Page 75 of Architecti
She double takes at what I assume is my apartment’s moth room.Her face scrunches and tips this way and that.Her mouth forms around the wordswhat the fuck.
“I swear they weren’t here when?—”
“When you broke into my apartment to watch me masturbate?”I say, folding my arms and leaning a hip against my kitchen counter.Probably not the most appropriate time to joke, but I need to lighten the mood after what happened tonight.
Her jaw hangs loose.“I… umm.It was just a little light stalking…”
“They’re my…” I start, but Mortem strolls into view and distracts me.
“They’re her pets,” he says.
“You call those ‘pets?’”Midnight answers.
“I mean, no…Idon’t.”
Mortem meows.“They’re pets, like me.”
He’s solid enough that I lean down and give him scratches under his chin.“Actually, I believe you foisted yourself on me.”
He bites my hand and then rubs his head into my shins, asking for more scratches.“I’m the best part of your day and you know it.”
Midnight throws the moth room several surreptitious glances.“But they’re…” Her face scrunches so tight I don’t know how she can see out her eyelids.
“Dead?”I ask, the hint of a laughter twitch tickling my lips.
“Yeah,” she says almost whiny.“Why would you want dead moths?”
“Well, they’re reanimated so they’re not, like, dead-dead.”
She glares at me.
“Okay, they’re dead.But at least they won’t break my heart by dying.”
“That is… a bizarre thought process.Whoa,” she says as one of them flies at her head and she attempts to swat it out the way.
“Careful.They’re extremely delicate.Stay still, I bet it will?—”
It does.
It lands on her forehead.
She goes rigid and this time I do laugh.She looks extremely,intenselyuncomfortable.
“I would like you to get it off me,” she says very calmly but with absolute authority.
I do not, in fact, get it off her.
I burst out laughing.
“Now.Please,” she says, more insistent and an octave or two too high.But I’m gone.The more she protests, the more I buckle.
“It’s just a moth,” I say through breathy hysteria.
“I have a strong aversion to them, given what the ashkissing entropy moths do to me.”
“These aren’t entropy moths.They’re just normal ones.”
It moves, dancing across her brow.She flinches and makes a high-pitched sound.
