Blind Carnival

Mr. Thornton

She takes his hands and slowly puts them on the sheet near his head, keeping their eyes locked. The bed is a mess because of their vigorous pillow fight, and the duvet has slid off on the floor. She curls her fingers and gently runs her nails down the insides of his forearms. His eyes are dark, Dodger blue, lips slightly parted. He's the iconic image of a properly randy male person, and she's so loving it! She starts leaning towards his lips, while her hands return to his wrists. She's going to encircle them, in a very sexy gesture, clearly mimicking the restrains, and he's going to get even randier, and then–

And then his face suddenly distorts in a tortured grimace, eyes squeezed, nose scrunched, and before she can ask what's wrong— he jerks under her, lifts his arm, and sneezes into his bent elbow.

And then he sneezes again, loudly, his whole body jumping on the bed. Myrbaka, the latex mattress from IKEA, gives his heavy body a nice bounce, and that's quite stimulating, since with the help of inertia the tip of his cock hits the sensitive back wall of her fanny.

"Do you have a cat?" he asks.

He sounds stuffed. And his eyes are now red. Oh poop.

"Yeah, I have a cat. His name is Mr. Thornton. He's somewhere in the living room probably, despising both of us."

Her suspicions are confirmed by another sneeze muffled by his elbow. She's starting to shake with laughter. Don't get her wrong, she's sympathetic. She's a ginger, pale skinned, and she's allergic to anything and everything. Except cats.

She stretches and picks up a box of tissues. She hands it to him, and he wipes his nose. Has she mentioned she's bonkers about his nose? That's a nose any protagonist in her novel would only dream about. It's long, prominent, noble, straight, and all other banalities. She's always had a thing for long noses. Out of all Austen adaptations, Emma has always been her favourite. She's embarrassed to say that for her the famous P&P pond dunking scene still fades in comparison with Jeremy Northam's impish side glance during the archery practice - and his nose! Since she was a pre-teen and later through her uni years, posters of actors decorated her walls, and all of them had those... hooters. Her mum used to call it a fetish even before fetish became Olivia's vocation.

"I'm allergic," he says and gives her a shy smile.

"I've reckoned," she giggles. "Do you want some Claritin?"

"Yes, please."

He looks bashful, and she'd kiss his poor runny nose, but– no snot, thank you very much.

You know what's the funniest thing? You guessed it. He's still properly hard inside her.

She climbs off him, and suddenly she feels rather self-conscious. Putting on her clothes feels silly; she doesn't have a robe or anything in the bedroom, since she'd frantically cleaned up everything. Putting on his shirt is too cliché even for her.

She sprints out of the bedroom, imagining how he watches her naked buttocks disappearing around the corner, and in the hall she meets the source of the current barney.

Mr. Thornton is a large, endlessly spoilt moggy, whos' mostly black, with a few neat white patches. He looks grumpy and cantankerous just as usual. Altogether if he were a person, he'd be a cynical undertaker. Or a Victorian England cotton mill master.

"No, Mr. Thornton, you can't go to the bedroom."

Mr. Thornton gives her a disdainful look over and twitches his whiskers. You're naked, human. And you look daft.

"Please, go back to your basket in the kitchen. I'm going there now. Would you like something?"

Her tone is obsequious.