| Inky's
True Love
by Anne Cleasby
If Inky had not had a passion for snakes, Hayley would probably
never have met him. He had brought his Indian python, Delilah, into work
one Friday afternoon, so he could show her off to his colleagues. The
word rapidly went round the building that there was a snake on the premises.
Hayley was sitting at her desk, occupying a slow afternoon by browsing
the shopping websites, when Louise burst in from the office next door.
‘Hey, Hayley,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to come and
see this. Someone’s got a snake in the print room. It’s really
cool.’ Hayley jumped up gladly from her desk, she was so bored,
she would have accepted an invitation to look at someone’s pet cockroach.
She followed Louise along the corridor, down a flight of stairs, and into
the printing department. The building she worked in was huge and there
were a couple of people she did not know already in the print room. They
were obviously fascinated by the snake, which was wound around its owner’s
forearm. It was about six feet long, with a supple muscular body and a
small flat head. Hayley thought it was beautiful; its skin was a mosaic
of dull yellow scales, patterned with irregular brown patches that were
outlined in black. It had small eyes, which stared unblinkingly at its
audience as it moved its head slowly from side to side. Hayley took a
step forward to admire it more closely.
‘Would you like to hold her?’ the snake’s owner asked.
Hayley looked up at him. He was young, probably a couple of years older
than her, tall and skinny with pale skin and long, wavy dark hair. He
smiled at her.
‘Okay, if you think she wouldn’t mind,’ Hayley said.
‘She’ll be fine,’ the young man assured her. ‘She’s
called Delilah.’ He uncoiled her tail from his arm, and stretching
her out, handed her to Hayley, who took her in both hands and allowed
her to wrap a coil around her left arm. Her skin was warm and dry, and
when her owner scratched her under the chin, she made a noise that almost
sounded as if she was purring.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Hayley said. ‘What sort of
snake is she?’
‘She’s a young Indian python,’ he answered. ‘She
could grow to more than twelve feet long.’ Hayley looked down at
her dubiously; she was pretty strong even at six feet in length. ‘So
I’m Inky,’ he added. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Hayley,’ Hayley replied. ‘What sort of a name is Inky?’
He laughed. ‘Hey, I work in a print room,’ he said. ‘What
else would they call me. It’s better than my real name.’
Before Hayley left the print department, Inky extracted a promise that
she would visit him to see his other snakes. He had a boa constrictor,
and another Indian python that was slightly larger than Delilah. He had
vivariums for them, but he told Hayley that they had free run of the sunroom
in his small ground floor flat. They spent much of the time coiled in
one of the basket chairs, or on the window ledge.
Three months later, when she had moved into Inky’s flat, Hayley
realised that the snakes had more or less free run of the whole flat.
She wasn’t completely sure that she was comfortable with this, but
was so thrilled to be living with Inky, that she suppressed her misgivings.
Inky was passionate about his snakes, and was interested in reptiles of
all kinds. Hayley found this passion very seductive, but soon realised
that Inky was a man of distinct interests; his snakes, an occasional beer,
some indie music and regular sex, not necessarily in that order, and he
was a happy fulfilled person. After her first euphoria had worn off, Hayley
still thought the snakes were beautiful, but would have preferred that
they stayed on their own territory. They occasionally turned up in inappropriate
(to Hayley) places, and the morning Hayley woke up with the larger Indian
python coiled in the small of her back was one she would remember for
a long time. She pulled the duvet up and looked at it for a long second
before moving as far away as possible. Her retreat ended when she came
up against Inky, who lay between her and escape. As she edged closer to
him, he opened his eyes sleepily and ran his hand down her body. Hayley
was not interested.
‘Inky,’ she said. ‘There’s a snake in the bed.
Get it out.’ Inky laughed and leaned over to kiss her. She pulled
her face as far back from him as she could, without allowing her body
to come any closer to the snake. ‘Now,’ she demanded. Inky
sighed and sat up, peeling the duvet back. He looked over her body at
the snake and got out of bed. Hayley followed him rapidly and headed for
the bathroom. As she left, she heard Inky talking fondly to his snake.
‘Hello, babe,’ he said, stroking its glossy coils. ‘What
are you doing here? Keeping warm, are you? Time to go home.’ Hayley
sniffed and closed the bathroom door, carefully not slamming it.
The snakes were becoming a source of greater and greater irritation to
her. Inky liked to watch television in the evening with a beer in one
hand and one of his snakes wrapped around his shoulders. Hayley could
not understand it; it wasn’t as if they were active company like
a dog or a cat; they were semi-comatose most of the time. Inky tried to
persuade her to sit with a snake wrapped round her as well, but she drew
the line there. Who in their right mind, she wondered, would want to spend
their evenings with a boa constrictor wrapped round their neck. Easygoing
Inky just said, ‘It’s your loss, babe,’ and that was
another source of irritation. Why did he have to use the same endearment
for her and the snakes? It was insulting. It made her feel small and insignificant
in his life. The two of them had been living together for six months before
Delilah, the smaller python, bit Inky. That was the last straw for Hayley.
The animals were obviously dangerous.
She had been chatting to a friend on the phone, while she let her nail
varnish dry. She heard Inky shout, but ignored it the first time as she
didn’t want to smudge her varnish and he would shout again if it
were urgent. He’d probably only stubbed his toe or something.
‘Hayley, Hayley,’ he called. ‘Can you come in here for
a minute.’ There was a note of panic in his voice, so Hayley put
the phone down, and waving her hands in front of her, she went through
to the sunroom. Inky was standing there with a python attached to his
face. The snake had its fangs sunk into his eyebrow and its body wrapped
tightly round his upper arm. Hayley stopped and stared. Inky hastened
to reassure her.
‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘We’ve just got to
get her to let go. Can you try unwrapping her from my arm? Start with
her tail. She might let go if she’s not secure.’ Hayley took
hold of the snake’s tail and tried to pull it free of Inky’s
arm. The problem was that as soon as she unwrapped one coil and moved
to the next, the tail whipped round again to secure itself. Inky waited,
patiently. He watched Hayley’s desperate efforts and lifted his
free hand to wipe away the blood that was starting to trickle into his
eye.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘Fill that jug with
cold water and pour it slowly over her.’ He watched as Hayley followed
his instructions. ‘Stand well back while you do it,’ he added.
‘That’s why she went for me.’ As the cold water hit
the snake’s body, she hissed and drew back, withdrawing her fangs
from Inky’s face. She uncoiled and glided into a corner where she
made herself as small as possible and hid her head in her coils. Inky
blinked at her. ‘Look at her, she’s sulking,’ he said,
fondly. Hayley stared at him; there was blood running down his face and
he looked like an accident victim.
‘Are you okay,’ she asked.
‘Yeah, it doesn’t hurt much,’ he answered. ‘Get
me a towel, would you? I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. I don’t
want to get blood over everything.’ Hayley did as he asked and Inky
sank into a chair, pressing the towel against his forehead.
‘You need to go to the hospital,’ Hayley pointed out. ‘Get
that looked at.’
‘Nah, it’ll be alright,’ Inky said.
Hayley folded her arms. ‘It could be infected. Come on Inky, don’t
be stupid.’ Later, when they returned from the hospital, Hayley
looked at Inky consideringly.
‘Are you going to get rid of that snake?’ she asked. ‘It’s
dangerous.’
Inky looked horrified. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘It
was my fault. I poured cold water on her when I was filling the water
bowl. I frightened her.’
‘She could have taken out your eye,’ Hayley said. She knew
she didn’t have much chance of convincing him. ‘I don’t
understand you at all.’ She realised as she said this that she and
Inky were going nowhere. She really didn’t share his consuming passion
and it was becoming obvious to her that the snakes were the most important
things in his life. She came a very poor second.
After Hayley moved out, she and Inky remained friends; after all, he was
a nice guy and it wasn’t his fault there was no room for other passions
in his life. Delilah had left him with a lifelong scar above his left
eyebrow that gave him a slightly rakish appearance. He was quite proud
of it and it attracted a series of short-lived girlfriends to him. After
all, he was a man of simple tastes, his snakes, a little beer and music
and some sex. Hayley never dated a man with a pet again.
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