New Flash Fiction: "Black Cat"

[Not really sure what this is -- flash fiction? Prose poem? But as you all know I try not to get too hung up on definitions. Whatever it is, it's kind of growing on me. Running around werewolf country in France is definitely adding inspiration to these Halloween-inspired tidbits (although this one isn't particularly canine, more feline).]

Black Cat

Yeah, she was there with me.

Black cat, I said, come be by me, bad luck. Crouch by me, purr against my leg, why don’t you, Number Thirteen?

You and me roam the streets together, all gussied up in jewelry, rhinestone collars. We stand outside the walls of the temple, you and me, skirts too short, eyeing the passers-by, looking for trouble.

My skin has imperfections, moles, warts. Those are for you to suckle, familiar. You and me together. We know the score. We are what we are.

Callow boy passes. Got no idea what to do with two black cats. We’ll show him, won’t we, sister? Thinks he’s in charge, but that’s just what we want him to think.

Ready for a little fun?

We chase him down the blind alley, corner him at the dead end, by the overturned bowl of milk. We look in his eyes, we see his soul. We almost let him go. But we don’t. We’re hungry.

Pretty soon he’s our trouble, used up, thrown away. The way he did with those tabbies and calicos, those housecats who won’t have anything to do with us. Lucky for them, though, that we’re here.

They haul us in, accuse us. Oh, we’re guilty as sin. We did him for sure. But they can’t hold us (ever try to hold two black cats?) and we’re gone, slick beneath their fingers, slipping between their hands.