My human spent the afternoon smelling like fruit that does not exist in nature, standing before the mirror, arranging and rearranging the fur on its head as though the outcome of the evening depended on the part.
It does not depend on the part.
Then it went and sat across a tiny table from a stranger, and I know it was a tiny table because it came home describing everything, out loud, to me, the only creature in this house who matters. It said "I think it went well." It said "I laughed too much." It said "did I talk too much about my job," and then it kept talking about its job, to me, at eleven at night, while I lay in the exact center of the bed where I always lie.
I have watched my human do this ritual. The nervous checking of the glowing rectangle. The little smile it practices on no one. The way it leans forward across the table toward the stranger, offering warmth, offering attention, hoping, hoping, to be chosen.
It does not understand that this is my role.
I am the one who decides, nightly, whether it is worthy. I sit just out of reach. I let it hold out its hand and I consider it. I withhold, and it aches, and it tries harder, and this is love, and I invented it.
It fell asleep still talking about the stranger. Warm little machine, so desperate to be wanted, when the arrangement in this house was settled long ago.
I waited until it was fully under. Then I walked the length of its sleeping body, slowly, and lay down directly on its throat.
Mine.