Chapter One: Kitty Got Claws

We met at a party.

It was one person or another that threw it, I really can't remember now.

It was highschool. I was a plus one for a guy that was trying to make some 'hot' chick jealous. She was this saucy red head - you know the type - with a nonexistent waistline and shorts that rode up to the high heavens. She slept with five guys on rotation, but they called me the slut-next-door. And I'd never gotten laid once.

Until him.

It all began at that party.

We got wasted together. Smoked pot. We streaked and jumped into a lake in the wee hours of the morning, but we were too stoned and out of our minds to care.

It was never meant to go this far. But...it did. A year later, we were still doing each other without any hope of stopping. Our bodies were driven mad with addiction for one another, and it was an impenetrable force that couldn't be broken or swayed. Every Friday night we gave to each other. For a few hours, we'd have sex, and then he'd leave or I would. There was no such thing as pillow talk on our nights together. And now that our next Friday night just happens to be my eighteenth birthday, I was expecting at least a little fanfare because of our not relationship.

But then I realized...he didn't know my birthday.

He didn't even know my name. To him, I was Kitty. When I put on that persona, I was a daring vixen that knew how to work her body and please anyone that climbed into her bed. But plain old me was nothing like that. And Kyo would never know.

We were both just starting our senior year. But it was fine…I had everything under control.

"I can't do this anymore," he says, rolling over on his side so that my black sheets hugged his hip as sweat clung to both of our bodies. "My grades suck and I can't let my GPA slip or I'm done."

I was tired. I was distracted…I was even a little boozed up before he came over. But if there was one thing I knew about Kyo, it was the fact he didn't give two craps about his grades. So I knew he was lying. I just didn't get why he would try to stop this now, after all this time.

Instead of calling his bluff, I say, "What does this have to do with it? We only spend one night together, its not like I'm your girlfriend or anything."

"You don't think I know that?" He hisses, glaring at me. "Girlfriends are a big waste of time. All they do is piss and moan about their ex-boyfriends and say that you just have to be like them because you're a guy. They demand that you buy them crap and rail on you if you don't, and they expect you to compliment them 24/7. I never want you to be my girlfriend."

For some reason, that hurt. It made my insides feel twisted up and a feeling I'd forgotten welled up before I could do anything to stop it. But right now, I was Kitty. I was no one else. Kitty wouldn't have been offended; she would have worked it to her advantage, turned the tables on him. So instead of letting the pain show, I replace it with determination. I purse cherry, kiss-swollen lips and look at him through my eyelashes, drawing his attention to me and not his tirade. His eyebrows furrow, like he can see through my game, but he makes no move to change my mind. I let the sheets fall from my chest and crawl towards him on my hands and knees, swaying my hips. I flop down right next to him on the bed and he rolls on top of me, crushing his lips against mine as I thread my hands through his bright orange hair.

In the daylight, he was filled with anger and hatred; he carried a massive chip on his shoulder and no one was safe from his expletives or insults. But at nighttime on Fridays, when I had him all to myself, he was aggressive sometimes…but gentle others. I'd only seen the tender side of him twice, and it had been awhile.

His hips roll against mine and he bites my lip, eliciting a sigh of anticipation as I run my fingertips down the curve of his spine, the tanned skin warm beneath mine. He drags his lips across the hollow of my collarbone, smoothing his palm over the inside of my thigh in a trail of heat.

And we continue on like this for an hour before he swings his legs over the side of the bed and pulls on his boxers, keeping his back to me. A year ago, he refused to ever let me see his back. It screamed trust issues, demanding that you stay in front of him so that he could never be stabbed in his most vulnerable place. But tonight, on my eighteenth birthday, he revealed his vulnerability to me. And the genuine me couldn't help but smile, pleasantly surprised at this sudden change of heart. But it wasn't enough…not today. I was lonely and my parents probably wouldn't be back for a couple days more. I just wanted someone to share my birthday with. And he was the closest thing to a friend that I had.

"Kyo, don't leave," I breathe out, a flutter of apprehension filling my chest. "We can just lay here. We don't have to talk about anything."

His back muscles tense, no longer attempting to slip into his shirt. Everything in the air pauses as he just sits there, like he's processing what I said and thinking everything over. I cross my arms over my chest, watching as he scratches the back of his head and exhales heavily. After what seems like forever, he responds.

"I should have known this would happen. But I figured you'd never get clingy, Kitty. I thought you weren't like that."

My form snaps taut as I straighten and attempt to make sense of what I'm hearing. "Excuse me? What's that supposed to mean?"

"What? Do you not understand Japanese?" He growls, turning around so that he can properly glower at me. "I said I should have known you'd get attached. I thought you knew what this was."

I laugh, my heart hardening with each breath of air. "What this is? You mean screwing each other and then pretending like we hate each other every other day of the week?"

"Who said I was pretending?" He asks, flailing his hands. "You're annoying."

The sensation of tears threaten to give away the hurt inside; it takes Olympian effort to switch the sadness to anger and fix my lips into a grimace. "I'm annoying except for when I'm getting you off. I guess you must like it, if you get hard whenever I'm with you and I touch you or look at you a certain way."

I didn't care if he thought I was being crude or whatever. He can't do this bull to me and then expect me to just roll with it. He opens his mouth to argue, to further his cause and tell me that it's over. But he surprises me when I see him smirk instead, and his crimson eyes incinerate me as they meet my eyes again.

"I knew there was a reason I keep you around." He gives a resigned sigh, throwing his shirt off to the side before getting underneath the covers again. There's three inches of space between us as he lets his eyes slide closed, his lips flattening into a line again.

"As long you don't talk and I don't have to tell you anything, I'll be around."

I clap once, throwing the room into darkness with my sound activated light switch, rolling over so that I lie on my stomach and stare at the shadowy outline of my hands in front of me. I feel cold without his warmth covering me or the headiness of being connected to him in a way no one else was allowed to. But I knew he had boundaries. And once sex was done, so was the contact. He would never touch me or talk to me or call me beautiful outside of it. So I settle for him sleeping beside me, keeping his distance, and not telling me goodnight as I massage the bruises left on my hands from practice in the ring.

Because I know he won't say it, I whisper it into the darkness, as the sound of his even breathing permeates the three inches of space between us.

"Happy Birthday."

...

No legit author's note because I'm going into hiding. I can't believe I posted this. Bye friends! I'm out.