LELIA

    

    What belonged to her was hers alone and now she could feel the sudden white-hot anger choking her inside like an imploding star, turning in upon itself, pulling into her silent rage the entire table full of them, even the entire island. Just to see him smiling at her, this other woman, this stranger. While she, Lelia, had given him her body twice now, in the sea, had bathed his prick in the slick of her.

    Who is this bitch? How dare he?

    It was dinnertime and Lelia was a little angry.

    They sat at the taverna at the farthest edge of town, overlooking the bay. Danny, Michelle, the German girls, Lelia, Dodgson and now this other one. It was the best place in town for fish and seafood and Lelia saw that the cats knew it too, probably better than the tourists did. They prowled the floor searching for morsels of food, a bit of kalamari here, a flake of swordfish there. Over a dozen of them. She’d had to shove one away in order to pull out her chair and sit down, a mangy little tabby that looked at her hopefully now, creeping close. As though it knew.

    Cats.

    That’s what the bitch was saying.

    “Idon’t like ’em.”

    Sitting right next to him, a pretty green-eyed blonde. Dodgson listening as though he could care. As though he could actually give a damn.

    Her face was burning. She bathed it in a cold inner control.

    Billie. A man’s name. Billie Durant. From England, Danny said.

    “Cornwall, actually."

    You little cunt.

    Lelia forced herself to talk to her. Make her face you. Yes.

    “You have a problem with cats?”

    “Well, yes. When I was a child, you see, six or seven, I got between a pair of them. It was very stupid. They were fighting.”

    She laughed. Her teeth were very white and even.

    “Little bugger left me with some very pretty scars. Here…”

    She indicated a long curved line on her left calf. A good calf, thought Lelia, golden brown. No doubt she was a real blonde too.

    “…and here.”

    There were two smaller scars at her collarbone.

    “And here.” She poked at her thin blue dress just above the left breast. She laughed again.

    “Climbed me like a bloody tree.”

    “Could we see that last one up close, please?” Danny said.

    “You’re lucky,” Dodgson said. He pointed to the scars at her collarbone. He was right, of course. They were only inches from the jugular.

    “I suppose I am. They had to pull her off me, you see. I still don’t care for cats much.”

    Noted, thought Lelia. The tabby at her feet nudged her ankle with a dirty wet pink nose.

    “You must be…uncomfortable,” she said. She swept the cats with her gaze and then fixed upon the girl, who met and held her eyes.

    “A little. Perhaps just a little.”

    There was just enough reserve in her voice so that Lelia knew the girl had heard her, had heard subtext as well as text and was resolved to tough it out. All right. Dare me, she thought.

    “That’s a shame,” she said.

    And hugged her rage like a lover.