People call me BC. Big Cat. A nickname I've had since I was a boy. However, during my years at art college I was known as 'Fluffer'. These are the stories of that time. Fluffer's tales.
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"I won't go down." Mazzy's Irish lilt was husky after her gig. Behind her, the early-dawn city lights slid by as the taxi took us home. "I know it's selfish and you can do whatever you like, I love it all, and I'm on the pill, but I won't suck you. I'm protecting my throat, my voice, is that okay?"
This was more than okay for two reasons: First, Mazzy was beautiful; I mean the kind of angelic beauty you rarely meet in the flesh, male or female, the kind that startles you. Her dark ringlets framed a fresh complexion of apple cheeks, bee-stung lips and ice-blue irises that were hypnotically encircled in black. Someone who flattered you just by standing next to you, they didn't need to kneel at your feet as well. Second, up to that point I didn't know that sex was even likely.
Mazzy's band was a local sensation. The bluesy psychedelic punk outfit were good, they'd even placed in the charts, but she elevated them to greatness. Not only did she look like she was from a different realm, but her sweet vocal also offset their percussive noise and made you want to tear your heart out and offer it to them.
And believe it or not, it was Mazzy who introduced herself to me.
Whilst waiting for the band to start, I leant on a barstool, chatting to Sara and the cool art-school crowd that had brought me to the sweaty little basement. Mazzy came onto stage and the audience erupted. She surveyed the crowd, then jumped down, her aura parting people around her as she walked right up to me. I just stood there, jaw dropped, lobotomised by excitement and panic. She gave me this winsome smile and took my stool, dragging it up onto stage.
My friends nudged and jeered but Sara took it too far when she had the band dedicate a song to 'Fluffer'. It was like a smack in the face. Mazzy made me feel attractive and special. They reminded me I was dirty and ordinary.
After the gig, once the DJ kicked off, Mazzy chatted in a dark corner with the band, drinking Perrier. Sara dared me to introduce myself, so I bought two bottles of water and ploughed through the crowd toward her. She saw me approaching, peeled off from her group, and met me halfway on the dance floor. Then we were actually dancing.
Fucksake I am a very, very bad dancer. Think Frankenstein with a ferret down his trousers. I tried to ignore the circle of gawping people around us that I'm certain were thinking, "Why's Mazzy dancing with... that?"
Then Mazzy reached up to my head, dragged it down to her level like a microphone and shouted into my ear, "Shall we sit down? I hate dancing, I'm just shite!" Bless her. She was a brilliant dancer, well to me anyway.
Huddled in a booth in the shadows, we swilled fizzy water and laughed at people trying to look cool and made ourselves small so she didn't get bothered by fans. Mazzy pressed so close I had to put my arm round her. "Pretend to be my bodyguard," she shouted.
I don't know what kind of bodyguards she was used to but I just literally guarded her body, holding it close to mine. I could feel the heat of her skin through our clothing. That's how we communicated in fact, the whole night. One of the best conversations of my life.
When Mazzy asked me to see her home, still in character, I pushed through the crowd to hail her a cab. She held my hand the entire time and dragged me into the car with her, where we sat silently until she asked, "So what's with the "Fluffer" thing?"
I explained. She reddened, turned her head to the window and I felt like a sleeze. That's when she came out with her bombshell and I nearly wept with excitement.
She lived in a swanky penthouse flat apparently on loan to her from a PR agency--all sleek white and city-views. "It's kind of like being a squatter," she announced, slinging her keys onto a slab of marble that, I suppose, was the kitchen. "I could be kicked out any day. The minute my bubble bursts I'm back out on the street. No record deals, no flat. You want to take a bath?"
She didn't wait for an answer, just slinked up a hallway and into the bathroom, discarding layers of her gothic milk-maid outfit as she went.
The bathroom was entirely marble, floors, walls, ceiling, even the double-sized bowl of the bath sunk in the middle of the room beneath a skylight like a Bond set. Mazzy stepped out of her skirt and, just in her bra and thong, twisted taps to gush steaming water. Her skin didn't look real, it was so perfect, more like part of the translucent stone around her.
She clicked her fingers at me to strip off too then folded her arms and watched with a smile on one cheek that seemed to both mock and smoulder. When I got to my shorts, I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her, relishing her oddly familiar shape against me.
"So is kissing ok?" I said.
She nodded, her eyes gleaming. "Kissing is my thing." She offered up her face.
Her lips where huge and she kissed in soft paddy presses, mouth closed and almost nipping at my lips with hers. I grew insanely hard against her soft stomach, and couldn't help but push it against her.
