you seen any nerdy hotties, hit on one. It wouldn’t kill you. Nerd chicks can be pretty hot.”

“Hey, not only nerds come to the book store you know. I’ve seen some very hot women come in from time to time.”

“I’m just messin'. Go sell some books and thanks for breakfast.”

“No problem. Enjoy your day off with the nice NeB.”

After Steele left for work, I cleaned up my dishes and went to check on my guest. She was lying on the couch, curled up almost like a cat. Her NeB genetics apparently had a leaning towards the cat family. She had cat ears and a tail that moved around restlessly. Her genetic lean was particularly strong because she had a coloring on her ears, tail and face that resembled that of a tiger, but her hair was black. She basically looked like the classic neko-neko from a Japanese anime.

I walked over to the end of the couch that her head was at and kneeled down so my head was roughly even with hers.

“Hey, my roommate made you some brekfa—“

She awoke and clawed my face with her exceptionally long fingernails while screaming in shock she had her teeth bared in a sort of feline defense mechanism.

“Ow.”

“Don’t scare me like that!”

“I was offering breakfast.”

She immediately relaxed and realized what she had done to my face.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” She reached for my face and some tissues from the coffee table to help wipe up the considerable amount of blood now flowing from the fresh scratches on my face.

“I’ll be fine. I can take care of this. There’s some food in the kitchen if you’re hungry.” I got up and walked to the bathroom adjoined to the living room and began to wash my face off while the woman went to the kitchen. I couldn’t think of a real way to bandage the scratches so I used the reliable male way to stop facial bleeding: Kleenex ripped into patches and placed over the cuts.

Looking like I had fought with a razor and lost, three times, I walked into the kitchen. Upon seeing me enter, the woman dropped her fork and looked wide-eyed at me, as if expecting me to try and hurt her.

“Don’t mind me, finish eating. You look hungry.”

She slowly picked up her silverware and resumed eating as I went to the fridge and grabbed a carton of orange juice. Accustomed to the bachelor style of living, I took a hit right from the carton, and of course some of the OJ splashed onto my fresh cuts. I stopped cold and slowly lowered the carton, eyes wide.

I looked at my guest, held up a finger and said “One second please.” I ran back to the bathroom and screamed as I splashed water on my face reopening the cuts.

Once I had the bleeding back under control, I walked back into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

“Sorry about that.” We said at the same time.

“Don’t worry about it.” Again, in unison. We both laughed an awkward sort of laugh.

“Sorry about last night.” She said.

“Unless I forgot something, it was nothing.”

“You got punched because of me though…”

“That was nothing. I just can’t stand a bigot, especially someone who’s a bigot against NeBs.”

She blushed a bit at that. She had deep emerald colored eyes with feline pupils, she was so cute. She lowered her head and looked at her plate. “Thank you.” She said softly.

“Don’t mention it. I figure at some point you told me your name, but I don’t remember much after we got out of the bar. What’s your name again?”

She looked up. “Ariisa. My name is Ariisa.”

“That’s a nice name.” She blushed again. “Are you new in town? I haven’t seen you around town before.”

“I guess you could say that I’m new. You’re name is Jonas right?”

“Yep. Guess we covered introductions at one point or another. Thanks for getting me back here.”

“Oh! It was the least I could do. After what you did for me and all.”

“Like I said, I can’t stand mistreatment of NeBs. You’re people too. Some people just can’t accept that fact.”

She didn’t say anything for a while. I guessed I had hit a tender note.

“Sorry. I know that’s a tender subject for some people still, I just need to shut up aobu—“

“No! I really appreciate it. I’m just… not used to humans thinking of us as people…” As she spoke, she lowered her head and tried to avoid eye contact.

“Where are you from, exactly?” I asked.

She suddenly sat bolt upright and looked around the room till she saw a clock. “Oh! Well look at the time. I’ll be off now.” She stood up to go, looking somewhat frantic.

“I can give you a ride if you want…”

“Isn’t your car at the pub?”

“No, me and the guys at work carpool and it wasn’t my turn to drive yesterday. Where do you live?” I stood up and went to the key rack behind me. When I had grabbed my keys and turned around, she was crying. “Ariisa?”

Hearing her name, she looked up and ran at me. I braced myself for what I thought was an attack, but instead she wrapped her arms around me and buried her head in my chest and began to cry uncontrollably. I was in absolute shock. Here this random, attractive NeB was clinging to me and crying.

At a loss for what to do, I put my arms around her and waited for the crying to subside. It was then I realized that she was only as tall as my chin. Slowly, the sobbing ceased and she let go. She looked embarrassed and her face was flushed again.

“I…I’m sorry about that…It’s just that I’ve got nowhere to go…”

“Do you just not have an apartment? If that’s it, we could easily let you…” She looked as if she’d start crying again.

“It’s not that. I escaped and I don’t have anything. No money, clothes or anything!” She began to cry again and she wrapped her arms around me.

When she settled down again I asked her “Where did you escape from?” Already knowing the answer.

“From a merchant. He specializes in ‘exotic animals’, NeBs included. When he told me I had been sold, I managed to get out. I ran for as long as I could and then I found that pub… it looked safe enough…Then I met you.”

“Oh God.” I said as I wrapped my arms around her. “I’m so sorry someone did that to you. Do you know where he is or what his name is? We can report him to the police and get him arrested where he can’t do this anymore.”

“I don’t know where he is. But his name is Jorge Gutierrez. I didn’t pay much attention to where… I just got out of my cage and ran.”

“He kept you in cages?!” I could feel the rage building in me.

She didn’t say anything. She just looked at the floor, fighting back tears.

“Do you want to go to the police about this?”

She didn’t say anything, but she looked up into my eyes. There she looked like a helpless child lost from a parent. I nodded and we got into my car and drove to the police station. Over the next several hours, she talked with police, filled out reports, gave a description to an artist to aid in catching Gutierrez and filled out more reports.

Around 8 o’clock, one of the officers that had been working with Ariisa all day came out of the interrogation room where a counselor was speaking with her now.

He shook my hand after asking who I was. “I’m Officer Brown. I can’t believe these stories. We’ve been after Gutierrez for years now. I think Ariisa might just put him behind bars now.”

“I’m glad. I’m just glad I met her last night… I hate to think what would have happened to her…What happens to her now?”

“Well, that’s why I’m out here. In this kind of situation, the state normally appoints a guardian for the victim, however…”

“However what?”

“She’s requested that you be her guardian. Reasonable given the situation, you’re probably the only person she knows. God only knows how many years she was in captivity. We don’t even know how old she is. Anyways, will it be ok with you if she lives with you?”

“We have room in the apartment. We could accommodate her. Don’t you have to do background checks or something?”

“Yeah. Already did it myself. Your roommate Jonathan is clear. You, however, are another case. I know your history with NeBs, including that bar fight last night, and that is why we are giving you custody. The psych evaluation you took last month shows that you're fine now."

“So she can stay with us?”

“Yes. But she could be with that counselor for some time. She’ll probably need to come back once a week or so to see the counselor. She was messed up pretty bad by her captivity…”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“Take it from me, you don’t want to. I’m going to go back in. When she’s ready to go back with you, we’ll send her out.” He headed back toward the door.

“Thank you Officer.”

He stopped and turned around. “She’s going to need a lot of support. From what she’s said, you’ve helped her out already. But so help me God if I hear you mistreat her.”

“Understood sir.”

"However, form the look of your face, I think she can do a good deal of damage on her own. What'd you do?"

I shrugged. "Offered her breakfast. She's jumpy as hell when she's sleeping. Can't say that I blame her though."

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Sometime later, my cell phone rang. Even without the caller ID I knew it was Steele calling. I walked outside to get better reception and answered the call.

“Hello.”

“Hey! Where are you? I come home to find the place empty. Did you and that cat-chick run off to a hotel or something?”

“For someone who says he virtuous, you have one hell of a perverted mind.”

“Sometimes I can’t fight back that urge. Where are you though?”

“The police station.”

“What? Why? Did they find out you caused the bar brawl?”

“Yes, but that's not why I'm here. It's far worse than that. Ariisa, the girl that I helped out last night, she escaped from a merchant.”

“Oh man. So you’re filing a report?”

“Did that hours ago. She’s working some stuff out with a counselor at the moment. But, uh because of the circumstances… I’ve been placed as her legal guardian…”

“Dude, she’s underage? You brought back jailbait?”

“They don’t know how old she is Steele. You know me, I’m not one for the young crowd”

“I’m messing with you. So she’ll be staying with us?”

“Yeah. She wanted to stay with us. We’re basically the only people she knows. They don’t know how long she was in captivity. They can’t find her parents at all. No missing persons, not a thing to give us an idea where she’s from or anything about her.”

Steele let out a long, low whistle. “You know how to find the good ones don’t you?”

“Leave Justine out of this at the moment. This is really serious; Ariisa could be scarred for life."

"I understand. I was musing about how you always have so much luck you have when it comes to those of the fairer gender."

"There's a big difference between my problems with Justine and what happened to Ariisa and I'd appreciate that you try not to compare them."

"Got it. So, you want me to make the guest room bed?"

"Yeah. And make sure that the apartment looks halfway decent. We're going to have to clean up our acts now that a woman will be staying with us again."

"Dude, don't you mean that you will have to clean up your act?"

"Steele, I've seen your room. It looks like your hamper exploded."

"I concede defeat. I'll pick up a bit and make the bed for her."

"You're a good man, but I have to go. I think she's coming out soon."

"I'll see you and Riisa, was it?"

"Uh-riisa, Ariisa. See ya man." Then I pressed the end button on my phone and ended the call just as Ariisa walked out of interrogation room. She looked tired and worn, her eyes were red and puffy, as though she had just spent years in that room. I walked over to her but before I could she lunged at me and wrapped her arms around me as she started to cry again.

"I'm so sorry…" She said between sobs in a muted whisper.

"For what? You haven't done anything wrong."

"I just wasted your whole day."

I loosened my embrace with Ariisa and looked directly into her eyes. "You did no such thing. It was my idea and I want to help you. And if your testimony helps bring Gutierrez to justice, that's perfect. Do not feel bad about this, ever."

She smiled at me, and somehow, even with tears running down her face, no one on Earth could look as beautiful as she did. And before she gave me the tightest hug of my life, I swore to myself that do anything to make her happy and keep her safe.

It took another half an hour at the police station to do the paperwork releasing Ariisa to my custody. We made an appointment for her to see the counselor at her usual office the next week and we walked out to my car. By this time it was dark out and Ariisa wrapped herself around my arm as we walked to my car. I had to work pretty hard to get her to let go of me long enough for her to get in the passenger seat and to let me put my car in gear. I guessed that the dark scared her somewhat. I could only guess just how horrible the memories that she had of the animal broker's back room, or more likely the basement, were.

Steele had made good on his promise to pick up the apartment. "Pick up" wouldn't do it justice, "make immaculate" would be closer to the truth. I would've sworn that he even had a company come in and steam clean the carpet.

I stopped dead in the doorway and looked around the living room in utter shock. I don't think that the room had been that clean back when we first moved in. My sudden stop had scared Ariisa because she immediately tensed up, like a ball of tightly wound muscle.

"Relax. I was just surprised. I asked Steele, my roommate to pick up a little bit. However, he went overboard and made this place cleaner than I've ever seen it."

"Oh. Sorry." Even after we walked in and sat down on the couch, she was still attached to my arm and took fifteen minutes to relax a little bit. I turned on the TV, which much to my dismay had been left on the Animal Planet channel. There was a special on about the big cats; lions tigers, panthers and the like. I felt my face turn three shades short of burgundy as I fumbled for the remote, I could only imagine how offended she'd be. Understandably I was shocked when she cooed.

"That baby tiger is so cute! I just wanna hold him!" Her face was absolutely alight, a perfect contrast to her worry and distress of having to divulge her past to the authorities all that day.

I sighed in relief and set down the remote. I had forgotten, it was "Cute Baby Animal Week", so there would be nothing but adorable little balls of fluff on TV. I leaned back and relaxed. Sensing that it was ok to let her guard down a little, Ariisa pulled her feet but onto the couch and curled up leaning on the arm rest.

At the first commercial break, I got up and headed to the kitchen to get myself a beer and make a sandwich. I hadn't eaten since breakfast so I was understandably famished. While I was making a sandwich, it occurred to me that Ariisa was probably as hungry as I was, if not more so. God only knows the last time she had something to eat before I found her.

Walking out of the kitchen, I asked "Would you like a sandwich or something? We've got all kinds of meat, some tuna, mac and cheese, I could even whip something up if you want."

Ariisa was kneeling on the couch, propping herself up with the back of the couch and looking at me, silhouetted by the TV. I couldn't see her face because the light contrast was too great, but I had a feeling that something was wrong. She sniffed and then rubbed something from her eye.

"Ariisa…?" I asked tentatively, afraid that I'd dredged up some horrid memory from her confinement.

She didn't say anything for a moment, but then she vaulted herself over the back of the couch with a feline sort of grace that would be expected of a body that toned. She landed perfectly and ran at me with a speed I had never seen a person capable of. Right before impact, I had a fleeting image flash across my mind: that she was about to attack me for a reason unknown. I braced for what I thought was going to be a fight for my life.

She slammed into me, knocking me to the wall. I was expecting a fury of nails and biting, instead what I got was a tight embrace and a sobbing face in my chest. Somewhat in shock, I slowly slid down the wall. Not letting go and with a grip as tight as a vice, Ariisa slid down the wall with me, keeping me locked within her arms.

Steele burst from his room brandishing a baseball bat that he kept in his room. Bat at the ready, he quickly surveyed the room. His eyes settled on my undoubtedly shocked form and the sobbing NeB with a death grip on me. Steele lowered his bad, made eye contact with me, nodded and walked back into his room.

After a few minutes, the sobbing abated and Ariisa simply clung to me. "I'm sorry." She whispered softly into my chest.

"For what?" I asked softly.

"All I've been doing today is clinging to you like a child and crying." She looked up at me, tears welling in her emerald eyes.

"Don't you dare worry about that, ok? I'm here to take care of you, and if being a teddy bear falls into my job description, so be it."

The tears forming in her eyes began streaming down her face again as she re-buried her face into my chest. I couldn't help but wonder if I was just making her problems worse. For the next few minutes all she could do was cry into my chest and whisper "thank you" repeatedly.

"I'm… just not used to this." Ariisa said when she loosened her grip on me again.

"Used to what?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.

"People being… kind to me."

"Don't worry about it. Most people are pretty kind hearted. I'm sure you're not comfortable on the floor like that. Come on into the kitchen and I'll make you something to eat, ok?"

She looked at me with those deep emerald eyes of hers. They were bright, watery and warm, full of seemingly endless amounts of kindness. For a split second, I thought she was going to cry again, but she hopped up and grabbed my arm, pulling me up.

"Come on then, I'm hungry."

I let her pull me into the kitchen, where she sat down in the same chair that she had occupied that morning when she had utterly devoured her breakfast. Ariisa said that she wanted macaroni and cheese to eat.

As I cooked her food, I sipped a beer and mostly listened to her. It was as if the armor she had worn was gone and she suddenly opened up to me fully. It was as if me telling her that I was there for her had released a flood. She told me about what she remembered of her parents, her eyes misted at those memories and she still had no idea how long she had been held captive, her captivity, that son of a bitch Gutierrez, but most of all, how she escaped.

Ariisa and several other NeBs, all younger than her, had been kept in a sub basement under Gutierrez's legally legitimate pet store, he was like some shitty cartoon villain or something. The cages they were in were essentially enlarged dog pens, almost no room at all for them to do anything short of sleep and eat. One night, however, the man Gutierrez hired specifically for taking "care" of the NeBs he was keeping to sell to clients with massive wallets, let his guard down. He had set the keys to the locked cages on a desk. Using a piece of wood that had been lying around, she managed to execute the perfect movie style "grab the keys from the idiot guard" maneuver. She freed herself, loosed the other prisoners and managed to escape unseen.

She ran as far as she could for days. The others had run in any number of directions. Some towards their homes, some to places they could hide and still others in totally random directions. Ariisa was one of the latter. She wandered the wilderness for days, afraid to come close to the roads for fear of being capture. Eventually she made it to my town and stumbled into the pub. The rest has already been covered.

Right around the time her story was finished, so were we. With my stomach full of a sandwich and a beer, and hers full of macaroni and a soda, we headed back out into the living room. I glanced at the clock and say that it was getting early.

"It's been a long day. I think I'm going to head off to bed. You're room is right over there. There's clean sheets and a shower right off of the living room if you need it. The dresser is full of clothes. They should be a close enough fit for you until we go out and buy you some new clothes."

She glanced towards the darkened room nervously. "I… get that room all to myself?" She sounded confused and surprised.

"Of course. Is there…something wrong?" I was afraid that I might have opened an old wound or something.

"I'm just not used to… a big room… and a bed." She looked down and flushed a little bit, embarrassed. She looked adorable. She looked up and noticed me smiling at her and blushed even more.

"Well, the room is all yours, you can do almost anything you want, save repaint it and destroying the walls or carpet."

Her eyes lit up and she hugged me again. She kissed me on the cheek and thanked me again. We said goodnight, parted ways, she went to her room and I went to mine.

I closed the door stripped to my boxers, like any other night, and fell into bed. It had been a long and very unusual day. Not many people can say that their lives have been picked up and sent though the "weird" zone of things that life can throw at you. It was then that the full gravity of what I had agreed to hit me. Sure I'd have to buy her clothes, we would have to buy more food more often, but I would have to clean up my act. The biggest responsibility that I realized I was honor-bound to fulfill was that I had to help Ariisa get acclimated to a "normal" form of life. Before I could fully fathom what this task would entail, I fell asleep.

_____________________________________________________

My dream was similar to that of the night before. I was lying on that same bed that was so soft that I sank deep into it. The same sky dotted with those puffy little clouds. I gazed lazily at them as they drifted by, seemingly smiling at me in my total bliss. I closed my eyes and felt myself begin to drift off to blessed sleep.

It was then that I noticed a large pillow was next to me in the bed. without opening my eyes, I let my hand run over the pillow. It was warm and soft, just like everything else that made up the bed. Accepting it as a pillow, I slid an arm around it and rolled over, hugging it. That's when things got weird. The pillow began to make a noise, like there was a cell phone set to vibrate under it. That didn't strike me as odd, because I usually have my phone on charge, on vibrate and under my pillow. I didn't care who was calling, I was too comfortable.

However, when something soft and fuzzy brushed up against my leg, I thought that something might be amiss. It was then I realized that the soft bed was becoming more and more like my real bed and that the pillow next to me began to take a more human shape. The vibrating took on a more audible characteristic; a highly contented purring of a feline. The thing bushing against my leg clearly became a tail.

My eyes flew open right around the time that Ariisa's did. For a hundredth of a second, our eyes locked. Immediately after that, we realized that we were holding each other in an embrace. For a full second, all I could think was Please, don't scream, please don't claw my face again!

At the height of my eternity encased panic, she smiled. Given the circumstances, she couldn't have looked more innocent, even with the bed hair, sleepy eyes and weary look. The innocence was somewhat negated though by her near total lack of clothing.

I returned her smile and wordlessly tried to pull my arm out from underneath her body. However it was extremely difficult. Either she was very heavy or she was actively trying to stop me from breaking physical contact. The former was unlikely; she was too lean, too small, she couldn't possibly be heavy enough for that. Which meant the latter was the most likely. This brought up more questions in my head: Why is she trying to keep physical contact? Why is she looking at me with such an innocent face in such a compromising position? WHY is she in MY bed?

"Uhh… Ariisa?"

She smiled even more sweetly. "Yes?"

"Why are you in my bed?"

She giggled. A lump developed in my throat; I was both afraid but so undeniably curious as to why she was in my bed.

"Because I was lonely…" She looked extremely embarrassed. "I'm not used to sleeping in a room alone. I've shared it with people for years… I'm sorry."

I reached up and brushed some hair out of her eyes. "Don't be. I should have thought of something like that. I'll sleep on the couch in here tonight and you can have the bed."

Her eyes became watery. "Thank you!" she said as she lunged at me over the short distanced and nearly squeezed the life out of me.

That's when Steele cleared his throat at the door. Ariisa had left the door open when she came in last night. "Geez Jonas. I leave you alone with our guest for a single night and you've already managed to seduce her. Bravo. Good show."

I managed to turn my head far enough around so that I could see him in my peripheral vision. "As dumb as this sounds, this isn't what it looks like."

"I know. I've been here long enough to hear that much. I just like to fuck with you sometimes."

I threw a pillow at him. "You jackass. Ariisa, this is my ass of a roommate and the man who cooked your breakfast yesterday, Jonathan Steele."

Ariisa released me enough to look over my shoulder and say "Pleasure to meet you." She immediately resumed her embrace, this time pushing her face into my chest and literally purring.

I looked at Steele with a helpless look on my face, fairly pleading for him to help me out. He chuckled and asked if we were hungry. At the mention of food, Ariisa released me form a veritable death grip and got up from the bed in all her nearly nude beauty. She grabbed my hand and dragged me out of bed.

"Come on Jonas. Food time!" She sounded ecstatic, but I had some dark thought that it stemmed from her imprisonment. It had left some scars so deep that I'm still sure to this day that no amount of time would have healed.

Grumbling I got up from bed and followed them both to the kitchen. Steele worked his culinary wonder again and produced a breakfast fit for a middle-class king. We all tore into the breakfast and had it wiped out within ten minutes. We talked casually for another half hour before Steele had to go.

Ariisa offered to clean up the dishes and managed the task well. I wasn't sure if she had ever really handled plates and silverware, but she didn't have a problem, which did me a great amount of good. It wouldn't be like teaching a child after all.

Once we had the kitchen clean, we moved to the living room and I turned on the local news. There was a shooting a few townships away, the newest in the long series of wars was taking too long for the politicians in Washington, a mother had managed to overdose and die during a PTA meeting, much to my amusement and a man was arrested. The last piece of news caught my attention. Apparently an "unidentified witness" had assisted the police and given them evidence that had finally helped to put a notorious NeB trafficker behind bars. The man's name was Jorge Gutierrez.

Ariisa looked at me and then back at the screen in astonishment. The video of his arrest was perfect. Police were dragging him out of his pet store handcuffed as he kicked and screamed like a child throwing a tantrum. We laughed until we heard him scream something that made my blood run cold and Ariisa cringe.

Right before the police officer that I recognized as Officer Brown shoved Gutierrez into the cruiser, he screamed "Ariisa! I know you did this to me! I will get you for this! You don't know what you've unleashed upon yourself!"

We exchanged glances. She was scared. Shaking and bordering on panic. I opened my mouth to try and say something to comfort her when the phone rang. We both jumped.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Yes, is this Jonas?"

"Yes, who's calling?"

"This is Officer Brown. We met yesterday when you brought Ariisa into the station."

"Oh. What's going on?"

"I assume you've been watching the news. Thanks to Ariisa we got a warrant and raided the pet shop. Sure enough, there were quite a few NeBs in pens. I looks like only Ariisa was able to escape. The others were captured and uh… as he said 'disciplined'."

Ariisa, with what I could assume was significantly better hearing than most humans, visibly winced.

"He also made that threat. That's what has us worried." I said.

"That's why I'm calling. We want to put both you and Ariisa into witness protection. Or at least into protective custody. This case is now national and we can't be too cautious. Lord only knows how big the trade ring is. We're just starting to sift through client lists, orders, shipments and such that he had kept on his computer down there."

"What about the others? Are they ok?" Ariisa sounded worried. I relayed the question.

"They're at an undisclosed location. Medical treatment, mostly for malnourishment and some rather sadistic wounds. It's a damn good thing that we got there when we did. I know you can hear this, so thank you Ariisa, you saved them."

Ariisa's didn't audibly reply. She simply smiled slightly and looked a bit sheepish.

"Anyways Jonas, we're going to have a cruiser pass your apartment a few times today and stake out overnight. We'll have you come to the station tomorrow and we can work out what's going to happen. Is that alright or do you want to come in today?"

I looked at Ariisa. She shook her head.

"We'll be fine today. We'll see you tomorrow officer."

"Understood. Have a good day."

"You too. And congratulations on bringing that son of a bitch down."

Brown chuckled and hung up.

I set the phone back on its charging base and looked at Ariisa for a long moment. Then it was my turn to surprise her. I lunged at her and tackled her around the waist.

"You did it!" I exclaimed happily.

Ariisa squealed at first in surprise then in glee. She wrapped her arms around my head and hugged me. It took her a minute to realize that she was suffocating me between her sizeable breasts. She released my head from her warm embrace and I just slumped down.

"I'm sorry." she said, trying not to laugh.

Talking into the couch cushions I said "Don't worry about it. There are worse ways to die."

She giggled. "Death by cleavage."

And suddenly the tensions of the day, the fear of Gutierrez's threat and the general gloom that had been hanging over us lifted. We watched movies all day, mostly comedies and a few action flicks. We ordered Chinese takeout from a good restaurant for lunch and goofed around all day. It was like finding a new best friend over night.

When Steele came home, he brought some Mexican take out and a bottle of wine. This wasn't your average Mexican take out, but gourmet restaurant style food and a very fine wine. Steele, ever the elegant one, decided that it'd be best if he transferred the food from the containers the came in onto real plates and that we should eat in the kitchen, which was different form how we normally operated when we ordered take out.

While Steele and I set up the kitchen table for dinner he asked Ariisa to find a CD from the collection and put it on so we would have something to listen to while we ate. As Steele set the places and I was fighting with the wine bottle, we started talking.

"I never did get to ask you, what the hell happened to your face?"

"I surprised a sleeping girl on my couch whose natural reaction to anything that startles her is to claw whatever startles her."

"Ah. And how, pray, did you startle our guest?"

"I offered her breakfast."

"While she was still sleeping."

"That obvious?"

Steele chuckled and set about putting the food on the places he had just set. I had just managed to get the bottle uncorked when Ariisa hit play on the stereo.

"Ha-ha!" I laughed vindictively at the formerly stubborn cork which was skewered on the opener. That's when the first few beats of the first song on the mixed CD that I had made years ago began to play. To this day, I swear I had destroyed that disk prior to me meeting Ariisa.

The wine bottle shattered as it hit the floor. Before I knew what I was doing, I was out of the kitchen, red wine covering my pant legs and dripping onto the carpet. Before my rational mind knew why the hell I was in the living room or why the bottle had broken, I had flipped the couch and was storming towards the CD player. In one swift motion, long before I could even hope to check the motion, I brought my fist down upon the CD player. The other fist followed until the sound stopped and the cabinet that it had rested on was collapsed. I continued to pound on the metal box until the case bent and buckled, revealing the inner workings below. I ripped them out like a caveman hunter would the entrails of a deer. It sounded as if the CD player had been screaming the entire time.

The next thing I knew, Steele was in front of me. He punched me in the face. The stun of the impact woke me up form my trance. My hands were bloody from the jagged metal, my voice was horse, tears still covered my face and my nose was running uncontrollably. Then Steele had me in a full nelson, immobilizing me.

"I thought that this wasn't going to be a problem anymore!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.

I was still in a daze. Then I fully realized what had happened as I stared across the room in the absolutely terrified face of Ariisa. I had snapped when I heard that song again. Not only that but I had destroyed a nice CD/DVD player that I had bought a year prior. Plastic pieces, screws, shards of metal and blood littered the carpet in front of me. I stopped struggling against Steele's grip and he released me.

"Get cleaned up. I've got a story to tell while I clean this mess up." His tone was neutral now, that totally sober tone a police officer has when he comes to your door at 4 AM, and tells you that a loved one has been in a shooting.

I staggered back into my bedroom, blood dripping from the fresh cuts on my hands and the bloody nose Steele had given me. I stripped and shambled into the shower. They say that grown men don't cry, and that is total bullshit. There was only one occasion in my life that I had cried more than I did in the shower.

When I finally stepped from the shower an hour later, I saw that Steele had put the now cold food on my bed and closed the door. I slowly ate in the darkness, thinking nothing. The food that normally would have had me squirming in ecstasy as I ate it did nothing more than occupy the space in my stomach that I had cleared while I was in the shower.

Once I finished I opened my door into the now dark apartment and felt my way towards the kitchen. The moonlight filtering in from the front window offered me a little guidance. I silently set the plate and silverware in the sink and turned for my room. Just as I entered the doorway, she spoke from the couch and I stopped dead, not turning.

"He told me. He told me everything." She sounded as though she had been crying.

I said nothing and walked into my room. I just fell forward onto my bed, head off the pillow, arms at my sides. I didn't hear her get up or walk over, but suddenly she was laying half on my back, half on the bed and holding me. I was facing away from her so I missed what I know was severe sadness in her eyes.

"It'll be ok." She kept whispering as she ran her hand back and forth over my upper back.

I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

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We were in the pub. Pearl Jam's "Last Kiss" was playing over the radio. I looked deep into her golden eyes and kissed her. I knelt down in front of her, reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out a black felt covered box. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, her wide eyes filled with tears. I opened the box to reveal a beautiful gold ring with a 14 karat diamond in it.

"Justine, will you marry me?"

She cried and managed to say "yes" between sobs.

I smiled, stood up and hugged her. She pushed me away, cupped my face between her hands and planted the world's best kiss on me. The whole pub cheered.

Later we were walking from the pub to my car so we could go home and celebrate in our own little way. Cars at that hour were infrequent but nothing unusual. What made us turn was the revving engine. We spun simultaneously to look at the unusual sound coming from behind us. We were just in time to see a passenger in the back seat lift an Uzi out the window and spray a full clip at us.

I was walking on the left side, away from the street, Justine holding onto my right arm admiring her new ring and planting the occasional kiss on my neck, quickening my pace. With her broadside to the car, she caught every bullet that should have hit me.

She stood for a moment, unable to move. Her legs slowly gave out and we both sunk to the ground. I held her in my arms as I screamed for someone, anyone to call 9-1-1. She reached up to my face and brushed a tear from my face. She looked into my eyes, tears flowing down her face.

"I…love…Jona-s…I love…you…I just wish…that it had been…possible…" Her hand dropped slowly from my face. I held her tightly and I gave her the last kiss she ever would have.

By now a crowd had formed around me as I screamed and held onto Justine. Someone had called an ambulance and I pleaded with Justine not to leave me.

Before the ambulance arrived, a big man, drunk, pushed his way through the crowd and looked down at me holding Justine's body.

"That'll teach you to marry a NeB." He slurred.

A blinding rage consumed me. Before I relived that part of the dream, I awoke. Tears staining my pillow.

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More on the way.