There’s an expression to describe a small space – There’s hardly room to swing a cat.
I detest the image, but my room in the collective house kept the phrase running through my mind. At seven by nine feet with a twelve-foot ceiling, the room would have been better tipped on its side. It looked like a silo where gravity had had its way and everything had fallen to the bottom. Even my mattress was on the floor, under the window that opened onto the back porch.
Star, my basic black cat, had borne her fifth (and final) litter there. Star was just so through with motherhood. If I hadn’t spayed her after that litter, she would have sharpened a claw and done it herself. Two kittens of four remained without permanent homes. Stocky Lodovico, victor at games, was grey with outsize white paws. Miss Porter, a Great Beauty of a tabby, exhibited poise, grace and ditziness. I have never met another kitten who required rescue from a ball of yarn.
Much of the time kittens propelled themselves the few feet from desk to window sill to chair to mattress at a pace that threatened both Star’s and my sanity. At least having only two orbiting kittens was a relief after four. As they aged onward to nine weeks, Star abdicated motherhood. Ludo’s attempt to nurse elicited growls, readily followed by bites. Star declared the kittens graduated from stalking academy, as real swats punished their attempts to catch her tail. Miss Porter’s charming plea for help with milky whiskers was met with a hiss that said, “Just sit still and groom yourself.” Distain radiated from Star’s retreat into the depths of the closet.
I should have known it was not the best time to introduce my new lover to Star, nor Star to my new lover.
Moreover, the tempestuous new squeeze, Harriet hated cats. She wasn’t an ailurophobe – afraid of cats. She loathed everything about cats from their quick movement to soft fur to divaesque attitude, not unlike her own. Cats were a deal-breaker, and in the first two weeks of fabulous sexual exploration, I wanted no broken deals.
On our second-week anniversary, a lazy Saturday afternoon, I shut the kittens in the housemate’s room, generously offered as a respite from rampant felinity. No matter that bumptious Ludo might break something and bemused Miss Porter might tangle herself in something. I saw Star enjoying the break stretched languorously in the back porch hammock.
I sprawled in ecstasy on the mattress on the floor as Harriet busied herself, her head between my thighs. Our consciousness rested deeply in our bodies and far, far outside mundane time and space. Star chose that moment to slowly stretch and leave the hammock. She leapt from the window sill onto the top of Harriet’s head.
Harriet was on her feet in a trice, gasping for air, literally bouncing off the walls. Afraid of being trampled, I wriggled to my feet and jumped backwards into a corner. Star dove for the rear of the closet. Wine splattered everywhere. Six eyes stared wildly. Three hearts near exploded from three chests. Harriet’s feral screeches rattled the house.
When the reverberations stopped, I read the writing on the nearby walls, Harriet and I were over. I would step up the search for kitten homes. Star would be booked for surgery. I would move to a normally proportioned room and buy a bed frame. Star would forgive me. We would once again be Cat and Cat’s companion, only the two of us together in a pleasant room, just the way Star liked it.
Originally published in QUIRK-E Collections Volume 5, 2010, pp 137-138
Photo credit: Lorri Rudland
