Cat In An Aqua Storm

Lindy’s eyes darkened, but she didn’t respond with her usual hair-trigger answer.

“Is that always true?” Temple asked Ruth.

“Pretty much so. A lot of girls are runaways from abusive fathers. If sexual abuse was involved, they’ve confused intimacy with exhibitionism and self-display, and sometimes even pleasure with pain.”

The scratch of Lindy’s lighter sounded like a derisive tsk-tsk. She defiantly lit a cigarette and puffed a stream of smoke into the crowded cab. “Big words for someone who’s never seen the real thing in the flesh.”

The cab made a lurching turn, then the driver, a chubby guy in his forties with a black mustache and a baseball cap, turned around.

“You wanta go to Kitty City or a debating society? We’re hee-eere.”

13

The Naked Nose

I am strictly the monogamous sort: one at a time.

Therefore, it is not surprising that I do not keep a wide-open eye on the doings of Miss Temple Barr once I have discovered that the Divine Yvette is back in town.

Not that Miss Temple Barr’s attractions have diminished in any respect. If anything, they have improved with age—i.e., during the five weeks that I have consented to room with her. It is true that she sponsored my odious outing to the veterinary clinic, but she meant well. As for the unappetizing pellets with which she has mounded my plate of late, I can overlook that, and that is all I do with them. I do not need to rely on foreign food or home cooking. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers for my better meals, and must say that I have fared quite well.

No, my infatuation for the Divine Yvette predates the entrance of Miss Temple Barr into my life. And, face it, this petite furperson with a penchant for silver fox is exactly my type. One cannot argue with a match made in cat heaven.

Luckily, the Divine Yvette is as taken with me as vice versa. This is not always the case in the mean streets and the real world. Some unrequited dudes are forced to howl their hearts out, singing the l-Found-My-Baby-but-She-Ain’t-Looking-for-Me blues in the night.

Even more luckily, the Celestial Jewel of my heart and other, less fashionably mentionable parts takes me for a hero. To hear her tell it, I attacked the fleeing murderer and was rewarded with a boot in the backside for my trouble. Yet I was still able to leap ten feet across the room and prevent her canvas ark from smashing into the wall.

The lady was asleep at the time, and far be it from me to present myself in a less noble light.

Yet misfortune did enter the scene of Love’s Young Dream. First came the perplexing human pantomime. After calming Yvette, if not myself, I amble over to the wall, loft atop a conveniently close chair seat and cautiously sniff as much of the suspended lady as I can reach. Until my nose for news has registered its impression, I believe nothing of what I see, and even less of what I hear.