Read Online Modern Serpents Talk Things Through by Jamie Brindle - Free Book Online Page B

that ...
    "It didn't take long," said Tina, softly. "Before I knew what I was doing, none of them were in any state to fight anymore."
    She stopped. She wanted to say more. She was so close. She took a breath, then another.
    She would tell all. She would. She would.
    A clock chimed, soft but insistent.
    Tina felt herself relax.
    "I'm sorry my dear, that's your time up." The voice sounded apologetic. "Let's pick up next week, shall we?"
    Tina nodded, unsure if it was relief or disappointment she was feeling.
    She clambered to her feet, shaking her scales and allowing the little shards of precious metals and gems to slide off her and back to the comfortable hoard where they belonged.
    Her therapist smiled at her kindly, peering over the top of her thick spectacles. In one claw, she was fingering the gold medallion that she always wore around her neck, rubbing it softly.
    "We did some good work today," she told Tina. "I'm sorry we have to stop here for now. But remember." She drew closer and laying one soft claw on Tina's shoulder. "You didn't do anything wrong. I can see you are carrying so much guilt. I see you walk in with it, every time you come to see me. But you don't need to carry those feelings. I hope you are beginning to see that."
    Tina turned her head, half smiling, embarrassed.
    The therapist led her out of the chamber.
    "Same time next week?" she asked, and Tina nodded.
    She trotted away from the cosy little cave where her therapist worked, and within a few moments she was airborne, sailing away from the place and back towards her home.
    I can't leave my worries there until next week, she thought. If only she could.
    No, her real problems were waiting for her back at home. And they weren't going anywhere.
    Oh well. Maybe next week she would be able to tell her the whole story.
    Once more, her mind flashed back to those few vivid moments, the feeling of finality, the hollowness of those four little puffs of life emptying away into the vast darkness as she extinguished them ...
     And the shameful, poisoned joy of refusing to do the same to the fifth.
     
    *~*~*
    The next day was the weekend, and at first she thought things were going well. She had gotten up after only an extra hour of lounging on her hoard, she had mostly stuck to her diet (low-meat yoghurt sprinkled with an only-slightly-naughty scattering of tasty mutton chunks), she had even made it to the gym. And while she had done all this, she had definitely not been thinking of the small warm creature trapped in the disused storage cupboard at the back of the cave. Not at all.
    On the way back from the gym, she thought she would treat herself with a copy of her favourite magazine, Modern Serpent. It was glossy and trashy, and she knew there were a thousand other more worthy things she could be reading, but it was easy and attractive and it made her happy. And it was flipping through the pages that things suddenly went wrong.
    She had just finished reading a review of Mountain Tales (a new, highly popular reality TV show that followed the various fortunes of twelve cosseted city-dragons that were moved into a huge mountain lair, and forced to endure all sorts of outrageous, parochial problems; each week, the public voted one of the dragons out, and the winner got to keep the mountain), and was meaning to flip forward to the horoscopes, when the pages just flopped open in front of her ...
    And there it was.
    It was if fate had put the article there for her to stumble on.
    She stared down at the headlines, howling up at her in lurid red lettering.
    "I TOOK A HUMAN LOVER ... AND IT BROKE UP MY MARRIAGE!"
    For an awful, impossible moment, she felt that it really was an accusation. She half expected to see a photograph of herself, staring guiltily from the glossy print.
    But no. When she forced herself to breathe, when she looked again, she realised that the story was nothing to do with her. Of course it wasn't.
    It was just an account of some slutty scum-wurm.