22. Leonine

Leonard lounges around the house, atop the fridge, the couch arms, shelves, and any thing else he can make into a comfy anti-perch, his belly fat languidly spilling out over the edge-most part of this or that. I feed him. He sleeps. I watch Television programs with vapid characters. He obsesses about my odoriferous shoes. I pet him, and his air of indifference is only broken by the rumble of involuntary purring. I bring home a date, and he becomes someone else.

I love my Leonard, but sometimes I need the company of a real man – nothing that could ever compare or even have a chance to compete with the depth and longevity of the arrangement that Leo and I share as cat and level-one cat lady, but an occasional someone who can reply verbally rather than merely meow and who might be willing to lend a hot, engorged phallus to fill my moist void for at least a few minutes, maybe more. It doesn’t really matter if my body makes a joy-bomb go off or not. It doesn’t even matter if I enjoy it at all. What matters is that I can have the peace of mind, knowing that someone was inside me at least once a year. If I don’t hit that quota, I graduate to a level-two cat lady.

This year, my gentleman suitor sits on the sofa, and while I fetch him something to drink (red wine and Sprite), Leonard is surely preparing to stand on the man’s lap to dig his claws into his slacks, and possibly flesh, while facing away, sticking his tight little butt hole in the man’s direction.

I come back with two fizzing, plastic champagne flutes in one hand and a new plant-mister in the other. My handsome stranger looks kind of adorable making that nauseated grimace while staring into the brown sinkhole Leonard has put on display. I pump two quick squirts of water at Leonard, and he leaps off the man’s thigh, looking back at me to question my integrity. I want to mouth the words, so sorry, to my beloved, but I know that Rick, or Rich, or Dirk, or whatever his name is, will probably be looking at me. And he is. He seems grateful.

We semi-snuggle, doing lots of contact flirting like touching shoulders and thighs as if it’s a way of basic gesturing. We finish our spritzers – or Sprite-zers, as I like to call them – so I ask him, “Care for another one, big boy?” I immediately feel self-conscious about calling him “big boy” but the red wine that prompted that silly utterance is the same thing that helps me roll with it.

“Got anything stronger?”

“Um, I could make the ratio more in favor of the wine?”

He snaps, points, and smiles before saying, “You read my mind. And…” – he leans in for odd, drunken emphasis here – “…you red my wine.”

“Hmm?”

“You put the red in my wine, babe.” He slouches back, pleased with himself.

I push out a giggle that sounds more like a guffaw that got slapped around, and I try to sound horny when I say, “Coming right up!” I move fast in the kitchen, because I realize I left the plant-mister on the coffee table. When I come back out, Leonard is hacking up a hairball on so-and-so’s lap. I drop the flutes and rush over, stomping to scare Leo away, who immediately rushes away, then around me to lick up the spilled Sprite-zer. I swat the hairball off the guy’s crotch and apologize, verging on tears as I sit.

He smiles and says, “Hey now – if I didn’t know any better, you were trying to cop a feel there.” He smiles, lids drawn half over his eyes, drunk, more of a light-weight than me.

I notice there is a small bulge in his black jeans, and I hesitantly start to rub him through his pants. He’s closing his eyes, moaning like a woman. And I shrug, thinking this should be easy enough. I fuck his mouth with my tongue, because I read in a magazine that guys like girls who are aggressive. So we’re on the couch, totes making out, and I put my hands on his back, pulling him toward me, making him make me lie down on the couch. I unbuckle his belt and don’t bother waiting for him to futz with my bra. I take it off, hoping he’ll take that as a cue to remove my shirt.

He starts feeling up under my shirt, knocking the loose bra around. Oh well.

Then there’s the crash of thick glass. We both turn to see Leo is on an end table, a vase my grandmother gave me broken beneath it. I’m furious and sad and more alone than I’ve ever been without that heirloom, but I can’t let it slow me down. This night is bigger than that. It has to be.

“Do you need to clean that up?”

I shake my head, pointing my nose down, trying to look irresistible, but I can feel the skin around my left eye twitching. I say, “Take off your pants and show me your sausage link,” and then I throw up in my mouth a little, swallow it, and lick my lips. I peel off my shirt and start rubbing my boobs, pushing them around like I saw someone do in a pornographic motion picture I accidentally ordered at a hotel once. My suitor’s boner peeks through the flap in his boxers. I want to seem excited even though I’m dry as an 80 year-old paraplegic nun, so I say, “Ay-yi-yi”, imitating Anita from West Side Story, soon realizing that it was a little over the top, but he looks like he’s battling a bashful feeling with a lusty one, so I guess it worked.

We keep trading looks, until he finally works up to courage to ask with a thin voice, “Would you mind… maybe…” before he can ask for me to suckle on his penis, Leo roars and pounces on it, trying to use the guy’s thing as a small scratching post.

I cover my mouth while the guy shrieks, slapping Leo in the head, hard. My baby scurries away, making pained meows.

“Fuck, fuck – what the fuck!” He looks horrified, holding his crotch, a little blood on his hands.

“It’s okay! It’s okay! We’ll give it an ice bath and it will be good as new!”

“Fuck you, lady! Do you understand what just happened? This is my baby boy! This is my heart’s heart! This is my fucking livelihood!”

“Wait – you’re a prostitute? Because I only have cash….”

“No! I… I guess I don’t know what livelihood means, but: FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! It hurts!” He’s shaking as he gently pulls his pants back up.

And I panic and start tugging them back down hard, making him groan, but the wrong kind. I plead with him, “C’mon, please, don’t do that! Just pop it in real quick! Just the tip! Just enough to break the streak!”

“No, you crazy bitch!”

“Please! Just give me a taste of your juicy beef tip!” I puke on myself and a little bit on him. I don’t know why I keep referring to his penis as edible meats, considering I’m a vegetarian.

“Oh! Gross! She’s gross! She’s… ICKY!” He says this pointing at me, refusing to refer to me in the first person anymore.

He rushes out to the door, opens it, and slams it shut. And I’m still screaming after him, laying in my own vomit, “Come back and fuck me in my vagina hole, you pansy-basket!”

I’m defeated.

Miserable.

A level-two cat lady.

Leonard creeps up on me and starts lapping at my vomit with his cute little tongue. My lips smile, despite my eyes dripping tears. And I pet him.

 

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