A Fluffy Tale (3 page)

“I'm serious. I…I don’t want to hurt him. I
love him.” Pyon twined his tail around Julian’s arm and then stared up at him
with his pretty green eyes. Julian realised it was true—he did love Pyon. He
just…didn’t know the first thing about how to look after him. “And I don’t want
him to die young either. So help me or shut up.”

Linis stood up and stalked slowly over to
Ledbetter so he could lean up against his chest and be cuddled. The look of
serenity that came over Ledbetter’s face was so strange—so beautiful, in a way.
Julian suspected that no one and nothing in the world was as important to
Ledbetter as Linis, which was completely freaky. He didn’t know anyone this
involved with their kem at all.

On the other hand, Linis was very well
behaved and Ledbetter was a successful lawyer in perfect control of himself, so
whatever he was doing, worked.

“Will you help?” Julian asked, somewhat
more politely.

“Depends on how hard you want to work. It’s
not just diet. You have to give full attention to your health and to Pyon. You
can’t even organise yourself to do your ironing.”

Julian hastily pulled his jacket
closed—he’d meant to do his ironing, he really had, but he’d been busy thinking
about Pyon… “I'm so tired when I get home from work, that’s all.”

“Yes. Because you eat rubbish, never
exercise, don’t sleep enough and your leisure time is spent, what—watching
television? Playing on the computer? I bet it’s not spent with Pyon.”

“He plays on his own.”

“Yes, but he’d rather play with
you
.” Ledbetter sighed, and for the
first time, almost looked human. “You don’t understand. No one does. Kems love
their hosts. No other company is superior.” He looked down at Linis and a small
smile crept onto his lips. “And no other company is superior to them.” He bent
down and nuzzled the top of Linis’s tawny head. “They’re the perfect companion,
and you’re all Pyon needs—or would be if you let it.”

“You make it sound like you don’t need
other people in your life.”

“I don’t.” The coldness was back. “This
isn’t about me. This is about you. Will you commit to working or not? I don’t
have time to waste if you won’t.”

“I will. I want to do whatever it takes.”

“Then dispose of that trash, and fetch
yourself water, a chicken salad and a wholemeal roll. No coffee, no butter. A
big
glass of water.
Pyon will wait for you.”

Though stung more than a little by the
haughty tone, Julian did exactly as ordered. When he returned and sat down, he
opened his mouth to ask another question, but Ledbetter stopped him.

“No. Eat. Concentrate on that task alone.
Enjoy the food, and then let Pyon enjoy it. Take your time—you have an hour.
Use it.”

It was the strangest and most uncomfortable
meal Julian had ever had, trying to concentrate on his food while three pairs
of eyes watched him. He wouldn’t have thought eating a simple chicken
salad—which wasn’t too bad, really, even with the vegetables—would have been so
hard. His fingers seemed to have forgotten how to hold a fork, or how to break open
a bread roll without making a mess. Ledbetter said nothing as he watched,
stroking Linis and Pyon with the same careful attention as he’d shown to them
before.

At last the damn food had gone. “Happy?”
Julian asked as he put his fork down.

“It’s nothing to do with me…ah, see? He
was
hungry,” Ledbetter
said when Pyon suddenly jumped up and into Julian’s chest. “And I bet he’ll
stay out longer this time.”

“What does how I eat have to do with Pyon?”
Julian was sure this guy was making fun of him.

Ledbetter regarded him coolly. “You wolf
down your food and never taste it, so of course you don’t really enjoy it. You
choose food that is easy and simple in flavour, which is digested too quickly
and which leaves you hungry a short time later. Kems need the same things which
make a person healthy—good quality protein, vegetables, complex carbohydrates,
monosaturated fat—and water,” he said, pushing Julian’s glass at him. “And
knock off the coffee—it’s very bad for you and for him.”

“I get headaches without it.”

“You get headaches because you’re addicted
to the caffeine. It’s doing you no good, and not even keeping you awake. If you
can’t cut it out immediately, cut down, and on the weekend, quit completely.
Switch to tea, if you must. Kems are very sensitive to certain drugs, and
caffeine is one of the worst.”

“Okay,” Julian agreed reluctantly. It made
sense—but he did love his coffee. “So I eat right and Pyon will be better?”

“It’s a start, but it’s not enough. You
need a full eight hours’ sleep each night, and you need to exercise.”

“I don’t have
time
,” Julian said. “And gym memberships cost—”

Ledbetter made the ‘tch’ sound again. “How
far do you live from work?”

“Uh…about two miles. I catch a bus.”

“Yes, which takes you about twenty minutes.
Walk—it’ll take you very little longer. When you toughen up a bit you can start
running.”

“Running! I’ve never done it—well, at
school, but I was really crap—“

Ledbetter stood up quite suddenly. Linis
leapt up onto his shoulders to stare down as disdainfully as his host. “You
said you wanted to work, yet every suggestion I’ve made, you’ve whined about. I
don’t have time for this. I pity your kem deeply—but you’re a waste of oxygen.
Good day.”

Julian’s mouth, which had been hanging
open, snapped shut as Ledbetter walked away, long back stiff and straight,
Linis draped around his shoulders. “What the…?”

He thought they’d been having a
conversation, and then… That guy had the social skills of a lizard.

Damn it and he was late. He’d done nothing
but be chewed out and eat a salad for a whole bloody hour.

Pyon appeared at his desk while Julian
distractedly checked what new files had arrived. He looked just the
same—cheerful, scruffy and irresponsible. Adorable. Julian scratched under his
chin and then picked him up. “Can I really help you, Pyon?”

Pyon chirped and cuddled close. Julian
rubbed his face on the top of Pyon’s soft-furred head and wondered if he could
do this—with or without the arrogant Mr Ledbetter’s help. He just had no idea
where to start.

He had to get healthy. A
health food store? There was one not far from the office, so he dropped
in there after work.

That turned out to be one of his less
clever ideas—not only did Pyon go berserk (after being unusually quiet that
afternoon, which had lulled Julian into a false sense of security) but in
between chasing after him and apologising furiously, Julian couldn’t find
anything that looked like real food at all among the shelves and shelves of
dried up, brown and unappealing things that he couldn't begin to name, or the
jars and cans and cartons of mysterious, insanely expensive pills and powders
making elaborate claims that, frankly, he found incredible. All the books were
either about losing weight or becoming a muscleman. Not a single one was about
looking after kems—or just becoming a normal healthy person. Healthi
er
, he told himself. He wasn’t sick.
Pyon was, and that was enough.

Thinking of Ledbetter’s scorn, he ignored
the bus stop and began the long walk home—but quickly realised his office shoes
were just not suitable for this. Damn it! He needed shoes, and good food, and a
book on what to eat, or something! All of which meant going into the centre of
town to the main shops—and Pyon was already up to mischief. Of course his kem
reappeared just as he pondered all this. “Can’t you just…stay inside while I
shop? Please?”

Pyon chirped, licked his chin and then
disappeared. Julian blinked. Was that all he had to do? Ask nicely?

“Pyon?”

His kem’s little head popped out of his
chest, eyes alert, waiting for Julian to tell him what he wanted. “You’re a
good boy, Pyon,” Julian said—for the first time in his life—and Pyon trilled
with delight. Julian patted him. “Now, you stay in there while I sort this out.
It’ll take about an hour.” And damned if Pyon didn’t actually
seem to be listening. Why hadn’t it occurred to him to just
ask
before?

The excursion took a bit more than an hour
but at the end he had a new pair of trainers, a sack full of vegetables, fish
and other expensive necessities, and a book on healthy eating. By then he was
just too footsore to contemplate the walk back, so he read his book on the bus
home, and almost missed his stop, he was so engrossed. Only as he put his key
in the lock did he remember that Pyon was probably waiting for permission to
come out again.

“Pyon?’

His kem bounced out joyfully and leapt onto
his shoulder so he could lick Julian’s ear and cuddle up to his hair.

“Wow, you missed me. I'm sorry, little
fella.”

Ledbetter seemed to be right about that
too—all Pyon really wanted from him was love and attention. And manners.

Supper was grilled turkey, stir-fried
vegetables and brown rice. He realised that he’d have to invest in more cooking
utensils and probably some cookbooks too. The food sat well on his stomach,
though, and Pyon was quiet and no more than pleasantly playful. Score another
point to Ledbetter and his strange obsession with kems.

Filled with good intentions, he spent the
evening cleaning the apartment, did his laundry and ironing, and sorted out his
food stores. Then he made a list of what he needed to buy when he went grocery
shopping next. Pyon took a great interest in that, perhaps somehow working out
it was to benefit him, sniffing at the list and even licking it at one point.

“Hey, that’s not good nutrition. Paper’s
not listed in the book!” Pyon chirped, walked over on top of the list and then
lay down on his back, paws wagging. “I see—that’s a hint, is it?”

Julian ruffled Pyon’s tummy fur and grinned
at the inane look of pleasure on his kem’s face. He couldn’t remember the last
time Pyon had felt like such good company. Was this all it took? Some attention, some decent food? All these years of
complaining about his annoying kem, and the answer was
this simple?

He looked up more information about diet
and food on line and then at ten took himself firmly
to bed. Pyon curled up on his head but Julian didn’t complain this time. It
felt kind of nice, actually.

The walk to work in new shoes nearly killed
him, especially as he’d foregone his breakfast coffee and had a vicious headache
as a result. But Pyon loved it, popping out to run around and explore with
little squeaks and chirps of pleasure, and Julian had to admit it made a
pleasant change from staring down someone’s cleavage or at the spots on the
back of their neck for twenty minutes. He’d overestimated the time it would
take to make the trip so he arrived ten minutes early—the first time ever—and
Carole looked about ready to faint with shock as Julian walked in.

“Coming in early to fix up a mess?”

“No, I just felt like walking,” Julian said
airily, giving her a grin and sauntering casually down the hall. Pyon sat
sedately on his shoulder the whole time, though he ran off as soon as Julian
got to his desk.

There Julian could take the new trainers off and massage his aching feet.
He was supposed to walk home too—it’d kill him. But he felt good—sweaty, but
good. The headache was pretty fierce, though. He reached for his desk drawer
where he kept the aspirin, but then stopped. Ledbetter had said kems were
sensitive to drugs. Was aspirin one of them? He wished he could just email the
sod and ask him but he’d rather gnaw his arm off at the elbow than face that
man again. He shut the drawer and squinted against the headache as best he
could.

Being healthy took a lot of work. He had to
think
about eating, instead of just
grabbing stuff. He had to make time to do more shopping, and go to more places
than the one store he’d been using. He had to spend more time cooking, and then
cleaning up instead of just throwing containers away. And the walking was tough
at first, though after ten days, he found it a lot easier. But the change in
Pyon was nothing short of a miracle—people in the office started to notice
after the third day. A week later, and Julian could
see
the change in Pyon’s fur as well as his behaviour. It made him
so ashamed that he’d let his kem suffer all these years for the want of so
little
, but Pyon didn’t hold a grudge,
or care. He was happy and healthy and that made Julian ridiculously happy too.

He’d seen Ledbetter at a distance a couple
of times, but always made himself scarce, memories of that icy flaying far too
fresh for him to want to invite a repeat. He hadn’t seen him again in the
canteen—perhaps Ledbetter was avoiding him too, or maybe it had just been a one
off, since the senior staff didn’t eat there much. Whatever the reason, Julian
was glad not to have had another bruising encounter with the man.

Julian promised himself over this weekend,
he would look into buying a set of weights, and maybe even a gym membership,
though he didn’t like the idea much. The problem was, he’d never been
particularly sporty, and neither were his friends, most of whom were computer
nerds and gamers. Julian didn’t really have a competitive bone in his body. All
he’d ever wanted was an easy life. He was saving to travel and that was his
long-term goal, but right now, he just wanted to work and live without any
hassle. His mother fretted about him getting married. Telling her he was gay
would lead to hassle, so he hadn’t. Fortunately, he only saw them every couple
of months, and his brother was getting married at the end of the year, so that
took the attention off him. With any luck, he’d have saved enough to travel
before he had to have another uncomfortable conversation about the girlfriends
he didn’t have.

The canteen was a bit of a challenge
food-wise, but going out at lunchtime meant jostling with hundreds of other
workers for the few takeaways around the office and the food wasn’t worth the
effort. But by now he had it worked out, and his lunch was as healthy as he
could reasonably make it. Pyon perched on his shoulder and peered over to
supervise Julian selecting low fat milk, a salad without too much dressing,
chicken breast, wholegrain bread, and a tangerine. Adding fruit was something
he still had to think about, but he’d rediscovered his childhood love of
oranges and bananas, and he’d already noticed how much Pyon seemed to
appreciate the change in his diet.