Molly has been really bad for about a week now. She's been waking me up really early by inserting her claws into my pillow very near my ears and then ripping them out slow and loud (which sounds kinda like a description of my date last night, but more on that later). It drives me nuts. I wave my arms around trying to swat her and she always eludes me, runs to her food bowl, waits just long enough for me to be drowsing again, and starts the process all over.

Yesterday I threatened not to feed them at all. I gave in just before I left for work.

This morning I was just not in the mood for it. I was having fantasies of holding her down and clipping her toenails as she yowled at the humiliation of it all. After the third or fourth claw ripping session, I got up out of bed and locked the cats out of the bedroom.

That lasted about 20 minutes (I reset my alarm clock so that I could sleep for 30 more minutes), and then Tux started shoving his paw under the door and pulling on it, making it go thunk, thunk, thunk. He can do this forever until either the door opens or his leg falls off. I heard the first few thunks and flew out of bed, whipped open the door and stomped after him through the house muttering really foul language.

Then I went back to bed for eight minutes.

Deb asked me if I was mad at something else and was just taking it out on the cats. That's not an unreasonable assumption, but I can't think of anything. Anyway, she spent the morning staying out of my way, asking if she could do anything for me, offering me the comics first, and taking a shower early so she wouldn't make us as late as she usually does on carpool mornings. She says she tries to be extra nice to me when I'm in one of these thundercloud moods.

It's not that I'm being ferocious or violent, it's just the way any normal level of anger and pissiness contrasts with my 95-percent-of-the-time extreme mellowness. I mean, any observer who witnesses one of these moods immediately thinks, "Holy, shit! What happened to Badsnake? Who is this?"

My solution was to buy a bagel and cream cheese and a chocolate croissant when I got to work. I'm hoping the carbohydrates will even me out.

The date was really nice last night. Not nearly as intense for me as last Monday, but Sara was way, way, way out in headspace.

I think I definitely need my preparation time ritual. I called Sara last night and left a message asking when she wanted to start the date. The next think I know, she was over at our house. I was still eating a little something for dinner.

Sara: "I'm going to go upstairs, take my clothes off, and wait for you."

Badsnake: *swallow* "Okay. Sounds good to me."

And it did. I thought that was pretty cool. But, since I'd been expecting at least another 30 minutes before we started, things weren't ready.

The futon wasn't made up, the attic was stuffy and needed windows opened, we were fully into the scene before I realized that I didn't know where my strap-on harness was and had to go looking for it (that's not good), and we still only had three towels upstairs.

So, I learned last night that my little prep time ritual isn't just for getting into my character's headspace. It's also my time to make sure that everything is ready for the date.

The date was still great, but next time I need to take the time to make sure I have everything I need where it's supposed to be first.

The scenario was Eleanor's return after a two-week business trip. Julian doesn't starve himself when she's gone the way Vincent did. So she had him tell her about the first woman he fed on after she'd left.

He began describing the hunt, and then she started describing what the victim looked like, reading his thoughts and memories (this is a new link thing that's gotten stronger between them recently). Annoyed, he told her if she was going to read ahead and not let him tell the story properly, he would stop telling her about it altogether.

Halfway through his story, Eleanor started channeling the responses of the victim. At first the thrill of discovering Julian was "real" and then the begging for him to change her into a vampire as well. That kind of wannabe stuff supremely irritates Julian, so he started having fun with her, telling her he didn't do rebirths, just deaths. El started echoing the genuine fear response then. Yum.

There was a point about 2/3 through the date where I let Sara doze off in my arms a bit. She said she was not aware of the details of anything I did after that because she was mostly in a sort of dreamstate/head space, flying. I inflicted quite a bit of nipple torture during that part, and also ditched my harness, dick and boxer briefs, spread my slick self wide and rode her thigh. I sorta wished she'd been present for that part, 'cause I wanted to know how she would respond to it.

We also talked about cages. And Julian bringing home a young stud that she could take down her throat while Julian fed on him. Have I mentioned that Julian is bi?

Mmmmmm ... kaaay-jezzzz.

Casualty list: sheets, foam rubber bed pad, three towels, two bed pads, one condom. We (and by "we," I mean Sara) also made quite a bit of noise with the windows open. Our new neighbor, if he moves in before air conditioner season, is going to love us. Or call the cops on us.

Oh, and as I was lighting candles, one of them lit and broke in two at the same time, sending the flaming match head to the ancient, very, very dry carpet upstairs. I slapped it out with one clap of my hand in .2 seconds. No burns or anything. Whew. Makes me think about how dry and probably flammable that carpet up there is though.