Charity (part 2)
Why do I call anything 5K and under a drabble? And why are you reading this? LOL
Happy Halloween, guys. Here's part two.
Her skin was pale, but not white, her eyes were golden, and waves of dark hair framed her face and shoulders. She moved like a dancer, and lounged in the nude on my couch without any self-consciousness whatsoever. She put the frying pan on the coffee table and smiled up at me.
“You’re pretty strong,” she said. “I don’t think I could have pulled him off of you.”
Her voice was a little scratchy, as if she needed to clear her throat.
“Who are you?” I finally asked, perching nervously on the end of my couch in my partially disassembled clothing and composure.
“Your cat.”
“This is.” I stopped. “I don’t.” Nope. Words still weren’t coming to my rescue. I sighed instead. “Please explain.”
She tucked her feet up under her. “You really want it? It’s not a pretty story. I always knew I was different. Then I was abused. I fantasized about getting out of the house and ended up on the streets. Someone tried to rape me and I got away by scratching his eyes out. I’m not sure when I ended up as a cat, but it made things easier.
“No one cares about a homeless kid. People will feed cats, though. Take them into their homes. Cats aren’t charity cases like kids are. People feel good about that kind of charity. Cats can be loved and petted more easily than kids.” She studied the long slender fingers on her hands idly. “I have preferred being a cat, until now. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to tell you what I really was.” She leaned forward and touched my bare knee with a warm hand. “You’re different. I can tell from the way you touch me and talk to me. You let me be me, and that makes you special.”
“I, uh. I really don’t know what to say. Thank you? Do you have any idea how strange this is?”
She nodded. “I know. I can’t even tell you how I change, it just happens when I need it to. The first time I caught sight of myself in a mirror, I was shocked. It made a difference, too. I could imagine I was still a human until that point, but seeing the fur made me more like the animal. I think it changed me.”
I sat there, dumbly nodding. My cat was human and I didn’t understand.
-*-
When I woke, I knew it had been a dream. My clothes were on top of the coverlet and I was underneath, safe and warm. The world had righted itself.
“Morning,” she said cheerily as she walked in with a glass of milk. She put it down on the bedside table and leaned over. Before I knew it, she had kissed me on the mouth. “How did you sleep?”
I reached up and felt my lips. That had felt familiar. My eyes met hers and she smiled and nodded. She was my dream Romeo. The only problem was I wasn’t attracted. Or was I?
I sat up and realized I was naked, too. “Are you gay?” I asked as I drew up the coverlet to hide me.
“My mother called me a deviant. My stepfather called me interesting. She tried to have me locked away and he tried to get into my pants. I’m not sure whether I’m gay or if I’m just hurting from the abuse.” She shrugged and sat next to me. “Who knows?”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen. You?”
“Twenty two.”
She was a minor. The phone rang but I didn’t pick it up. The world was spinning again.
The answering machine picked it up and I frowned. I had thought it was broken. My cat wiggled her fingers suggestively, and then put one to her lips for silence.
My mother’s voice came on. “I’m picking up some of those bagels you like, so I’ll be a bit late. See you shortly.”
The machine beeped.
“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed. “What day is it? Crap!”
-*-
I was as nervous as, well, a cat, but the mystery girl was gone by the time I was out of the shower. I noticed my bed was neatly made. My dirty clothes were in the hamper. The kitchen was clean and the living room in order when I walked around to inspect the house. The only thing out of place was the frying pan on the coffee table. I picked it up to inspect it, and my cat (in cat form) jumped up on the back of the couch to watch. There was a dent in the edge of the pan.
“You hit him pretty hard,” I said. “Thank you again for saving me.”
She twitched her tail and flicked an ear at me.
“Still, we need to talk.” The doorbell rang. My mother had arrived, one weekend early. “Hold that thought,” I told her, running to the door.
“Good morning!” Mom said, sailing past me and into the little house. “Happy Halloween!”
“That’s next weekend, Mom. You’re a weekend early.” I closed the door and followed her in. “Where’s your suitcase?”
“I’ll bring it in a bit. Breakfast first!” She caught sight of what I was holding. “Or did you have something other than bagels in mind?”
-*-
Mom, it seems, had pulled a fast one. She had left messages saying she was on her way to visit her sister for a few days and was spending the night with me tonight to break up the trip a little. She would spend Halloween weekend with me on her way back home. It seems Mom can spend up to six days with her sister before she wants to strangle her. Go Mom.
My cat, it seems, had conveniently erased the messages.
“What is the matter with you?” Mom asked. “What are you so jumpy about?”
“Nothing. I’m just surprised. I guess the remote isn’t the only thing my cat likes to play with.”
“You still have it.”
“My cat? Yes. She’s staying with me now. My cat.”
“I see.”
Those two chilly words spoke volumes. I took her out to dinner that evening to thaw her mood. Away from the house, both of us relaxed.
“I’m sorry,” we said in unison, then we laughed.
“Me first.” I said after the waiter had brought us our food. “I did everything. I can’t find any previous owners. The only thing I can figure is the cat ran away from home, or was left somewhere and the family moved. She’s homeless now. I thought I was doing a good thing. Charity, you know? She seems good for me. Maybe if I can have a relationship with a cat, I can have a relationship with a human.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “That I can understand. You are alone too much. I was just hoping you would get a roommate again.”
“But where would you stay when you visited?” I asked innocently.
“Imp,” she replied, but she was smiling when she said it. “So, tell me. Are you dating?”
She insisted we stop by a pet store on the way home. The collar was orange. When Mom tried to spring it on my cat after we got back, I had to intervene.
“I don’t think she’s used to them,” I said gently, stroking the cat to calm her. “I don’t want it to choke her.” I pictured something that small around a human neck and suppressed a shiver. Changing with that on would kill her. No wonder she hadn’t been wearing a collar at the vet’s place.
“It’s for her own good.” Mom sniffed indignantly. “You can put a name on the tag and then, when she gets lost, she can come back home to you.”
My mom was protecting me from heartache and calling my cat a ‘she.’ It was touching. We exchanged a quick hug over that hurdle before we both busted out laughing.
Oil and water.
-*-
I’m not sure what woke me up. It could have been some small sound out of place. It could have been my anxiety over having a naked cat in the house with my mom here. Whatever it was, I went on the prowl. I keep the house dark and my curtains open at night, so there is light coming in from outside to help me navigate but no light shining out to show someone where I am. My eyesight’s pretty good in the dark. No cats hid in the shadows anywhere else, so I checked the last place I expected: my guest room.
She was on my mother’s chest, nose to nose with her while my mother lay on her back and snored softly. My gasp alerted the cat to my presence, and she noiselessly leaped off the bed and was out the door before I could make a move to stop her.
I found her on the couch in human form.
“What were you doing?” I asked, sitting on the coffee table so I could face her.
“I don’t know.” She punched a pillow. “Nothing.”
“Can cats steal breath away?”
She glared at me. “How should I know? It’s not like I can talk to one and ask.”
“Oh.” I scratched my head. “I hadn’t thought of that. Sounds complicated.”
“It is.” She relaxed a bit. “So is this. I guess.” She tweaked the pillow again. “I don’t want your mother to ruin your life. I hear the way she talks to you. I don’t like it. She doesn’t like you.”
“Whoa.” I held up a palm. “I’m in a different place than you were. She’s a different kind of mother. I know she loves me. What she says may come across all wrong, but it’s done for all the right reasons. I promise you, she’s not like that.”
She looked far more hurt than sullen, now, and my heart reached out to hers. “Thank you for wanting to protect me, but she’s not a threat. I’m sorry yours was. I wish I could have been there for you.”
“I believe you.” Her eyes were huge. “Can I sleep with you?”
“I’m not. I mean I don’t.” I sighed. “As you said. It’s complicated. This is.” I lost my words.
“As a cat, then?”
I reached out and ignored the softness of her skin under my hand as I massaged her shoulder in a familiar manner. I didn’t want her to think I was treating her any differently than before.
“For now, yes,” I answered.
She literally purred.
-*-
I sang out as I opened the door. The workweek was flying by. Having a cat to come home to was wonderful, but it was nothing compared to coming home to a friend. That warm feeling ended suddenly when she didn’t answer. I shut the door quickly and finally found her hiding behind the couch, in human form.
“What is it?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s back.” She pointed a shaky finger toward the kitchen.
I investigated. A large grey squirrel was raiding the birdfeeders on the patio outside the sliding glass door of the breakfast nook, ravenously scattering seed in its attempts to fill its cheeks with food. It stopped when it saw me, eyed me suspiciously, and then scampered up a tree.
“Well I’ll be,” I said aloud.
A warm body clutched me from behind. “Is he gone?”
“Yes.” When I turned around, she pressed against me and clutched me in a tight embrace. “Whoa. You’re trembling. I know why I don’t like squirrels, but what has you so scared?”
“A couple of them chased me once,” she muttered against my neck. “I thought they were going to kill me.” She pulled back a little and stared into my eyes with her golden ones. “You don’t like them either, right?”
“I don’t like that one, that’s for sure.” I led her back into the living room. “It looks just like the one that got into my attic.” She dove for the couch again. “What?”
“He can get inside?”
“It did, but I doubt it can get in now. The owners patched up the roof. I check the attic every month. It hasn’t been back, I promise.”
She peeked out. “He scares me.”
“Are you sure it’s a he?”
“Yes. He’s big enough. He could kill me all by himself.”
Huh. “Look at yourself. You’re much bigger than he is.”
She looked down at herself and looked up at me with confusion.
“You are not a cat. You are a human. He’s just a squirrel. If he saw you as you are, he would run, just like he runs from me. We are big. He is small.” She blinked disbelievingly, and I wondered just how much being an animal had twisted her thinking. “What is your name?” I asked. “You’ve never said.”
That garnered a coy smile. She always sidestepped that question, no matter how many times I posed it or what mood she was in when asked.
I sighed in defeat. “Find us a movie and I’ll make something special for dinner.”
Part 3
Happy Halloween, guys. Here's part two.
Her skin was pale, but not white, her eyes were golden, and waves of dark hair framed her face and shoulders. She moved like a dancer, and lounged in the nude on my couch without any self-consciousness whatsoever. She put the frying pan on the coffee table and smiled up at me.
“You’re pretty strong,” she said. “I don’t think I could have pulled him off of you.”
Her voice was a little scratchy, as if she needed to clear her throat.
“Who are you?” I finally asked, perching nervously on the end of my couch in my partially disassembled clothing and composure.
“Your cat.”
“This is.” I stopped. “I don’t.” Nope. Words still weren’t coming to my rescue. I sighed instead. “Please explain.”
She tucked her feet up under her. “You really want it? It’s not a pretty story. I always knew I was different. Then I was abused. I fantasized about getting out of the house and ended up on the streets. Someone tried to rape me and I got away by scratching his eyes out. I’m not sure when I ended up as a cat, but it made things easier.
“No one cares about a homeless kid. People will feed cats, though. Take them into their homes. Cats aren’t charity cases like kids are. People feel good about that kind of charity. Cats can be loved and petted more easily than kids.” She studied the long slender fingers on her hands idly. “I have preferred being a cat, until now. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to tell you what I really was.” She leaned forward and touched my bare knee with a warm hand. “You’re different. I can tell from the way you touch me and talk to me. You let me be me, and that makes you special.”
“I, uh. I really don’t know what to say. Thank you? Do you have any idea how strange this is?”
She nodded. “I know. I can’t even tell you how I change, it just happens when I need it to. The first time I caught sight of myself in a mirror, I was shocked. It made a difference, too. I could imagine I was still a human until that point, but seeing the fur made me more like the animal. I think it changed me.”
I sat there, dumbly nodding. My cat was human and I didn’t understand.
-*-
When I woke, I knew it had been a dream. My clothes were on top of the coverlet and I was underneath, safe and warm. The world had righted itself.
“Morning,” she said cheerily as she walked in with a glass of milk. She put it down on the bedside table and leaned over. Before I knew it, she had kissed me on the mouth. “How did you sleep?”
I reached up and felt my lips. That had felt familiar. My eyes met hers and she smiled and nodded. She was my dream Romeo. The only problem was I wasn’t attracted. Or was I?
I sat up and realized I was naked, too. “Are you gay?” I asked as I drew up the coverlet to hide me.
“My mother called me a deviant. My stepfather called me interesting. She tried to have me locked away and he tried to get into my pants. I’m not sure whether I’m gay or if I’m just hurting from the abuse.” She shrugged and sat next to me. “Who knows?”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen. You?”
“Twenty two.”
She was a minor. The phone rang but I didn’t pick it up. The world was spinning again.
The answering machine picked it up and I frowned. I had thought it was broken. My cat wiggled her fingers suggestively, and then put one to her lips for silence.
My mother’s voice came on. “I’m picking up some of those bagels you like, so I’ll be a bit late. See you shortly.”
The machine beeped.
“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed. “What day is it? Crap!”
-*-
I was as nervous as, well, a cat, but the mystery girl was gone by the time I was out of the shower. I noticed my bed was neatly made. My dirty clothes were in the hamper. The kitchen was clean and the living room in order when I walked around to inspect the house. The only thing out of place was the frying pan on the coffee table. I picked it up to inspect it, and my cat (in cat form) jumped up on the back of the couch to watch. There was a dent in the edge of the pan.
“You hit him pretty hard,” I said. “Thank you again for saving me.”
She twitched her tail and flicked an ear at me.
“Still, we need to talk.” The doorbell rang. My mother had arrived, one weekend early. “Hold that thought,” I told her, running to the door.
“Good morning!” Mom said, sailing past me and into the little house. “Happy Halloween!”
“That’s next weekend, Mom. You’re a weekend early.” I closed the door and followed her in. “Where’s your suitcase?”
“I’ll bring it in a bit. Breakfast first!” She caught sight of what I was holding. “Or did you have something other than bagels in mind?”
-*-
Mom, it seems, had pulled a fast one. She had left messages saying she was on her way to visit her sister for a few days and was spending the night with me tonight to break up the trip a little. She would spend Halloween weekend with me on her way back home. It seems Mom can spend up to six days with her sister before she wants to strangle her. Go Mom.
My cat, it seems, had conveniently erased the messages.
“What is the matter with you?” Mom asked. “What are you so jumpy about?”
“Nothing. I’m just surprised. I guess the remote isn’t the only thing my cat likes to play with.”
“You still have it.”
“My cat? Yes. She’s staying with me now. My cat.”
“I see.”
Those two chilly words spoke volumes. I took her out to dinner that evening to thaw her mood. Away from the house, both of us relaxed.
“I’m sorry,” we said in unison, then we laughed.
“Me first.” I said after the waiter had brought us our food. “I did everything. I can’t find any previous owners. The only thing I can figure is the cat ran away from home, or was left somewhere and the family moved. She’s homeless now. I thought I was doing a good thing. Charity, you know? She seems good for me. Maybe if I can have a relationship with a cat, I can have a relationship with a human.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “That I can understand. You are alone too much. I was just hoping you would get a roommate again.”
“But where would you stay when you visited?” I asked innocently.
“Imp,” she replied, but she was smiling when she said it. “So, tell me. Are you dating?”
She insisted we stop by a pet store on the way home. The collar was orange. When Mom tried to spring it on my cat after we got back, I had to intervene.
“I don’t think she’s used to them,” I said gently, stroking the cat to calm her. “I don’t want it to choke her.” I pictured something that small around a human neck and suppressed a shiver. Changing with that on would kill her. No wonder she hadn’t been wearing a collar at the vet’s place.
“It’s for her own good.” Mom sniffed indignantly. “You can put a name on the tag and then, when she gets lost, she can come back home to you.”
My mom was protecting me from heartache and calling my cat a ‘she.’ It was touching. We exchanged a quick hug over that hurdle before we both busted out laughing.
Oil and water.
-*-
I’m not sure what woke me up. It could have been some small sound out of place. It could have been my anxiety over having a naked cat in the house with my mom here. Whatever it was, I went on the prowl. I keep the house dark and my curtains open at night, so there is light coming in from outside to help me navigate but no light shining out to show someone where I am. My eyesight’s pretty good in the dark. No cats hid in the shadows anywhere else, so I checked the last place I expected: my guest room.
She was on my mother’s chest, nose to nose with her while my mother lay on her back and snored softly. My gasp alerted the cat to my presence, and she noiselessly leaped off the bed and was out the door before I could make a move to stop her.
I found her on the couch in human form.
“What were you doing?” I asked, sitting on the coffee table so I could face her.
“I don’t know.” She punched a pillow. “Nothing.”
“Can cats steal breath away?”
She glared at me. “How should I know? It’s not like I can talk to one and ask.”
“Oh.” I scratched my head. “I hadn’t thought of that. Sounds complicated.”
“It is.” She relaxed a bit. “So is this. I guess.” She tweaked the pillow again. “I don’t want your mother to ruin your life. I hear the way she talks to you. I don’t like it. She doesn’t like you.”
“Whoa.” I held up a palm. “I’m in a different place than you were. She’s a different kind of mother. I know she loves me. What she says may come across all wrong, but it’s done for all the right reasons. I promise you, she’s not like that.”
She looked far more hurt than sullen, now, and my heart reached out to hers. “Thank you for wanting to protect me, but she’s not a threat. I’m sorry yours was. I wish I could have been there for you.”
“I believe you.” Her eyes were huge. “Can I sleep with you?”
“I’m not. I mean I don’t.” I sighed. “As you said. It’s complicated. This is.” I lost my words.
“As a cat, then?”
I reached out and ignored the softness of her skin under my hand as I massaged her shoulder in a familiar manner. I didn’t want her to think I was treating her any differently than before.
“For now, yes,” I answered.
She literally purred.
-*-
I sang out as I opened the door. The workweek was flying by. Having a cat to come home to was wonderful, but it was nothing compared to coming home to a friend. That warm feeling ended suddenly when she didn’t answer. I shut the door quickly and finally found her hiding behind the couch, in human form.
“What is it?” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s back.” She pointed a shaky finger toward the kitchen.
I investigated. A large grey squirrel was raiding the birdfeeders on the patio outside the sliding glass door of the breakfast nook, ravenously scattering seed in its attempts to fill its cheeks with food. It stopped when it saw me, eyed me suspiciously, and then scampered up a tree.
“Well I’ll be,” I said aloud.
A warm body clutched me from behind. “Is he gone?”
“Yes.” When I turned around, she pressed against me and clutched me in a tight embrace. “Whoa. You’re trembling. I know why I don’t like squirrels, but what has you so scared?”
“A couple of them chased me once,” she muttered against my neck. “I thought they were going to kill me.” She pulled back a little and stared into my eyes with her golden ones. “You don’t like them either, right?”
“I don’t like that one, that’s for sure.” I led her back into the living room. “It looks just like the one that got into my attic.” She dove for the couch again. “What?”
“He can get inside?”
“It did, but I doubt it can get in now. The owners patched up the roof. I check the attic every month. It hasn’t been back, I promise.”
She peeked out. “He scares me.”
“Are you sure it’s a he?”
“Yes. He’s big enough. He could kill me all by himself.”
Huh. “Look at yourself. You’re much bigger than he is.”
She looked down at herself and looked up at me with confusion.
“You are not a cat. You are a human. He’s just a squirrel. If he saw you as you are, he would run, just like he runs from me. We are big. He is small.” She blinked disbelievingly, and I wondered just how much being an animal had twisted her thinking. “What is your name?” I asked. “You’ve never said.”
That garnered a coy smile. She always sidestepped that question, no matter how many times I posed it or what mood she was in when asked.
I sighed in defeat. “Find us a movie and I’ll make something special for dinner.”
Part 3