I began seeing a work colleague called, Rebecca. She wasn’t much to look at, but then again, neither was I; but all her parts were in the right place, and seemed firmly fixed. So we did that thing where you go out for drinks, and then we’d go back to my place and talk and do that other thing where you ask questions, but you’re not really listening to the reply, but just wanting the night to keep rolling on so you can watch their smile and how long they take to blink.

And every night this would happen and every night I would drive her home and walk her to her door and she would allow me a kiss and nothing more. And sometimes I would allow my lips to linger on hers, while my hand pressed against her breast, and she’d stop me and say I was going too fast, and I, being the novice to all this “love” thing, would oblige and not rub her tits so fast. Apparently, she didn’t mean it that way, and we’d both laugh a little at the misunderstanding, but on the way home I’d curse myself for being no naive before getting into an empty bed.

So this went on and on, and nothing really changed, except that I began to fall in love with Rebecca. I didn’t really see it coming, but there you go. In the end our conversations began to run so long into the night, and the wine bottles so dry, that I was in no fit state to drive her home, so it was safer for Rebecca to sleep over. But sleeping was all that the bed saw, no sex, just sleep, and in the night I’d watch her breathe in and out, and even with her mouth open and drool hanging from the side, she engaged every part of my heart.

Soon enough Rebecca’s presence became more obvious around the house, from the toothbrush, to the cleansing and moisturising bottles, to the perfume bottles, to the many bags of cotton wool balls, all the way to the copious amount of underwear she would stuff into every drawer and spare cupboard in my bedroom. Being unfamiliar to the dressing habits of a woman, I asked why she needed so many underpants, and Rebecca turned red and made a glib remark that left me with the impression it had more to do with odour and cleanliness than a hobby.

And it was about this time I began to hear noises. Not in my head or anything like that, but like that of a bird caught in the attic. It was so loud I would wake with a start to find myself lying next to Rebecca without any bedcovers on, and no other noise in the room save for the sound of the central heating system and Rebecca breathing. The next day I would ask Rebecca if she heard the noise, but she said no every time and was keen not to give any other comment on the matter.

Every night was the same. I would awake to the noise and find Rebecca sleeping like a baby and the bed stripped of its covers. It was all very worrying and confusing, but the only plausible conclusion I reached was that a pigeon had gone to roost in the eves. Soon one pigeon would become two, and then three and then I’d be up to my neck in cooing and bird shit. Plus, I’d seen that Hitchcock film, and the thought of waking up with a thousand tiny eyes staring back in the night didn’t sit well with me. I borrowed a pair of ladders from a friend to check the attic, but the torchlight found no birds up there. A couple of days later, I called out pest control and they checked the guttering, the eves, and all the little nooks and crannies, but still there was no sign of any pigeons.

I started to lose sleep, and began obsessing about the noise. Every dull thud, or creak, would awake me, and I’d end up getting out of bed in attempt to find it was only heating pips expanding, or wind squeezing through the chimney. Sleep deprivation made me increasingly grumpy. The little things I found adorable about Rebecca began to annoy me, and all the things I would stay up late and discuss with her weren’t so appealing or interesting anymore.

I guess this is why I challenged Rebecca on her unwillingness to engage physically with me. As it turns out, she wanted sex too, but was too ashamed because she had a “condition”. I asked her for the details and she was not forthcoming in explaining them, only that it did involve “Libya”. Rebecca didn’t have dark skin or dark hair, nor a funny accent, but being the type of guy who doesn’t know much about the world, or women, I asked her if she had family out there and if they were in trouble, and she looked more confused than I did when she mentioned the country. It took a while, but in the end I realized she meant her labia, which Rebecca felt were too long and too embarrassing to show me, but like I told Rebecca, such things never bothered me. I find the skin added an extra layer of suspense, like the velvet curtains hiding a grand stage before the show. I said so much to Rebecca and this seemed to please her, but she was still reluctant to allow me free rule in her downstairs department.

I had to respect her privacy, and so I waited one night until she’d fallen asleep before pulling back the bed-sheet and lifting up her nightdress. Rebecca was wearing one of her many pairs of normal white cotton briefs, the front bulging like the hood of an old Volkswagen Beetle. While it was too dark to see any real detail, what little light was available to me (I had left the curtains open slightly to allow in a little of the moonlight) revealed a wrinkling at the centre, as if beneath lay three or four dead earthworms. I peeled down the briefs, inch by inch, which took me the best part of thirty minutes to do, and by the time the first few dark and curly hairs came into view, I had a crick in my neck and aching back. But there I was, finally, the last remaining slither of cotton hiding her condition. I must admit, while I was nervous that beneath lay some gross and freakish vaginal deformity, I was rather excited too, which I think stemmed from the fact Rebecca had no idea what I was doing. It was wrong, yet oddly erotic.

The more astute of you have probably realised the origins of the flapping didn’t come from the attic, but instead from the crotch of my girlfriend, and I can you all this, the moment when the briefs came down was like watching Pegasus unfolding its mighty wings before flight, or that fool Icarus outstretching his arms before his fall. First was the brief and slightly pungent breeze across my face as each enormous wing-shaped flap of skin slowly unfurled across her thighs, ripping away her underwear. There was cotton all over the bed sheets and floor, each piece no bigger than a toothpick. If I had to take a guess at the wingspan, I wouldn’t hesitate in saying it was at least that of an adult swan.

A fine bone ran along the ridge that gave it the freedom to move, beat and retract, and as they snapped together, making the most wonderful of sounds, the gust was so strong I had to close my eyes. With the wings gathering momentum, the whole of Rebecca’s body rose from the bed and slowly turned toward the sash window. I struggled and wrestled with the locks, and hit every part of that window until finally the frame let out a haunting groan and lifted open, and even then, Rebecca remained dead to the world. She passed by me and into the night like some weird, but beautiful angel, her fragile body silhouetted against the moon, and as she did, I remembered that saying that if you truly love someone, set them free and if they come back, then they were yours; if they don’t, they never were. The person who wrote that must have had a girlfriend with a strange vagina too, because I waited and waited for that winged bitch and she never came back. The next day I vowed to myself that if another girl tells me she has a condition in her private area, at the very least, I’m going to try for a blow job.