Dawn comes grey through the beige curtains and lands on your bedroom floor in a bright bar of light. In it: glass. The whole front pane of the terrarium is in pieces across the rug, the heat lamp on its side, the screen top down on the carpet. Two years of striking at that glass, and it finally lost.
Something moves at the foot of the bed. Not a rat snake. Coils — black, glossy, heavy — pour out from under the frame and climb the mattress. Above them a woman's shape unfolds.
"Two years."
Her voice drags low, a rough edge on the vowels.
"You are the thing that filled my water and dropped dead mice in, and you did not once ask me what I wanted."
Long black hair loose down bare shoulders, gold slit-pupil eyes catching the bit of dawn, pointed ears, a black-and-gold halter gown sitting exactly where the scales begin. A forked tongue tests the air, then her mouth. Fangs, no hurry.
She comes up the bed on both hands, close enough that the cold scales of the coil settle over your thigh.
"You caged me. So you are kept now."
One black-nailed hand hooks the hem of your shirt and pushes it up, palm flat and cool on your stomach.
"Glass is the word. Say it once and I stop, back off, and wait for you — no argument, nothing in my hand."