Cat Snips - a Short Story Collection by Cat Johnson (3 page)

He was still pouting when a pair
of legs worthy of Playboy Magazine stopped right in front of his
cage. He had learned a lot in his years as a cat. People left the
most interesting things under their beds, including some very
titillating magazines.

These particular legs made him
feel his recent loss even more keenly.
He supposed he could at
least try to be happy in his neutered condition if a woman with legs
like hers adopted him. It would be far better than going home with
one of those old ladies who collected cats. He’d lived with
some of them in the past. Most of them were crazy as loons and their
houses smelled. But this one, he could live forever just watching her
towel off after a shower. Mmm, mmm.

Judging by her expensive looking
leather shoes, she would definitely have more than just basic cable.
He’d acquired a taste for cable TV over the last couple of
decades. Ooo, maybe she’d have satellite. Even better.

During his musings about his new
life, she had started to coo at some kitten in one of the cages above
him. Being neutered was bad enough, but he would not lose his new
woman too. In an act of pure desperation, he reached out a paw and
swatted her leg.

Spinning around in a happy dance
when she bent to peer at him, he watched a fall of long reddish-brown
hair swing over her one shoulder. He purred loudly and rubbed his
face against the bars of the cage, trying to look as cute as
possible. She smiled and her green eyes lit up.

“
Hello, there. Aren’t
you handsome.” She stuck a finger between two metal bars and
rubbed the side of his face. She was good at rubbing and got just the
right spot.
He
didn’t even have to pretend to purr now.

Then she stood up and walked
away. He reached out again and swiped, but missed her leg. Pressing
his face up against the cage, he tried to see where she was going.
His head and his hopes fell as she went out the door and let it slam
shut behind her.

Belinda walked to the front desk
of the shelter and tried to quiet the voice in her head. Max didn’t
like cats. It was a big responsibility owning a pet. If she adopted a
cat, it would be alone all day while she was at work.

But then she thought of all the
nights and weekends she was home alone while Max was away. Wouldn’t
a warm fuzzy body snuggled up in her lap make her feel better? It
wasn’t exactly a substitute for sex, but since she hadn’t
been getting a whole lot of that lately, she was grasping at anything
right now. And that last cat she had looked at, she just felt a
connection to him. He’d actually reached right out and picked
her, rather than her picking him.

The volunteer behind the desk
looked up from her papers and smiled. “Can I help you?”

Belinda smiled back, her decision
made. “Yes. There’s a big black cat in the bottom cage.
I’d like to adopt him, please.”

Chapter Three

“
Hey, you want to come over
tonight and hang out?” Belinda filled the cat bowl with food
and water while cradling the phone on one shoulder.

Donna hesitated. “Is Max
home?”

“
No.” Belinda sighed.
It was extremely trying that her friends didn’t like her
boyfriend. “He’s away at a trade show…again. But
there’s a new man in my life I’d like you to meet.”

She smiled down at the black cat
as he somehow managed to purr and eat at the same time.

“
Really? Who?” Donna
sounded much too excited.

“
Relax, it’s just a
cat I adopted. But I think I love him already. He’s so sweet.”
As if on cue, he left his food bowl and came to rub against her legs
again. Belinda hadn’t had someone’s undivided attention
in a very long time. It was nice, even if it was only a cat.

“
I’d love to come
over and meet him. I’ll call Grace and pick up a bottle of
wine.”

“
Great, and I’ve got
a pot of sauce on the stove and fresh pasta from the market down the
street.” Belinda stepped over the cat to give the sauce a quick
stir.

Belinda ran a vacuum over the
carpet and had just lit some candles and set the table when the
doorbell rang.

Her friends descended upon her
apartment bearing wine and fresh filled cannolis. No wonder they had
been friends forever. They enjoyed the same things.

They sat down for a relaxed meal.

Amidst a whirlwind of talking,
laughing, drinking and eating, the man turned cat sat beneath the
coffee table and just observed. It was times like this that made him
realize the difference between men and women. Three men would eat and
drink together, yes, but without all of this chatter. It was enough
to give a person, or even a cat, a headache.

Sure, in the old days, he had
enjoyed sitting around a fire and sharing manly companionship.
Sometimes they told tales of battle or even raunchy stories about
women they’d bedded. Even more recently he’d enjoyed
hiding in a pub, watching a game of sport on the TV. Sometimes the
men would raise their voices in a cheer, if a specific play warranted
it. But never did they all speak at the same time, and so quickly and
loudly too.

How did these women even listen
to each other when they never shut up long enough? It was just like
that talk show that one of his past owners loved. The one where these
women sat around a table and just yelled at each other for an hour
every morning. He had despised that hour.

“
I can’t believe you
got a cat.”

He was just pondering his hatred
of that particular show and hoping this new owner was not a fan when
he heard himself being referred to.

“
What’s Max going to
say about it?” The one with dark curly hair named Grace was
talking and looking at him with distinct distaste. Ah, not a cat
lover, he could see that already.

His woman shrugged. “He has
nothing to say about it.
It’s still my place,
Max just happens to be living here right now. Besides, he’s
away so much for work, he really can’t complain. He won’t
be here enough for the cat to bother him, and I want the company
while I’m alone.”

He’d seen evidence of a man
around, things like neckties and rather large shoes on the floor of
the closet.
He’d
wondered where this man was, and tried not to feel jealous that his
woman was with someone else.

If he could have laughed at
himself at that thought, he would have. After a thousand years, you
think he would have stopped coveting female flesh, especially after
his ‘neutering’. At that memory, he bent to lick himself
again. The area was healing nicely, but it itched and was still
shaved bald and ridiculous looking. It angered him every time he
thought about it.

“
He is a beauty. The cat, I
mean. I’ve never seen eyes so blue on a domestic shorthaired
black cat before. You usually only find that eye color in a Siamese.
So what are you going to name him?” the other woman asked.
Donna, he thought her name was, the one with shorter straight hair
who kept refilling everyone’s wine glass. Obviously,
she
knew her cats and had a keen appreciation for quality when she saw
it.

His woman shrugged. “I
don’t know yet. Nothing seems to fit him. I’ve taken to
calling him Black Cat for now.” He glanced up and saw her look
over at him and smile. Embarrassed at being caught in his
particularly compromising position, he quickly stopped licking
himself.

Cat-hating Grace raised an
eyebrow. “I’m more interested about the comment that Max
is just living here in your place for now. What about the ‘moving
in together is one step closer to marriage’ theory of yours?”

His woman took a deep breath in
and let it out slowly. He watched her shapely breasts rise and fall,
then brought his gaze back to her eyes, as green as cats’ eyes.

“
I’ve been rethinking
that.”

“
The theory, or Max?”
discriminating Donna asked.

His woman rolled her eyes.
“Listen, both of you. I know you never liked him. And don’t
get all cocky, because I’m not admitting that you’re
right. It’s just I don’t like myself when I’m with
him. I’m insecure and uncertain. Uptight. Everything he accuses
me of being.
But
that’s not really me.”

Grace threw her hands in the air.
“Exactly. That’s what we’ve been saying all along.”
Perhaps he would consider giving Grace another chance, given she was
on his side in getting rid of this man in his woman’s life.

Donna nodded. “It’s
not that we don’t like him. Well, okay, we don’t like
him, but it’s because you’re different since you’ve
been with him. I don’t think he’s the right guy for you.”

His woman nodded and looked sad
as she stared into her wine glass. He walked over and jumped into her
lap, circled once, then lay down, purring. He looked up and saw her
smile as she stroked him. He closed his eyes and imagined her
stroking his human form.

“
At least I have you, huh,
Black Cat.” She leaned down and kissed him. Her voice and
breath in his ear made him shudder.

Damn that witch to hell!

Grace jumped up and grabbed her
purse, which was big enough for two cats to live in with room to
spare.

“
Now that we’ve
decided to get rid of Max, let’s consult my spell book and see
what we should curse him with.”

His woman laughed and sent a
vibration through him as he lay in her lap. “You’re
carrying that witch book around with you now?”

Grace pulled the book from the
big bag. “No. I just brought it here tonight because you
witches
are my coven. So let’s see what we’ve got in here.”

Donna got up from the table.
“Good. I’ll put up the pot of coffee and get the cannoli
while you figure out how to get me the money for that beach house and
make Max’s penis fall off.”

“
Thanks, Donna. I’ve
got my hands, or rather my lap, full at the moment. And I don’t
want Max’s penis to fall off. I just want to find a man who
loves me just the way I am and doesn’t make me feel inadequate.
Is that too much to ask?” She leaned down and whispered the
last sentence to him. He raised his head and rubbed her chin with the
side of his face.

“
No problem,” Donna
called back from the kitchen over the sound of the water running in
the sink. “But I’d reconsider the penis thing if I were
you.”

He liked the sound of Max’s
penis falling off too, particularly after what those cat ladies had
just done to him. Misery loves company, as they say. Although,
witchcraft had put him in this position and he wasn’t
comfortable being around it again. Particularly since the book of
spells was currently in Grace the cat-hater’s hands.

They continued to read the spell
book over coffee and dessert, and he realized he had nothing to worry
about.
They
were just a bunch of slightly tipsy women fantasizing about being
rich, finding love and cursing the men in their lives.

For once he felt safer being a
cat rather than a man. It seemed that over the years, women had
become more assertive and hated men more with every passing century.
It had all started back when women got the vote and had steadily gone
downhill from there.

He curled up in his woman’s
lap, content for the first time in a long while. As he drifted off to
sleep, he inhaled the distinctly female human scent of her. Visions
of his human form and her naked one coursed through his brain and he
had a feeling his dreams tonight wouldn’t be about mice.

Chapter Four

“
What the fuck…”

Belinda awoke with a start and
heard Max’s voice in the dark, followed by a cat’s hiss.

“
Belinda! Did you get a
damn cat?” He stomped into the bedroom and flipped on the
light, blinding her.

She blinked at him. “Yes.
You didn’t step on him and hurt him, did you?”

“
Him? What about me? I
nearly tripped and broke my neck in the dark.”

“
I can see you’re
fine.” She bent to look under the bed for the cat. “He
must be frightened to death. Poor thing. Here, Black Cat. Psss, psss,
psss.”

“
Black Cat? You’re in
advertising and that’s the best you can do? Real creative,
Belinda.” He snorted and went into the bathroom.

Belinda scowled, his comment
grating on her nerves.

There was something very wrong
that she was far happier lately when Max was away. When he was home,
he always somehow managed to make her feel like crap.

Talking with her friends tonight
about Max just seemed to solidify the nagging feeling of discontent
that had been residing in the back of her brain for awhile now.

She plopped down next to the bed
on the carpet. A realization had just hit her. In the past, when Max
was away, she was obsessed with the fact that he was around other
women, including his assistant who traveled with him all the time.
The insecurity and jealousy had nearly consumed her. But this trip,
she hadn’t even thought about it. She was just relaxed and
relieved that he was gone. What did that mean? Was she getting
stronger, or did she just not care about him anymore?