By Rik Haslam
“Don’t swear at me,” she says, as if bad language was the problem here. I calm myself down. It’s like I’m not even allowed to get angry, you know. I roll over, fed up with this shit.
“Is that it?” she says and she’s got that look of hers, all angles and pouted as if she’s just found out that I’m really dumb or something. “Aren’t you going to talk now? Can’t we even have a civilised conversation about this?”
It’s just a cat. Why it’s got to come in our bedroom, I don’t know.
“At least look at me,” she says.
Jesus. What is it with some people? I’m trying to let it go, keep some kind of perspective, not freak out, but the cat is a no no.
“Tom,” she says putting her hand on my back. Like that’s going to work.
“Oh, don’t storm off,” she says when I stand up from the bed.
“I’m not storming off,” I say, “I’m just done with this. You don’t let cats in the bedroom.”
“Who says?”
Ah. Right. I can see where this is going. I’m uptight. My parents are uptight. I need to chill out.
“Oh fuck off,” I say.
When I tug the bedroom door open the cat dashes away like it’s been caught listening in. I turn around and Carla’s putting her bra back on. I point to the landing, just outside the room. “It’s me or the cat,” I say.
“You know,” she says, sneering at me like I’m a mouse she’s just been playing with, “You’re making this real easy for me.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rik Haslam is 39 and a short story and fiction writer. He runs Anything But Hackneyed — a London based writer-reading event featuring a mix of well-known published novelists and new talent. He is currently completing the final year of an MA in creative writing and working on the final draft of his first novel. During the day he is a creative director for an ad agency, writing for the man.
