He was in the lift to Fulvia's floor once again. By now his remote control of devices that surrounded him was so ingrained that it had become virtually second nature. He had called the lift to the ground floor as he entered the building, and only just managed to avoid selecting a floor remotely, in front of the other people in the lift.
He stepped out into the foyer, and across to her door, holding the basket of oils behind his back. As he pressed the doorbell a voice breathed into his ears from Sally: “Good luck baby, and bisous.” He shot back at her, “Get out of here. You promised not to watch.” But she had already broken the connection.
Fulvia opened the door, and bid him enter. She looked even more beautiful than she had been in the restaurant. He could see an inner radiance, as if she had become possessed of fire. Her eyes came alive as soon as they alighted on his face, and a warm, crooked smile told him he was welcome here.
He did not need to try; he did not need to fake his desire; he reached out, and pulled her to him. With his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck he turned her face towards him, and kissed her, hard on the lips. He held her tight against him and pushed her to the wall. In that very public hallway he did not care who saw; he did not care what they might think.
After they broke apart, her face flushed and his heart pounding, he handed the basket to her. “Run a bath. Full to the brim, I want it hot. Then I will bathe you, stroke you, tease you, until you melt, until you become one with the water. So that I may drink deep of you, and have my fill. I want to possess you completely.”
She looked around the foyer, rather fearfully. “God! Come inside. People might see us. They might hear what you are saying.”
“If they wish to look, then let them, and be jealous of what we have. And if they chose to listen and what they hear offends them then, so what?”
She pulled him inside, closed the door, and then she was in his arms, caressing his face, whispering in his ear. “How do you do that? How do you make me so turned-on?”
He looked deep into her eyes, "When I look into your soul I get pulled in so hard, so fast that I find it hard to look away. You inflame my passions."
He stroked up her arms, then held her shoulders, breathed a deep sigh and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he gave her a warm smile, and leaned down to peck a kiss on to her forehead. Then he spun her round and playfully swatted her backside: “Go run the bath. And use plenty of the foam. I want you covered in it, from head to toe.”
She skipped off down the passageway, like a little girl, giddy in her charms, and on her way to a day out in the park.
The voice of the blocks roused him, “Do you know what a Kubic Kat is?” they asked.
“Go away. Not now!”
“We are sorry, but it is time. We need to explain this to you before Fulvia wakes.”
He turned to look at her sleeping form. Her head was resting in the crook of his arm, and in an astonishingly cute way, she was sucking her thumb. After extricating his arm, he connected to the shower and switched it on, then set up the coffee maker to prepare him a morning cappuccino. He got up and walked to the bathroom naked. The shower greeted him with a pleasant ‘good morning’. Once inside he opened his mind to the blocks, “So what is a cubic cat?”
“The original Kubic Kat was meant as a joke. A man claimed that he could form what he called ‘bonsai kittens’. He claimed to be able to do this by placing young kittens into pre-shaped glass containers. As the kitten grew its bones, still being malleable, could conform to the shape of the jar in which it was placed. From this, various geometries were defined, the most popular and common forms taking the name ‘cubic’, or ‘cubist’. From there has grown the concept of the Kubic Kat.
“A mind when first born is at least as malleable as the bones of a kitten, so by forming the thought patterns into a particular shape, theory holds, that the mind itself will become warped to the shape of the container in which it is imprisoned. This is the core concept of the Kubic Kat.”
“Okay, I get it. We are all shaped by the cultural milieu in which we find ourselves, so in a way each of us is cubic.”
“No, you miss the point here. A cultural milieu is visible, changeable, a man can adapt to overcome its effects. No, the Kubic Kat is specifically designed. The cage for the mind is created before birth, and inserted, daily, into the routine of the growing Kat. As such, the Kat can never become aware of its cage, or of its own malformed shape. It feels, believes, and thinks that its shape is the natural shape for it. It can never escape the cage, for it is not aware of its own confinement, or even of the existence of the cage.”
“And, am I a cubic cat?”
“Yes.” Said the blocks, “for now, you are a Kubic Kat.” Then they were gone. He had become so attuned to them that he could now actually feel it when they disconnected.