Body

With the morning sun rising, a certain snake woman was jolted from her peaceful sleep, her eyelids struggling to block the excess light in the room. Her cloudy eyes fixated on her immediate surroundings, noticing a familiar dark-colored bird woman still enjoying her rest underneath their shared blanket. This bird woman, it turned out, was the snake’s girlfriend, an American crow, to be precise. From what the snake could see, she recognized her girlfriend’s talon-like arms, covered in black scales that revealed some of her musculature. Above her elbow the crow was covered in sleek, black feathers, reflecting bands of sunlight as a striking contrast to the otherwise pitch black. And her face was covered in similar, yet shorter feathers; her otherwise emerald-colored eyes were gently covered by dark, fleshy eyelids; her beak, about three-fourths as long as her head, rested above her pillow while she snoozed. The back of her head was adorned with tufts of longer feathers, tussled upwards to form a cute-looking short hairstyle, if one can call it that.

Just as the snake began to shift around a bit, one of the crow’s eyes began to open as well, the crow fixating on her lover at first, much the same as the snake did earlier. But rather than see a beautiful black bird snoozing at her side, the crow quietly witnessed a nude black mamba woman covered in gray scales of many different sizes, the ones over her breasts and stomach small, flexible, and light-gray, while the ones that covered most of her face and her back were more noticeable individually and of a dark gray. Unlike her avian companion, she had no feathers covering her body, and accordingly her scalp appeared smooth and bald, yet there was something unmistakably feminine about her eyes. Not to say of the snake’s modestly-sized chest, two scale-covered breasts situated over her pecs tipped with fleshy dark-black nipples. And unlike the crow, who seemed skinny in comparison, the snake possessed a muscular build for a woman.

The crow’s eyes managed to fixate on the snake right as she looked away and slowly began uncovering her lower body, revealing the lengthy tail she had tucked away behind her, previously occluded by her body and the covers. The base of the tail sat stoutly right between her two buttocks, the underside leading right to her nether region. The crow took the snake’s exiting their bed to pull back the rest of the cover, revealing the rest of her slim body, small breasts with black nipples adorning her chest and a short crop of feathers springing forth from above her shapely behind.

“Waking up so early?” the crow chimed in. She was already sitting down on top of the bed with her hands in her lap, an inquisitive look to her eyes and the corners of her mouth behind her beak turned up slightly in a good-natured smile. Of course, the snake probably already heard the crow having woken up, but she was well on her way to their bathroom anyway for a morning bath.

“I guess. . . ” the snake remarked with a sleepy sigh, “I hope you didn’t mind,” she added, getting on her merry way to the bathroom, smiling to herself as the image of a crow sitting daintily atop her bed etched itself into her mind.

 A pleasant image to linger on; the snake wondered, as she turned the tap on, what got her partner in such a high mood. What happened yesterday of note? she tried to recall, placing her clawed feet inside the shallow warm water. The problem was that nothing really happened the night before! They simply said good night and, after a brief bout of aimless cuddling, one of them fell asleep at some point, and then the other. The snake, lost in those frivolous thoughts typical of early morning bathing, was left clueless.

Her heart beating rapidly underneath her lean chest, the crow almost flew out of the bed once the mamba left her to herself. Her slender legs slowly sneaked across the bedroom, towards a hallway and out onto the living room, where she procured a heavy saw from underneath a loveseat. She repeatedly glanced back towards that bedroom as she did so, half expecting the snake to appear out of nowhere. Once she returned, she then gathered a few clean yet old clothes from their shared closet, mostly a bundle of neglected t-shirts. The roar of the water flowing from the faucet out onto the tub was constant throughout the bird’s covert operation, pacifying her fluttery heart. There was an agonizing wait as she briefly considered whether going in now would grant her the best chance of sneaking in amid the sound of rushing water, or if the snake was still outside the tub. At any case, she made the leap sooner than later, carefully working the doorknob and sneaking in with the bundle of clothes at her side and the saw tucked inside, granting her an alibi in case of poor timing.

But it seemed the bird woman was fortunate enough to walk in without any suspicion on the snake’s part. Though she could make out a gray scale-covered arm relaxing on the rim of the bath tub, her lover was none the wiser. Inching up closer and closer, she placed those clothes right next to the tub, making sure they still covered her saw. A stark black figure suddenly appearing right next to her inside a neutral-covered bathroom, it was an inevitability that the snake would recognize her girlfriend from the reflection off of something. She leaned forward and shut off the valve.

“Heyyy!” the snake teased, turning around to find her one and only crow with her body pressed up against the beige walls of the bathroom. The bird faked an exaggerated look of bewilderment, as if she was caught in the middle of the night trying to snack on something. Without a word, the snake beckoned her lover to come join her, figuring in her mind that the crow simply desired some attention. As if she never even intended to join in, the bird obliged. She intended to slip in right behind the snake. There was a bit of struggling while the snake figured out what was going on, but the bird soon asserted herself, pushing the snake up front and curling her right talon above the other woman’s shoulder.

“You didn’t forget, did you?” the crow asked in an upbeat, faux-concerning tone. She played it up by resting her beak against the snake’s left shoulder, billing against the woman’s cheek. The snake could feel the faint beating of her lover’s heart, a quickened pace for sure. For a while the snake froze in place, deathly worried that she really did forget something. But before a word could escape the snake’s mouth, the crow quickly leaned to her left and dug out the stainless-steel saw from the pile of clothes, pressing the heavy implement right against the other woman’s trachea.

The snake’s body immediately tensed up, letting out a pained gasp while she processed exactly what was happening. Was she being murdered just for forgetting something, whatever it was? Her girlfriend didn’t seem like the sort to kill someone, based off all the time they’ve been together, those few years of togetherness. While she sat paralyzed by fear in the warm water she realized the significance of where the crow determined to saw right through her: her neck, right underneath the base of her jaw. The crow, meanwhile, was apprehensive, snaking her left arm up along the other woman’s side and taking hold of her scalp. But still the saw rested motionless in front of the snake’s throat.

“I think I remember now. . . ” the snake said, realizing what the other woman was up to. The element of surprise gone, and the crow’s arm starting to feel the strain of holding up a steel saw, she lowered it down and rested it on the snake’s chest.

“You do?” the crow asked. A somewhat rhetorical answer, for it was the snake who came up with the entire idea, and there wasn’t much else someone could have thought of to explain why they were being held up with a saw to their neck. The crow was simply waiting for the right time; the right mood to strike her. Now it seemed like she screwed it all up, what seemed to be a perfect opportunity to execute what they had planned all those months back.

“. . . You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” the snake inquired, a little impatiently, feeling as if the crow was just about to buy her a big expensive present and hesitated as she pulled out her wallet.

“I might,” the crow admitted, hugging the snake tighter with her legs. She was never one to punch or slap her, even jocularly, let alone cut her. It was too much for her to be locking her girlfriend’s head in her arm and holding a saw up to her neck.

“I can understand,” she replied. The snake reached back with a hand and teased the crow where she held the saw, lifting it up so that the teeth pressed against her neck once more. Their black scaly hands met and one gently tried to prod along the other. “I think it’d be great if you could go ahead with it. I’ve been waiting so long for you to feel ready for it,” she added. The crow held onto the snake even tighter, and tighter she pressed the saw as well, waiting for the right impulse to set her off. “I’d just love to feel what it’s like at last, to, you know. . . ” she trailed off. She let go of the bird’s talons and relaxed as she lay in the tub, her arms now resting on the other woman’s thighs.

 The crow slid the teeth of the saw over the black mamba’s dark scales in one quick brutish motion and then back again. A steady stream of blood escaped from the mamba’s neck, her throat felt hot. The sight of a growing red puddle shocked the crow, and in a split-second decision she went full-speed with the saw. She closed her eyes and pressed and pulled along the flesh of the snake’s neck. No one could remain calm as their head was being sawn off, and so the snake clutched at the closest thing – the crow’s legs – and gasped for air as the blood threatened to trickle down her trachea. She felt less and less air pass through her mouth and nose as her head disconnected from the rest of her body. Once the crow hit some bone she placed her other hand on the other end of the saw and cut to the side with all her strength. A final jolt after a few minutes, some extra cuts at the skin and scales, and her lover’s head finally tumbled down onto the water below. Now panting, the crow tossed the saw out of the bathtub. Her eyes picked up on the clothes she nearly forgot; she hurriedly leaned out the side of the tub and transferred the shirts directly above the snake’s open neck wound, their fabric quickly swelling up with blood. The crow’s eyes widened as another thought popped into her mind. She fished out the woman’s head from the water, picking it up with one hand, talons curled around the back of her head.

The snake had no blood circulating into her brain. She managed to catch a good look of her headless body, too weak to sneeze or cough up the water that filled her nostrils and her throat. Her eyes met the crow’s eyes and darted between her and her own body with a wide grin, before they closed and she passed out. Fixated on the The crow was startled by the weak but sudden movements of the snake’s body. She let go of the bundle of shirts, as the body proceeded to do its own work. It took several seconds of the crow sitting in a bathtub behind a snake woman’s headless body and her severed head for her to calm down enough to move deliberately again. She held the head closer towards her. It was completely silent and motionless, even as she gently nudged those lips apart and peeked underneath her eyelids. The green eyes were glossy, the pupils dilated; it seemed as if the snake was forever staring at something beyond the other woman’s immediate presence. The crow held the head in a strong parting embrace, nuzzling it with her beak. Some tears welled up in her eyes and she began whimpering, though only she could hear it. Her girlfriend’s body remained seated in the tub while she slowly stepped out of it. Her feathers painted the edge of the tub in water while she sat down and waited to dry off, looking over the head some more and wiping away underneath her eyes.

It took some acclimitization, but the two lovers managed to overcome their self-imposed obstacle. Shortly after having beheaded her girlfriend in an act of pure benevolence, the crow helped the headless black mamba get out of the tub and get dressed. The snake had lost a massive amount of blood, after all. They still chatted with each other as usual, having practiced how to transmit words through touch. Her head was relegated to a decoration atop the mantle in their living room, having managed to lock itself in a permanent serene smile with her eyelids shut. The night after, the two women went to bed and engaged in their usual aimless cuddling. They fell asleep facing each other, tightly held together, the crow’s beak hovering right around the space where the snake’s head usually was.