A Short Story a Day

by David Michael

“I’ll bring you back something pretty,” I told Reyn as I set her down.

Reyn rubbed her head against my gloved hand and purred, the sound almost a rumble in the quiet of the night. She always likes it when I bring something for her. She’s not the reason I steal, of course. But she benefits.

“Don’t go far,” I said. Not an order. A request.

Reyn paused in her affection, sitting back on her haunches, looking up at my face, and gave the request due consideration.

I smiled down at her. “OK. Here goes.”

I closed my eyes and reached out with–I’ve never really understood this part, so I have no idea what I’m reaching out with. My mind, maybe, or my soul, or something else. Still, whatever it was, I reached out and felt the–the same thing, I guess–in Reyn. Me, mere human, reaching out and tapping into her catness.

I don’t become a cat, of course. Though I have to confess the urge is there. Every time. To push myself, to use Reyn as a blueprint of how to reconstruct myself. Then we could be a couple of she-cats, romping around the city, terrorizing the toms, lounging in the sun…

Anyway, I felt the familiar urge, but I repressed it once again. Because whatever ability I have–magic or whatever you want to call it–I’m not that powerful. I’d probably mess us both up if I tried anything that extreme.

My nostrils flared as my sense of smell became–not as good as Reyn’s, but better than my own normal, unenhanced nose. I smelled the smells of wealthy homeowners in their mansions and loved it all. Gourmet foods and colognes and exotic woods burning in brick and native stone fireplaces. The smells of pets, the smells of their manicured lawns–and the lingering odors of the immigrant men who cared for the lawns–even the carefully lidded and masked reeks of wealthy garbage.

My ears twitched, maybe like Reyn’s do. The noises of the night shifted from indistinct background clutter to specific sounds. The sounds of upscale suburbia, already asleep or soon to be going to bed. Huge houses cooling off from the heat of the day, settling into their foundations. Breezes slipping through trimmed hedges and topiaries. The first stirrings of rabbits and a few brave moles, sniffing the air. A few birds. Some sounds of traffic. A security patrol car moving slowly through the neighbor two streets over.

I opened my eyes. The darkness of the night had become twilight for me. Not the brightness of day, but close enough. I looked up at the sky above me and saw all of the stars, more than any city dweller ever knew existed behind the veil of light-polluted darkness that closed over the city every night.

You see now why I’m tempted to stay this way?

It’s not like I’m taking these parts of her from Reyn, by the way. I’m not even borrowing them, really. So it’s not as if I’m leaving my poor, dear Reyn blind and deaf while I go in to do the job. Rather–and, really, I’m just guessing here–I think I’m just using her as a template, a pattern maybe. Remaking myself, temporarily, in her image.

I don’t understand how or why it happens, or even how or why it can happen. Maybe Mom and the Sperm Donor Whose Name Shall Not Be Uttered gave me more than just brown eyes, a lanky frame, and an irritable disposition with tendencies to larceny. Or maybe I watched too much TV as a kid. Or spent too much time talking on cellular phones. You know, radiation and stuff. Or whatever. Tell you what, you figure it, you let me know.

Still, I had one more thing I needed from my little Russian Blue.

This part is almost painful. OK, fine. It hurts like hell. My muscles tensing, pulling, cramping like my period, but all over and like I got beat up both pre and post. Then finally releasing into relaxation so complete, and yet so powerful, that I always let out a long sigh of relief and pleasure. Pain, yes, but it feels so good.

Stronger, faster–and maybe even better looking–now. I wrinkled my nose at Reyn, who blinked in response, and then I’m off, slipping from shadow to shadow, leaping up and over when necessary. Quiet. Like the darkness around me.

I’d been casing this entire block for three weeks, and this house specifically for the last week.

I’m not Robin Hood. I’m a thief, and most of the time I’m stealing just for myself. I don’t have a mortgage–homeownership comes with too much baggage–but I do have bills. Rent, groceries, cat food, digital cable. Just another working stiff, that’s me.

I could, of course, steal from less wealthy people and do almost as well for myself.

But I’m also stealing for Reyn. And she can’t stand costume jewelry.

Copyright © 2006 by David Michael.