I didn't mean to. I promise. But it felt good, so good.
Should I start? Let me start.
Three days ago. Like Romeo and Juliet it was only three days ago. Her dress was pearl pink and laced with something, I don't know, but it sparkled and shimmered and the light made her wings glow. Her head was haloed in a light that glimmered and flickered so I couldn't see it straight on. A dollar rolled over her knuckles.
I took her home because I was the only one she would have dared chosen that night. I was not too drunk, but enough to attempt a swagger to the taxi. My words were only slightly slurred, and my girlfriend hated this, but she wasn't there. It was just me and the angel. Just me and the angel...
Ever slept with an angel? I'm not sure how to say it, or what words would do it justice. Imagine it, no, don't bother. I could share, but she's mine. All mine. Was mine. Was.
I learnt about angels that night. They don't drink coffee, or red wine. Well, this angel of mine did not. White wine, she took that. Nothing else, nothing stronger. She wasn't interested in the wine, though. Not when I relaxed a little in my house. Not when I pulled her into my room, tore away her clothes, saw her pale skin, soft and gentle and sweet and yielding under that soft dress...
The wings got in the way. I'll tell you that much. She had the decency to remove her halo, to leave it hanging of the rails in the bathroom so we were in peace, hidden from the brilliance of that light. Her nails were painted a gold-red, and her little toes curled under her feet. Her hair fanned out in commercial waves, blond and luscious.
That was the first night. We slept until the sun didn't cast a shadow and the pavement burned. We ate eggs and she drank wine again. I forced myself to drink water since I didn't want to dirty the air with coffee with her in the room. My head killed me, but not from the booze of the night before.
That night she didn't want to go out; it surprised me that she was still at my house. I asked her, and she didn't say. So I dropped it. I didn't want to force an angel out of my house, did I? We played Scrabble until she beat me. Angels know too much, I will tell you that now. She took a shower before we went to bed, a long shower and that pissed me off. Strike two. Coffee was number one. I hate long showers and anyway, call me a selfish bastard, but I wanted her right then.
When she came to bed, she smelt so sweet I could forgive her. An angel, in my bed, for the second night in a row.
The next day. Was shit. I made eggs again, only differently, but she didn't want them. Wanted muesli. Do I look like I have muesli? Then my girlfriend rang. Wanted to catch up. Managed to avoid suspicion on both sides, but truth be told I didn't want to leave my girlfriend. I wanted this shower-hogging-coffee-hating-angel gone. I had heaven in my kitchen, but I wanted my own personal hell back.
I tried to suggest this, but at the slightest hint she got annoyed. She'd put her halo back on, and whenever she blushed with anger her wings rippled and she looked so cute I wanted to make love right there on the cold lino floor. I gathered her shoes and bag and piled them all together on the couch next to her. Then I told her that I had work. Which I had forgotten about for the last two days.
She wouldn't take the hint. I told her I had to work, that my flat wasn't paid for by my parents, that just because she was an angel didn't mean she could order me around. She slapped me first. She slapped me with a massive crack across the cheek and she grinned like a school girl getting back at the bully for the first time.
She's an angel, sure, but I was pissed at her. So I slapped her back, then thought, "No." and left the room. I'm not sure, but I think she collapsed onto the couch in a mournful triumph.
Please note, I was not thinking straight here. An angel, right? No papers, from heaven, no one really cares, right? Right?
My dad's gun had been in my flat since he got old and was liable to use it just to see it what it did. A shot gun, loud and obtrusive and it felt so good in my hands that day. Her feathers fluttered in my mind as I pushed two bullets into the willing holes and snapped it shut. Those feathers splattered in blood.
I marched into the room and stood like a hunter lining up the prey. She screamed in a short breath then I didn't see or hear her. The gun filled the room, caressed my hands. It pulled its own trigger.
Her face vibrated from the shock, choked my throat and cramped my fingers with her look. The look of an angel, dying. The look of heaven, dead.
There's an angel in my house; she's dead.