Notes: I wonder how many people will know what I've done here and wont just review being all confused about characterisation...

Disclaimer: I dont won CATS and I'm not making any money from this.

The night sky was a tapestry made up of navy blue, black, and tiny specks of twinkling light. Cloudless, it was a natural beauty that was lost on at least one of the two cats below. They sat in the lee of a scrap-heap on a platform made by the torn-off bonnet of an old car, cut off from the rest of the junkyard (and the Jellicles) by a good hundred meters and at least three walls of scraps.

It was so quiet, so far away from the noise of the street or the other cats who called this place home, that when neither cat was speaking they could even hear each other breathe.

The silence was getting to Bombalurina. There was only so long you could sit there and pretend to be interested in something as stupid as the night sky. The tom – her date – seemed less than concerned by the silence and was leaning back quite comfortably and staring off into space for some reason or other. If she hadn’t known better she would have suspected catnip, but she’d been with this tom since the afternoon and knew they hadn’t been anywhere near any sources of catnip.

Bombalurina sighed. She had the Tugger all to herself, alone on a Friday night, and what were they doing? Watching some dumb constellations and staring at the moon. The hottest young tom in the junkyard, the talk of the town, the flirt, the sure thing… and she was just sitting there with him doing nothing? This would not do.

The scarlet queen turned a little so that she was facing him properly, arranging herself so that she was in a provocative pose that pushed her breasts forward. She raised a paw and stroked her fingers down his bicep, feeling the long, velvety black fur that blocked out most of his body, the rest a tantalizing gold-and-black that mottled into some kind of leopard spots. “Tugger,” Bombalurina purred, tail tip flicking.

He turned to look at her, a smile curving luscious lips into an arrangement that just begged to be kissed. “Mm?”

“Surely you don’t want to just sit out here and watch the sky all night?”

The Tugger looked startled, either by her words or the way she said them in that rolling, sensual purr. “I… don’t know,” he answered eventually, looking just a bit uncomfortable. “I mean, what else is there to do?”

Was he being a tease, Bombalurina wondered, keeping the frown off her face through sheer force of will, or was he really that innocent? Her fingers trailed back up his arm and into the mane of tan and black fur that covered his chest and shoulders. “Well… I was thinking maybe… this.” Bombalurina leant in as she spoke, pressing her lips against his at her last word and purring against his mouth. She kissed him, rolling her eyes when he didn’t automatically kiss back. After another moment she pulled away, just a little frustrated. “No, Tugger,” Bombalurina sighed in exasperation, already starting to get impatient with the ‘sure thing’s lack of response. “It helps if you kiss me back, Ok? Lets try this again…”

This time when she kissed him he responded and she scooted closer to him, tempting him into a French kiss with slow sweeps of her tongue against his lips. Everything was going fine until the red queen stroked both of her paws through his mane and down his stomach – The Tugger jumped and broke away from the kiss so fast that for a split second Bombalurina was left with her tongue in the air.

Annoyed, Bombalurina sighed and frowned at him. “What is it? Don’t you like that?”

She could almost swear that the tom blushed beneath his fur, his ears flicking back and forth uncertainly as he explained to her in a soft, almost shy voice; “I-I’ve never… I mean, nobody has touched me like that before.”

Bombalurina resisted rolling her eyes and instead smiled at him, leaning forward to place reassuring kisses to his cheeks and the side of his mouth. “It’s Ok,” she told him soothingly, just a little patronizingly (he was eighteen and he’d never been touched ‘there’ before? Come on!), “you’ll like it. I promise.”

It took a bit more persuasion but eventually they were back to making out, Bombalurina’s paws avoiding the temptation to creep below the tom’s waist. This, she thought, was much better than looking at some boring night sky. Her paws on his shoulders – shoulders that were lovely and wide, very masculine – gently pushed him back against the car bonnet until he lay on his back. The queen broke their kiss briefly to toss her headfur and swing one long, shapely leg over his thighs. The Tugger suddenly looked nervous again but she distracted him with more kisses as she lowered her body against his and reached for him…

The Tugger jerked, his mouth coming free of hers again with a nervous whimper. “I don’t think I’m ready for this,” he admitted.

“Shh,” Bombalurina purred softly, her paw stroking him gently. “Of course you’re ready for this. It’s just what we both want.”

“I’m not sure I want it.” His dark brown eyes, beautiful and deep enough to drown in, almost looked scared. She could feel his tail slashing back and forth in uncertainty, the light shiver tracing through his body was not from arousal.

“C’mon,” Bombalurina nudged him, giving him an indulgent smile, “it’s not as if you haven’t done it before.”

The Tugger hesitated, then replied quietly, “I haven’t.”

“You’re not a virgin,” Bombalurina scoffed, then let her free paw trail over his body enticingly. “I wont tell anyone… I’ll even go easy on you.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Yes you do.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Come on… it wont hurt. I said I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“I’ll tell Jenny if you keep going… I’ll tell my father.”

“Your father? What would your father do?”

“Bomba, I’m serious! Stop touching me!”

Bombalurina sighed, pulling away from the Tugger and scooting back to let him have his dignity. “Fine,” she told him, not at all happy that her ‘sure thing’ had turned out to be a nothing.

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.” Bombalurina turned her back on the tom, pouting. “Go home, Tugger.”

Giggles and the sound of queens laughing followed Bombalurina’s statement. The toms on the opposite side of the clearing tried to pretend they couldn’t hear. If they got caught listening in, especially by any of the elders, it would only mean a lecture. The subject of the queens’ gossip session was obvious, Bombalurina’s date with the Rum Tum Tugger last night. From the sounds of things, it had gotten rather more than intimate.

And speak of the devil, Munkustrap frowned, there he was. The Rum Tum Tugger entered the clearing to a chorus of giggles and whispers, though he refused to let it affect his confidence until he was seated amongst the other young toms.

“Tugger…” Munkustrap started, only to be drowned out by another loud bout of giggling as Bombalurina said something too soft to be heard from where the toms sat.

“What?” Tugger asked, obviously uncomfortable and yet still confused. Intuition told him that the queens were giggling about him, but he still didn’t know why.

Of the other toms, Admetus and Plato looked away, leaving Munkustrap and Alonzo to explain.

“They’re talking about last night,” Alonzo told his friend, sympathy written on his face, “about you and Bomba…”

“What about me and Bomba?” Tugger asked, eyebrows coming together in confusion.

“How you slept together,” Munkus said dryly, not impressed with his half-brother.

“But we didn’t!” Tugger protested, shocked.

“That’s not what she’s saying,” Munkustrap replied, jerking a paw in the direction of the grinning queens.

“She’s lying!” Tugger insisted, his ears flat against his skull in embarrassment.

“But you can’t prove that,” Alonzo pointed out sensibly, and he would know. He’d suffered through much the same thing the year before, only worse, when he’d broken up with Cassandra. In response to getting dumped she had spent the better part of a month spreading all sorts of rumours about the black and white tom. By the time she’d finished Alonzo had no reputation to speak of, and even his own friends had begun doubting him. It had taken a long time for that to blow over. “And even if you are a virgin,” Alonzo held up a paw to stop the protest he’d known was coming, “there’s no way to prove that either. Queens get it easy, toms don’t. That’s just how it goes.”

“That sucks,” Tugger pouted.

“Yeah? Well according to those queens, so do you.”