Leonara had a cat called Orange. She was the previous guardian of many cats and they had all been called Orange.
Today was Leonara's 50th birthday. She didn't want to be so old.
Orange - a dark tabby of 15 months - purred gently from Leonora's pillow. She stroked the cat's head and Orange purred more loudly.
Fifty!
How could she be fifty? It only felt like yesterday that Orange the First - a fluffy ginger tom - had purred in her ear to wake her on her 30th birthday. Leonora hadn't liked being 30. It seemed so old.
At the age of 18 Leonora had read 'A Picture of Dorian Grey' by Oscar Wilde. Dorian found eternal youth by allowing a portrait to grow old for him. Leonora paid an artist to paint her portrait which, like Dorian, she kept in an attic. After ten years of slow ageing, Leonora decided the technique didn't work for her and she found another means of delaying the ravages of time from touching her face.
She got out of bed and crossed the room to her dressing table. One look confirmed it. She wasn't fifty. There were no lines on the serene, impassive, pretty face her super surround, tell no lies mirror reflected back to her.
No one looking so young could possibly be as old as fifty.
Leonora stood up. She knew she would be confused if this was the first time she'd been confronted by her eternal anomaly of nature - growing old without ageing.
But this was not the first time and she was quite calm as she slipped a raw silk gown over her nightdress.
Orange was asleep. Leonara stroked her warm fur and crept downstairs quietly. She went into the kitchen and switched on a kettle. She tousled her hair coquetishly and then Leonora rummaged in a straw filled cardboard box until she found a newly weaned cross breed kitten. It was a beautiful cat - black and white. A kitchen cat, a companion and guardian of her youth.
"Orange!" she whispered lovingly.
Then Leonora went upstairs and strangled the tabby - she didn't want Orange disturbed by her new cat. And besides, something had to die if she was not to lose her youth.
Leonora believed this annual ritual of sacrifice kept her young.