The Bird Woman

The kisses were birds, thought Cal. Hummingbirds, probably. The caresses were the pre-game, the main event yet to come. He sighed to himself. He didn't feel sexy, or cute, or attractive in any way. He felt natural, and at ease; which was, in itself, a mirage. He was only fully at easy in the bird house, the curse of the passionate zoologist. Any erotica was related to birds. He didn't accept this to be inaccurate, or disturbed. Humanity, through all its elusive and brilliant history, had depicted sexual organs as animals. Women became birds: chicks, birds - even hen nights. They weren't really birds, of course. They were hot-blooded, intelligent mammals who gave birth to live young - and Cal was immune to them. The bird beside him now - what was her name, again? - was trying her best. Cal was comfortable, and his mind, lethargic in its comfortability, resumed to thinking about birds. He supposed that if one could appreciate women as he could not, they would give one wings. If he could love a human, one might touch him (like the flutter of a wing) and lift him up (predatory birds; maybe vultures or condors).

The hummingbirds settled on a branch. They had beady eyes. The nectar was noty all that they had presumed. Not poison, exactly, but nothing special. Strnage, that hummingbirds have a preference about flowers...but then he remembered: kisses are not hummingbirds. The woman (it was definitely a woman, not a bird, not a bird, not a bird) was watching him and she could tell (hummingbirds can't suspect a lack of enthusiasm, can they?) that he did not particularly care what she did. It wasn't that he was resistant. It wasn't that he was aggressive or cold or brusque. He was simply not there. He had drifted away to the cocks and passion birds and toucans and God knows what else. Perhaps he was in the rainforest, hoping to be one of the lucky zoologists who discovered a new species of bird. Ironic really, when he couldn't discover his own species of bird.

"Not in the mood?" whispered the woman. The hummingbirds were gone, but her voice reminded him of feathers. She was a nice woman - Cal thought that about most women, not having compiled a functional database yet - and she didn't seem to mind. Cal feigned an embarrassed shrug.

"It's not your fault. I...I've got other things on my mind, is all," he tried to explain without lying. Cal was a useless liar. Interacting with animals all day long, he didn't get much practise. If she had been looking, the woman (what was her name? Jo? Jane? Jasmin?) she might have seen that he wasn't apologetic. Cal wasn't sorry he had invited her back to his flat, but he wasn't too thrilled at the presence of her in his bed, either. She was getting up, pilling on her clothes. She wasn't in a hurry. Systematic, meticulous. Bird-lilke.

"You don't have to go," he said. He was suddenly drawn to this bird woman. Her attitude was bird, her body woman. Her body was tricking him. She glanced at him, mildly interested.

"Your body did the talking for you," she replied. Ah, thought Cal. Women could fake pleasure, fake the whole thing, frankly, and no-one would be any wiser - but men weren't given the same luxury. He didn't want sex. Her body was a trick, a trap. If he grew attached to that, he would lose her beak, her talons...he just wanted to lie and be still for a while. He wanted to watch her as she watched him, to make the hummingbird return to its nest. No migration, not yet, not yet, not yet.

"It is now. I work well under pressure," he told her. He was right. He had aroused her curiosity - if nothing else. The hummingbirds were back, with more force. The hummingbirds had changed, into a more....predatory approach. She was hunting now. Fast, direct. She was a hawk, he was the field mouse. Nearly, nearly, nearly, almost there. Lift me up, far away, anywhere. She pulled back. She wanted something.

"Say my name like you mean it," she commanded. He couldn't speak. Her hands were talons. They dug into his chest, his nipples. They were hurting. The boundaries of pain and pelasure were blurred. Mary, Maggie, Marie, Monica. One of them. How many women's names could there be? Too many to guess. He was too hung-over to guess.

"Oh....God....." he managed to say. It was something.

"I'm God?" she smiled. He heard rather than saw it. Each species has a distinctive hunting call. WIngs beating on each side of him. Beaks together, tail, feathers, talons, all of it at once, why not. Don't fly away yet.

"Do you even know my name?" No. No. No. No, I don't. But that's not important. The important part is that you're a bird. The woman thing was a misttake. Not my mistake or your mistake, maybe God's mistake...they put us in the wrong boy but we've found each other it's okay, names don't mean anything, do they?

"I'll know it when you say it," he explained. She let him go. The field mouse dropped back to Earth, the impact fatal. It smashed his brain. She ran. Birds, they don't run. They have more grace. They fly. But she'd gone. He was not a nest, he was a rest stop between migration spots. Come back, little bird. Hre, chick, chick. But she had flown away.