My girlfriend keeps her halo on the nightstand. From my side of her bed I can just see a glowing arc of it, obscured by my wallet and a box of tissues. Her sheets are white and the lacy bed-skirt hangs down all the way to the floor, where it swishes about softly in the breeze that comes in through the open bay window. We're not exactly on the beach, but we're close enough that you can almost taste the salt in the air.

I always wake to see her stretching her thin arms, yawning and making soft sighs to herself. Sometimes she hugs her little shoulders. Sometimes she sits cat-like on her haunches, with her hands together in front of her. Sometimes she sways and coos as if receiving a gentle caress; her eyelids flutter, and she smiles, with her mouth closed, content.

For a little while I pretend to be asleep, watching her enjoy the breeze and the sunlight, the coolness of the bed, or whatever it is that seems to bring her so much happiness. She wriggles her shoulders and unfurls her wings; blowing the silk canopy outwards. The billowing sheet collapses in slow motion as she folds them in again. Her dove-white feathers are sweet and smooth; rich, earthy, but somehow immaculately pure. I hold my breath and drink in their beauty as they slide silently together and flutter across her naked body. Lailah, she looks how cream and strawberries taste.

She fits the halo above her head, its glow warming her golden hair. She rises from bed with her wings tucked curtly across her nude back. Her toes touch the floor and she glides across the room, her hips swaying as if she weighs nothing at all.

I'm trying to catch a glimpse of her ass wiggling as she walks, but her wing-tips are in the way. She arches her back and tosses her hair, and I'm watching the crisp morning light play across the little gap between her thighs. After all this time, I'm still consumed with lust for her. Kissing her lips is like drinking great draughts of cool milk and spiced honey. I wonder, not for the first time, if this is all wrong. I even asked her once, when she was still flush and sticky with sex, "Lailah," I asked her, "Is this wrong?"

< 2 >
Maybe I'll never know. Maybe I have to figure it out for myself. She kneels at the window. Birds are just starting to sing outside, and she runs her pearl-colored comb through her hair. A hundred strokes on one side, a hundred more on the other. Watching her, I fall back into the lazy sort of late-morning dreams that are so full of meaning at the time, but later I know will seem foolish. As the morning breaks, I can see her in little snips and vignettes, half mixed in with my wandering dreams. Now she's singing gently. Now she's eating half a grapefruit and licking the spoon. When I finally throw the sheets off and sit up, she's leaning on the bed at my feet, resting her chin in her hands. She says, "Good morning, Simon."

Cereal with little slices of fruit for breakfast. Clean clothes folded at the foot of the bed. I don't know why I've got things so good; I don't know why I deserve Lailah. Before she leaves for work I make love to her up against the breakfast bar. "Make love", that's always what I call it with her. Other girls I used to "fuck", or "nail", or "screw". It doesn't seem to fit for her though, doesn't seem right. Even with her dress pulled up around her hips and her hair whipping around her shoulders, she seems so above this place and this act. Even biting her lip and arching her back, even spreading her wings in bliss and knocking a vase off the bar, she seems so perfect and innocent.

She preens and straightens herself while I clean up. She kisses me goodbye, and she blows out the door.

I should get out of the house. Maybe go apply for some jobs. I should at least put on some pants and get outside. Pants first though; once I've got that figured out, everything else should fall into place. Pants are in the laundry hamper. Doing the laundry, that'll be a good chore to start the day. Lailah likes to fold the clothes though, I can never do it right. Maybe I'll let it wait till this afternoon, get some more perspective before I decide whether to do it myself or let Lailah take care of it later. I've got to have pants though. Maybe I'll just wear them dirty. Lailah hates that, kind of makes me look like a shlub. Don't want people to think I'm the kind of guy who can't find a clean pair of pants in the morning.

< 3 >
Sometimes I hate how good things are with Lailah. I should just go hang out with Rick and Sarah. Maybe kick back a few beers, maybe get smoked out. I grab some clothes out of the hamper and throw them on before I rush out the front door, almost tripping down the stairs in my flip flops, almost fleeing from the perfect antebellum porch.

*

"You know, Simon, I can smell her on you," Rick says. He's leaning back into the patched old sofa we found out in front of the house down the street. I wish he would stop staring at me with those blood-red eyes. Sarah is pressed into him so closely it seems like you can only see her eyes and her purple lipstick-smile. Rick is running his fingers through her black hair, running them up and down her short little horns.

"You spend too much time with her," she says, and she flicks her tail behind her, rhythmically. "What do you two even do together?"...................................