Chapter Eleven – A Duel at Dawn

Chapter Eleven – A Duel at Dawn

“Breakfast is the mmmmmost immmmportant mmmeal of the day!

Touch mmmine and you’re a dead mmmmotherfucker!”

–Marvin the Marmoset, Marmo-Os mascot, 2054

***

“Cat! Nose stole my spatula and won’t give it back!” Lucy called out from the kitchen.

I blinked, trying to process all of that. It was… seven forty in the morning, which meant it was way too early to deal with anything strenuous. Last night had had me laying on our bed, downloading a few terabytes of kung fu straight into my brain, and at the moment I was suffering the morning-after consequences of that.

Basically, I felt like I was dizzy, without being dizzy.

I blinked as Nose came running out of the kitchen, spatula held proudly before him like some sort of trophy. The little shit was grinning the grin of a victor.

So I swept in low, spinning my hips around and bending one knee so that my centre of gravity lowered even as my leg shifted outwards. I held back at the end, slowing down so that my low kick was more like a low bump that caught Nose’s shin just hard enough to send him flying.

Then, since I was low already, I reached around and caught him around the torso, one arm grabbing him around the front, the other snacking through his arms to lock him in place.

I landed on my shoulder, with the little shit stuck in a headlock. “Gotcha, bitch!” I said.

“No!” Nose shouted, then he started to squeal like a pig caught in a bear trap. “Lemme go! I don’t want eggs again!”

“What are you on about?” I asked as I put my new grappling techniques to good use and kept the little shit locked in place. Eventually I caught him so that I had a hand free, and I was able to pluck the spatula away.

“I’m tired of eggs! It’s all Lucy ever makes in the morning!” he whined.

“What? Bitch, are you some little rich corpo shit that gets to pick what he eats in the morning? You’re going to eat what Lucy puts on your plate and you’re gonna be happy about it! The secret ingredient is love! The secret spice is my boot up your ass!”

Nose squirmed for a while, but he eventually conceded defeat against my superior strength. It was good to put my new martial arts to the test, even if it was just on a precocious little asshole that lived under my roof and who wasn’t happy eating my breakfast.

I freed Nose, gave his behind a (not so) firm kick, then plucked the spatula off the floor where it had ended up in our tussle. “Lucky little shit,” I griped. “If my heart wasn’t made of gold I’d beat you black and blue!”

Nose ran down the corridor, stopped, then took a moment to flash me both middle fingers before he scurried off.

Shaking my head, I slipped into the kitchen where I found Lucy hard at work overseeing breakfast. There was toast in the toaster, eggs sizzling on a buttered pan, and a large pot of beans was slowly warming up. “Just toss that in the sink,” she said without looking back. “And I’m not making bacon. That shit throws up grease all over, it’s a pain to clean and it’s honestly kind of scary to cook.”

I tossed the spatula into the sink, then swept in behind Lucy and tipped her back so that I could better plant some kisses along the side of her neck. “Did I tell you that you’re beautiful today?” I asked.

“Not yet, but I could stand to hear it a few more times,” she said before turning her head to give me a kiss that made me forget everything for a moment. “Ah, go sit down. I don’t want to burn any of this. You can have the first serving, for valiantly saving my spatula. What did Nose want, anyway?”

“He said he was tired of eggs,” I said.