Trust me, if you could suck your own cock, you would. Don’t let the fact that I can shock you; I’m a cat, so I can do those types of things whenever I want with impunity. You see a cat sunning himself on a divan near a window and think, “Oh, how sweet.” But no, we’re waiting for you to leave the room so we can restart our course of auto-fellatio.
Why so appalled? You don’t know the half of it. My previous companion was an art history professor – skinny like a tree branch, and boy could he bend! Gay, too. I suppose that isn’t surprising, considering he could practically deep throat himself, so don’t imagine I’m a clueless kitty.
I’ve spent these three years of my life with people, and I know you are a bunch of weirdos
I’ve spent these three years of my life with people, and I know you are a bunch of weirdos. Case in point; my last companion put me in a plastic crate. Beige. Beige crate, orange kitty… Scandalous! Anyway, a kindly man wearing blue skin-tight gloves on his paws let me out onto a cold metal table, patted my butt, and let me lie down for a scratch. The next thing I knew, I fell dead asleep, and later awoke in a cage with the most awful hangover, and BAM! NO BALLS! Who does that, take a poor kitty’s balls?!! So, don’t pretend. I know all about you humans.
My previous companion died of a cerebral brain hemorrhage, I think you call it, at the age of thirty-five years. So, my days of lounging, climbing shelves and reading his books came to an end, and I was taken by his sister, a willowy-looking woman with broken dirt for eyes – back in the crate and left in a facility with other animals all smelling of fear. By now you know, I’m pretty-good at self-medicating. So, I just waited, occupying myself, content with my little bowl of water and food, and my little towel. I knew someone would come along to fetch me. Everyone eventually made it past the green door on the far end of the room, and they never came back, so I knew I’d be fine, sure enough, here I am.
My current companion is twelve, and just learning how to masturbate. His mother calls him Ian. What a nice name, Ian; fine tawny looking lad, stark white with freckles and the clearest green eyes. He’d make a beautiful cat. In fact, his wavy reddish-colored hair reminds me of me, and makes him look somewhat like a girl.
Now, Ian is, I guess you’d say, an introvert. I mean it. Except for school, the boy seldom talks to anyone, except Angie, his mother.
Together we will go outside, and patrol the parking lot that weaves in and out of all these buildings where other people live, and Ian never acknowledges anyone. People will say “Hi, nice cat you have there,” and Ian will continue past, oblivious. So, we have to be careful, I try to tell him, with all the noises of cars pulling in and out of parking spaces and speeding off around sharp corners – as if no one lives here but the person at the wheel of that car; red or blue, or whatever the color may be, loudly thumping-thumping with the smell of the most pernicious weed fumigating the air as they thunder past. It’s dangerous out there for a cat and a twelve-year-old-fire-headed elf, who lives so much inside his own head.
Like an elf, Ian likes to venture into the woods at the end of the complex. He spends a great deal of time there alone. He likes to build things out of tree branches and leaves; tunnels and barricades where he can hide and lie down as if he is pretending to be dead. I’ll huddle near him after gingerly testing the crunch of the leaves leading into the tunnel, and I’ll watch him with his eyes closed, and listen as his mind begins to sing. The melodies fly out of him like colorful vines. They make him one with the dirt, with the spiders, beetles, and worms milling through the soul of the earth. This ritual gives animus to Ian’s fantasies. He collects sticks to use as weapons against invisible imaginary foes. He’ll make loud rat-a-tat-tat noises as if he’s shooting at something, loud swooshes as if wielding a sword.
Now, I can’t see what he sees. All of Ian’s monsters and all of Ian’s happenings take place inside Ian’s head. All I can do is hear his thoughts sometimes, and sometimes he can hear mine. But as far as what Ian sees and experiences in the woods, I don’t have a very good view of it at all.
I worry about Ian, he’s so different for other children I watch and I observe, playing together on metal bars and plastic chairs outside, where they swing on old chains and slide down the most peculiar table. This happens often enough, rain or shine, and they’re so happy – most of the time – I have a pretty good idea this activity is natural for them. I know it’s natural because the way they look at Ian and me, when we’re crossing back from our woodsy outings, is so unnatural. They stare at us with low eyes, and they whisper their suspicions. At times their hostile gazes make me want to arch my back and scream. I’ve heard them taunt us like predators, but Ian, so quiet, unassuming, and self-absorbed, hardly notices. Outside of the woods Ian is like a gazelle on the savannah I’ve read about and seen cheetahs attacking on television. Somebody has to look out for the boy.
Ian’s mother certainly doesn’t. Oh, well, I know she knows it’s her job, but she’s never around. She waitresses all the time, day and night, at a pub called, “The Admiral’s Dinghy,” I think. And when she’s home she mostly sleeps. She may cook for Ian on the weekends, but of course, she has a boyfriend and they like to play.
So, that leaves Ian and me in that shoe box apartment apartment with smelly old furniture (oh boy, if furniture could talk!), an old color television and a portable stereo, and whatever food Ian can manage in and out of the microwave. The boy subsists on cereal, hot dogs, tater tots, and tuna fish sandwiches on paper plates!
Most afternoons Ian clamors through the front door, completely unaware of his surroundings, throws his backpack on the floor, kicks off his sneakers and bolts for the pantry. A moment later the microwave dings, and the sound of Ian’s smacking lips and crunching jaws rattles the air as he begins stuffing his face with hot buttery popcorn. The chemical smell of fake butter, rattling paper and mouth noises – so unsettling even for a tomcat – fills my vision with sparks and sends me hunting for ever-more obscure places to hide.
I found my newest favorite hiding place today while in a panic, running from loud music pounding down the walls. I ran past the closet door Angie had left open in her haste this morning, and found my way up onto a shelf behind Angie’s shoes, and tucked myself neatly between two earthy-smelling boxes. Time stopped as I lay there long after the music ended, and judging from the angle of the shadows – probably all day.
I heard Ian calling my name, madly masticating popcorn slathered in chemical grease as he searched the apartment, room to room. A light came on, the door opened, and the box next to me tumbled away like an avalanche of dirt. I crammed myself deeper into the closet, blinking, while the box and its contents thundered to the floor, leaving an open space filled by Ian’s big white head and blaze of orange hair. His eyes ignored me completely. He just stared at his feet with the most wide-eyed amazement.
Porn magazines covered the floor, and the psychic energy in the room began to crackle. It’s in these moments I can feel Ian press very close. Cat fur and human skin begin to merge in a field of static, out of which tumble thoughts that clutter my head with spheres and cubes and pyramids; scrambled consciousness flying from Ian’s head to mine.
On the floor we saw comely eyes, rosy mouths agape, milky white tits and the bare blush of pink nipples, legs and asses spread and bosoms positioned in all the variable geometries the female form could muster. I felt as if a wave of water sloped over me, and I began finding it hard to breathe; all the air went missing, and my heart began beating fast like a machine. Out of the staccato fire of my pulsing blood and Ian’s racing hormones, I heard one word.
“Dad?”