“Get him off my lap,” Boy whines, annoying voice more high-pitched than before. I’m surprised I can understand him; normally I can only pick up bits and pieces of what Girl is saying, unless it’s Good kitty or Pretty Desi or That’s my good girl.
All the words I’ve learned have been from the talking box Girl watches when she comes back to the house after leaving me to lounge all day.
I don’t know where she goes, but when she comes home, she changes her clothes, feeds me, then sits on her side of the couch and watches TV. Then when it gets dark and she begins yawning, too, we watch TV on the big bed in her room.
“It’s a she.” Girl corrects him for the hundredth time, but actually, Boy is right—I am not a girl.
I am, in fact, a male feline.
Problem is, I have so much luxurious, fluffy fur, they couldn’t find my balls when they were checking me, so—I’m Duchess Desdemona McPurrs-A-Lot.
Worst fucking name on the list of kitty names.
Desdemona? I have no choice but to occasionally exhibit a bit of evil…
Oddly enough, I’m partial to the name Boy has been calling me—Pussy of Terror.
I lick my paw. “Meow.”
“OIAuoiugoiug off me!” Boy cries, and I can barely understand what the fuck he’s saying, he’s speaking so fast. So high-pitched, so loud and panicked. His eyes are as wide as the time Girl stuck me in the bathtub and I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror before she snapped a photo of my bulging eyes and posted it on her little phone.
“IUOIUB afiougoiug gouddig precious Desi.” Girl pats me on the top of my head, stroking my supple fur.
I might not understand a fucking thing she’s saying, but Girl knows what’s up.
She thinks I’m wonderful and pretty.
Because I am.
I paw at the box in Boy’s hands and he makes another strangled sound, moving so fast I almost fall to the carpet.
Hmm.
Being coy and cute is not going to work on Boy.
He doesn’t like me.
No bother. I want shrimp, and no amount of noise from his face is going to stop me from trying to get it.
I dream about seafood all day, every day. That, and snacking on a delicious songbird. The occasional squirrel, though they look like they’d take too much effort to catch.
I swipe through the air with my paw, imagining my nails like tiny swords of glory.
Swipe, swipe—that’s how I’d go after my prey if I were let loose in the park…
“Shit, iouoijaoiut fjoiaug this fucking cat.”
“Be nice!” I understand Girl shouting that, albeit a bit too loudly. I do love her stinky face.
She reeks like perfume and whatever is in those bottles in the bathroom. I knocked them over once to see what was inside but couldn’t get the top off, then Girl came in bellowing and kicked me off the counter.
No matter. I hop up there when she leaves the apartment and the mood strikes me. Kitchen counter, too, to drink from the sink like a leopard on the African plains sipping from a watering hole before a hunt.
Trouble is, there ain’t shit to hunt in this apartment.
No mice. No birds.
Just the occasional white box of food.
I purr for Boy’s benefit, hoping to soften him up, and rub my face along his arm, coarse tongue licking the skin of his wrist.
“OFF!”
I lick again, knowing he’s going to yell.
He does.
“BAD KITTY!”
Bad? No one has ever called me that before, except maybe Nan the times she was in the apartment and I ruined what she was working on for Girl, like the flowers I tipped over when she was placing them in a vase, or the package of meats I tore through with my fierce claws.
I mean nails.
I growl, a fierce tigress.
Boy yelps. “Shit, it wants to eat me.”
It? How rude.
“OIUoiuoi your shrimp. Give her some.”
My ears perk up and I purr louder. Yes, please.
“No.”
I scowl, and growl.
“Okay, okay, okay.” He hurriedly rushes to reply, the shiny metal fork in his hand sifting through whatever else is in the container.
My mouth waters.
“Just one or two,” Girl tells him, and I growl again, displeased.
I want it all.
13
Abbott
“Does Desi look funny to you?”
“The cat always looks funny.”
“If you gave her a snack every once in a while, she’d probably leave you alone,” I suggest, knowing it’s not true. If Brooks gives my cat enough tasty treats, he’s going to become her new favorite and win her adoration, and I will become chopped liver.
Which, incidentally, Desdemona hates.
Desi is fickle like that, though that’s not how I raised her.
“I refuse to feed that cat from my lap. Look at her—her eyes are small beads of lava trying to melt my soul.”
“Or…she’s hungry and wants food. Or…she wants attention.”
Either way, she’s perched on his lap, pink tongue peeping out of her adorable mouth. Aww, my pretty kitty.
“I’d love her more from afar. Does she always have to be in my face?”
“You know, you’re super dramatic for someone so big.” It’s an odd mix. Brooks is an imposing figure, tall and fit with dark hair and a toned body, looming when he’s in my living room. A giant, really.
Frightened of my ten-pound cat.
My neighbor absentmindedly checks the watch fastened around his wrist then slaps both palms down on his thighs. “I have to grab something from my place. I’ll be back in a few.”
“I’ll come with you.” I push myself off the couch, setting my food on the coffee table, curious and bored with always being at my place.
If he’s not going to do it, I’ll invite myself over.
“What if I’m going home so I can take a shit in my toilet?”
I feel my nose scrunching up. “Are you?”
“No, but I remembered I have clothes I need to get out of the washer and throw in the dryer. I have one thing that needs to hang.”
A guy who line-dries his delicates?
I bite down on my lower lip from the mental picture of Brooks carefully shaking out a shirt or a pair of pants then hanging it over a cabinet door to dry.
“Well I’m coming. I want to hang out at your place—I’m bored with mine. Maybe I’ll stare at your embarrassingly small living room windows.”
He shoots me a salty glare. “Don’t insult my windows.”
Too late.
Why it bothers him so bad, I couldn’t begin to say. Nonetheless, I trudge behind him until he’s unlocking his apartment and ushering me inside.
The first time I was at his place, I didn’t make the effort to discern the little things. The details. The nuances. What makes his place distinctively more male than my apartment, but in a good way. Everything about Brooks is “in a good way.”
Same flooring in the entry. Same tile in the kitchen. Same kitchen countertop stone. Appliances. Same cream color on the walls. Not white, not beige—a basic color in between.
But that’s where the similarities end.
There is no table next to the front door for keys. No mirror hanging to make the space look larger. My neighbor’s shoes are lined up along the wall instead of inside the coat closet, like mine are, neatly displayed on a three-tier metal shelf.