Fluffy...

"....twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...." She always counted her fluffies as she put them back on the bed. There were 16. She had one for each birthday including her actual birth day. That was until she turned 16 and her mother had declared her too old for such silly things and that was the end of the parade of stuffed toys. So she had sixteen.

And today she could only find fifteen. She counted again. Took a quick inventory, which one was missing? Oh the purple bear from her fourth birthday. It was the one that wasn't there. Where could it have gotten to? She had tossed them off the bed in a bit of a hurry last night so it wasn't that odd that one had gotten misplaced.

She smiled to herself thinking about the reason for the frantic clearing. There hadn't been room for her and all of the fluffies and her company. She had felt a little badly about tossing them all on the ground, she knew it was a little crazy to worry about such things, after all they were stuffed animals, it wasn't like it would hurt them to hit the floor, but she still did. And she had been a little embarrassed when her overnight guest had stepped on one.

"You have a lot of stuffed animals, don't you?"

"I do, they remind me of home and keep me company."

"Well tonight you have me."

She stopped for a minute, had it been Beary Purple he had stepped on? Maybe he had moved him or kicked him. She widened her search area. Nothing under the bed, nothing in the closet. Where could he have gotten to? She hated to leave without having found him but if she didn't she would be late for work.

She remembered what she would have done when she was a child and stomped her foot and quite petulantly said, "Beary Purple, if you can hear me you better find your way to the bed!" then she laughed and headed off to work.

....

Across town her overnight guest was taking another shower. He had tried cleaning up at her place but the scented soaps and shampoos made him smell like a perfume counter at Christmas so another shower was needed. She was hot and sweet but probably too sweet for him. How many stuffed animals could a grown woman have and it not be weird? He was pretty sure the number wasn't double digits. And he might have been mistaken but he was pretty sure she had growled at him when he accidentally stepped on one of them. Sweet and hot, but maybe a little too crazy to keep around.

He turned off the shower and reached out in to the steamy bathroom for his towel. As his hand closed around it and he brought it in to the shower he formed two thoughts in quick succession, "I don't remember my towels being this fluffyohfuckmewhatthehellisthis??"

....

Putting her shoes in the closet after work she saw a sliver of purple in the corner by her tall boots.
"Beary! How in the world did you get all the way over here?"

She picked up the beloved stuffed toy and took him toward the bed she looked at his dirty face, you couldn't keep a stuffed animal for that long and expect them to stay perfectly clean, and wondered if it was her imagination or if he really was damp...