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Pretty little thing sitting on a bridge

She can't be more than nineteen

Her face is lit by the glow of a cell phone

She's cute, young, and naive

It's moments like this when I feel my age

I remember being that young

I was such a fool to the world

Protected by all, prey to the predators, meat for the grinder

Now an adult

I think, I walk, I look, I learn

I don't feel as much as I used to

Nerve damage ... less testosterone

I don't get as hard as I used to, thank the gods

It was too hard to think, with my pants all bulged out

Of course I miss the sex ... but being able to think is a fine trade off

Josh closed his notebook and leaned his car seat back a few notches. Glancing at his watch made him sigh. It was only ten o'clock, Katherine would be home some time in the morning but that was still a long way away. She said she was out with a client, but he knew better. The private investigator's photos showed him what he had suspected; his wife in the arms of another man.

He was a scary looking guy, young, with muscles and tattoos. The kind of guy who used to push kids like Josh into lockers when they were in high school. The kind of guy who marked his territory by pissing all over the walls in public restrooms. The kind of guy who specifically targeted married women, because seducing her meant beating out another man who had already claimed her.

Josh looked back up at the girl he had been stalking quietly. A young teen sitting on a bridge, legs dangling precariously over the edge. Snow gathered in her red locks, feathering out, melting slowly. An ethereal beauty, like Katherine when he first found her. He remembered the tingles he felt when she was near. Tightness, numbness, breathlessly feeling like the luckiest dork in the world.

He had no idea why she married him. Maybe she thought she loved him but then got bored. Maybe she just needed a man to kick around who would not hit back. Maybe he was her refuge between violent, passionate flings.

Josh looked at his wedding band. He knew why he married her, it was the same reason he was sitting here now. He debated taking it off. Maybe that would make him feel better about the tingles this girl gave him. He put his fingers on the band and gave it a little tug, then stopped. Katherine's glacial stare flashed in his mind, chilling his blood, and he could not disobey.

His gaze floated back up to the ginger angel on the bridge. Trembling legs pushed her to a stand but she did not return from the dangerous side of the rail. She was leaning forward, eyes cast out over the horizon. Her cellphone plunged over the side and he watched it fall.

"NO!" Josh shouted. He did not remember opening the door and springing from his car, but he was moving quickly toward her. "Don't!"

"Why not?" she yelled back. "Don't come any closer!"

Josh stopped. The chill in the air seeped into his bones but it was the girl who froze him in place. He had no good reasons to bring her back with. No amazing speeches about the wonders of the world and the glory of all God had created. The void in his own life turned his tongue to limp clay. She looked back to the water.

"You don't understand," he began to say but he felt too stupid to continue.

"What don't I understand?" the girl cried. "I've no family, no money, no home! I'm just ... done."

"But you can't," he told her as his slumbering soul stirred. "It would kill me to see you jump."

"Then look away!" she retorted bitterly. "Ignore the stupid girl and her stupid life and all the stupid choices she ever made!"

"I can't!"

Somehow she turned and held him in her gaze. Green eyes flashed as her red hair blew in the wind. Courage old man. "I ... I've been watching you." A kaleidoscope of emotions washed over her features as the many meanings of those words sank in. He knew he was a creepy old man, maybe a decade older, lusting after this young girl, but she had to hear it. "At night, you come here and watch the sun set. I can't draw but I write poems. You ... you're like my muse!" She stared at him and bit her lip. "If you come with me, I promise to help you out. Please ... please give me a chance."

Her pale face held no decision for painful seconds, but then she smiled and Josh felt his heart flutter like a boy in high school fumbling his books on the floor. She climbed back over the railing and walked toward him. Sudden tingles of warmth rushed through him, fighting away winter's chill.

Moments later they were driving. Both were mute but it did not matter. The car was heated and she was no longer in danger of plunging to her death. Heat from the blower amplified her scent. Sweat, dirt, smoke, and wild spices all mixed, spreading a rush of tingles through veins and capillaries that ached from lack of use.

Well, he thought, that hasn't happened in a while. He stole a glance in her direction; she was looking out the window, watching the world go by. With effort, he looked back to the road. Her life was in his hands and he had to make sure they made it ... to ... where? Where were they going? Should he take her home? That was where the car seemed to be heading. Kathrine was with her thug ... it would be okay for him to have a guest.

Josh debated this all the way into his driveway, brawled with his conscience as they pulled into the garage, and smothered the offending voice with a pillow when he let the young woman into his home. She took off her ragged coat and dropped it on the floor. Leading her to the kitchen, Josh flicked on the lights and put the kettle on.

"Coffee, tea, or hot cocoa?"

"Anything," she said with a depressive shiver.

Josh brought out the hot cocoa packets. He figured she needed cheering up more than waking up. "Are you hungry?" She nodded. The florescent lights of the kitchen exposed every cut, bruise, and piece of dirt on her body. Her cheeks were sunken and her hands were full of veins and bones. "Enchiladas?" She nodded and almost smiled. He moved quickly through his kitchen and, by the time the water was boiling, he had reheated a plate of food and placed it before her.

Starvation threw manners to the wind as her famished body trembled at the bliss of reheated meat and beans. She all but licked the plate then happily sipped the hot cocoa. Looking up, she caught him staring.

"What?"

"I'm sorry," he said with a chuckle, "it's just ... my wife would never eat that. She's afraid it will make her fat."

"Hmmph," she muttered as she sipped more hot cocoa. She finished the mug then gave the most contented sigh Josh had ever heard.

"You should take a shower," Josh told her. He realized that may not have been the smoothest thing to tell a young woman in a fragile mental state so he added. "That will warm you up on the outside too."

She smiled and followed him to the bathroom. He got her a towel, pointed out the tricky faucet, and then gave her some privacy. Josh's skin prickled when he heard fabric slide off of smooth skin and fall to the floor. He imagined her for a moment then thought about how ragged her cloths were.

He had not noticed right away. Her sly eyes and natural grace could not be smothered by mere garments. She deserves better. This thought spurred him to action, assaulting his wife's closets. An old bathrobe she never used and clothes put away for some time when the world ended. He knocked and cracked the door.

"I've got some clothes for you," he told her, slightly disappointed he could not see her through the steam. "I'll leave them on the counter."

"Uhm ... thanks," she said as he closed the door.

Such a pretty little thing, he told himself. A moment later the faucet squeaked off and the damp red head emerged in the robe.

"Uhm ... sir?"

"Josh," he told her. She smiled.

"Josh, these are really nice but they look expensive." She held up the silky panties he had bought from the specialty store and it was his turn to smile.

"I bought those as an anniversary present, but my wife says I have bad taste and will never wear them."

"Oh," she smiled, then twisted away and slipped them on. "Mmmm ... these feel good."

Josh thrust his hands into his pockets and adjusted. The girl picked up her clothes and began to take things out of the pockets.

"If I could impose ... can I wash these?" Josh took the clothes from her and stared critically at the stains and holes.

"No," he said, dropping them into the garbage.

"Hey, I need those," the young woman protested.

"No, you don't," Josh told her. "Here." He went back to his wife's closet and pulled out some designer jeans.

"I couldn't possibly-" she began to protest.

"My wife's had these for years and they're a little too tight now."

"Oh," she said then turned crimson as he pulled out a sexy blouse and put it on the bed. "Uh, that's nice but-"

"My sister gave that to my wife for Christmas, but she won't wear it just to annoy her. Oh look!" He pulled some leather boots from the back of the closet. "She bought these at one of those expensive boutiques but won't wear them because someone at work has the same pair."

"You're just going to give this all to me?" Tears were forming at the corners of her grateful eyes.

"Sure, she's not using them." He looked away holding tight to his own tears. Katherine had been using him for so long he had gotten used to it. She had treated him like she treated all things, with a sort of playful indifference that led to neglect.

The young woman moved over to him and put a caring hand on his shoulder. He did not move until her soothing touch reached for his face and turned him toward her. For a moment he just stood there breathing her air. Her breath was thick like a properly spiced steak and he found himself swallowing hard.

"Please," she asked in almost a whisper, "do you have anything else that your wife doesn't use?" The emerald sparkle of her eyes showed her meaning, but before his lips could form a response, she was kissing them. Her tongue slipped strands of fire into his mouth that coursed through his body. He kissed back like a suckling pup, so hungry and dead inside, nursing from her life giving teat.

Josh could not break the kiss. They wrapped around each other, her body curved neatly to his, crushing him with her desire. The plush robe slid to the floor and his sweaty hands traversed the wretched skin that stretched over brittle bones and malnourished muscles. They clung like the victims of a shipwrecked, exchanging their profane plethora for the other's poverty. Their useless wealth was thrown to the other's hunger and they devoured each other gratefully.

Skeletal fingers worked with skillful precision to strip his layers. She pushed him down and climbed on top, blazing a trail of playful kisses down his neck ... his chest ... his stomach. Velvet lips wrapped around his lust, drinking in that which an unfaithful wife had long since discarded. Katherine would leave but he no longer cared. She would take things that had no meaning, leaving him free of her and the impossible demands of a user who was never satisfied.

The strain of years gathered together and he released his frustrated desire. Sweet lips pressed in and cheeks dimpled from suction as the girl drank it up. Lust and agony were drained away with every shudder of his body until finally he relaxed with a sigh.

Contentment settled into him and he drifted through the darkness. Something flickered in the unimportant distance and then something began to glow beyond his closed eyelids. A brilliant radiance was emanating from the famished orphan. A soft reddish shimmer covered her like fur. Ears slid back and the otherworldly swish of something like a tail was soon joined by another, and then another, until there were five.

When she settled, she slid off the silk panties and surrounded his face in a tent of soft hair. Josh looked into her eyes. They had not changed. He could still see her.

"Thank you," he told her and she smiled.

"You are much too kind a person to be tortured in this way," she said in an almost musical voice. "I am Kitsune. Please, enter my body and be free."

"But ... you have already freed me," he told her, completely unafraid. "You have allowed me to do good. You took away my pain. You have shown me the way."

"Then do this because I want you to," she said with a smile. "Do this because I want to feel your life as it fills me."

"I am not worthy," Josh told her but obediently he entered like a humbled worshiper. The fires of elation settled over him and a moan of ecstatic need slipped from his lips. A lithe body settled onto him and her mouth found his. Strength had returned to her features and Josh felt that power flow into him as he flowed into her.

The shock of a second release filled him with pleasure but somehow there was more. The release did not soften his body nor did the shivering delight quench his flame. He thrust forward, rising and falling with a hunger that had numbed him years ago. Kitsune's body rolled over his, drawing him toward new kinds of majestic highs. This creature was passionate heat where Katherine had drained Josh like a succubus and left him a ragged corpse. Now, emotions returned like old friends gathering after a war fought far from home.

Claw-like fingers dragged over his flesh, tilling him like hard soil, propagating faith, restoring hope, and culling his weakness and doubt. Josh moved slowly, breathing deeply with a focus normally reserved for meditation and prayer. Hands kneaded pert breasts and then drew her close. She felt like healthy muscle, pulsing blood, and righteous heat. His heart beat with desire that belonged to her.

Neglect transformed into warmth as Josh reached into the darkness and found her. His efforts drew small growling noises from his lover which encouraged his efforts. They struggled together in the dark. Bodies glowing as energy mixed together and seeped into every part of their being. It tingled through his veins and caused him to call out in ways he had never allowed himself to in the past.

Passions built until every part of him was brilliant with light. He overflowed with a scream and filled her as she had asked. Emotions spiraled through each other into the entirety of their beings. He closed his eyes and could still see the light. He felt like he was falling into a bed of eternal love. Like a newborn cradled by his mother, he was safe from the world. Finally, there was peace ... and then there was sleep.

*****

"Joshua! Joshua, wake up! Joshua, are you going to sleep all day? Hey, I'm talking to you!"

The voice was familiar but the words held no power despite their petulant cold. Morning light crept in through cracked lids and he took a cleansing breath. A dark shadow stood over him, trying to smother the joy that he had found in his heart. The shadow had perfect hair, a fresh business suit, and was ready for another important meeting.

"Morning, dear," Josh said out of reflex.

"Good morning," Katherine hissed, unable to hide her loathing. "I take it you are not going into the office today."

"No," he said with a guiltless smile, "no, I think I'm going to quit."

"Well, that's a great idea," she said with obvious sarcasm. "Then what are you going to do, go to Disney Land?"

Josh closed his eyes and took another deep breath. Kistune was gone, but her scent still lingered. Though her absence left him missing her, Josh felt no fear, no anger, and no hate. Somehow there was only an eternal peace that came with knowing his next actions would be both effortless and gratifying. He got out of bed, put on his robe, and opened the nightstand.

"I think I'm going to divorce you," Josh said as he withdrew the envelope of evidence the private investigator had made for him. "You can have the house and the things inside. All I want is some clothing and the ability to never see you again."

Katherine sputtered, her porcelain mask fractured and her inner demons spilled forth. She howled like a banshee, cursed his name, and told him she would take everything he owned for the rest of his life. The torrent of angry words flowed around Josh but did not touch him. When Katherine's rant subsided, she took a startled breath and then rushed to the bathroom where she was noisily sick.

"No, Katherine," Josh said when she finally stopped, "this file proves your child is not mine." She could not get up from the ground. She looked up at him, defeated. Josh felt he should gloat over her but somehow he only felt sorry for what she had become. Without mockery he dressed, gathered some belongings, and then faced her. "Goodbye, Katherine. You'll hear from my lawyer tomorrow."

THE END