Katie The Cat Lover

There was only one good thing about living in that little basement apartment—it was cool in the summer. Otherwise, it totally sucked.

Thanks to someone's brilliant design idea in re-vamping this old house as a rental, my apartment was next to the laundry room. Once in a while, a sock would get stuck in the wash tub and it would overflow during the rinse cycle and, of course, the back door of my little efficiency was between the machine and the drain. My carpet always had a faint mildew smell.

Somebody had a dog that barked like a rabid Cujo every morning at seven and who used the back stoop that was my entrance as a doggie-toilet. The girl directly above me had cats. It sounded like fifty of them. From a basement perspective, a bunch of cats sound like a herd of mewling rhinos when someone opens a can of tuna. Or cat food. I didn't know which—I just heard the whine of the can opener. Every morning, six a.m.— reer-reer-reer, followed by a hundred thousand thumpity-thumps from every direction above my head, accompanied by a cacophony of meows.

I met the cat girl one morning long before I should have been awake. I could hear her in the laundry room doing that "here, kittykittykitty" run-on that cat owners always used—like cats ever came when you called them? She would have better luck bringing the can opener down. I was thinking all of this with the pillow pulled over my head to block out the light. That was the one other good thing about a basement apartment. I seemed to get less light through the little windows near the ceiling.

"Bad kitty!" I heard the admonishing female voice, but it was when I heard the splashing that I groaned and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My bare feet squished in the soggy carpet. I was trying to remember where I'd put that box fan I used to dry it out while I pulled on a pair of sweat pants and opened the door to the laundry room.

The sight wasn't a bad one—it could have been much worse. The floor was completely flooded, alright, but there was a girl wearing boy shorts and a tank-tee half sprawled across the rumbling washer, reaching behind it for something. Her feet were wet and the water dripped down her legs as she grunted and wiggled on top of the machine. I stood in the doorway for a moment, admiring the view, until she slid off the washer into a puddle with a frustrated sigh, blowing a piece of dark hair out of her eyes.

"Hi," I said, startling her. I sloshed my way through the flood over to the tub, reaching in to find the culprit. "Is this your load of wash?"

"Yes," she replied, sounding apologetic. "And my cat's stuck behind the washer."

I held up the pair of pink panties that I'd pulled from the tub drain. "Then these are yours?" I wrung them out and held them up for her.

"Thanks," she said with a flush, holding them in her hands and looking around like she wanted to find a place to put them but wasn't quite sure where. "Can you help me get my cat?"

I sighed. The tub problem had been solved. The water was going nicely down the drain again. Aside from the wet carpet in my apartment, which I would have been happy to deal with after another two hours of sleep, my worries were over.

"Please?" She was leaning over the washer again, and I got a glimpse of her ass as her shorts rode up.

"Sure," I said, stepping up behind her and peering over the washer. I could see the luminescent eyes of a dark colored cat glowing up at me, its ears pressed flat against its head. It saw me and hissed. "Does it have claws?"

"Of course!" she said, sounding horrified. Ah. She was one of those. Altering an animal was horrible, blah blah blah. I didn't know if it was cruel—I just knew I would have preferred picking up a soft-pawed cat to a fully loaded one.

"Does it have a name?" I asked, changing the subject and hoping I hadn't lost too many points with my last question as I edged around the other side of the washer to see if I could move it. I thought I could, without breaking any connections or pulling any hoses. Enough, anyway.

"Sebastian," she said, peering anxiously over. I noticed the way her pink tank-tee pulled over her breasts. She wasn't wearing a bra, and her nipples were hard. Probably from having wet feet and standing on the cold basement floor, but still—it was a nice view.

"That's my name," I said, all the while wondering what she might look like in those pink panties instead of the white boy shorts she was wearing. I leaned over to turn the washer off and my hand brushed her shoulder. She slipped back off the machine, watching me.

"I'm Katie," she said, stepping back as I grabbed the washer with both hands, rocking it forward a little at a time. The cat hissed and suddenly bolted. Luckily, Katie had shut the door at the top of the stairs and it was trapped there. She ran after it, and I could hear her cooing as she carried the cat back down toward me, cradling it in her arms.

"Thank you," she said, and her smile lit up her whole face in such a way that it even made me forget about her ass.

I pushed the machine back, turning it back on. "No problem."

"So you live in the basement?" she asked, watching me reach for the doorknob.

"Yeah," I replied, opening the door to my apartment. I could smell the mildew already.

The cat in her arms was purring now, its eyes half-closed. "I live upstairs," she replied, glancing into my apartment, curious. "Right above you."

She was the cat girl.

"How many of those do you have?" I asked, watching her fingers sink into the animal's dark fur.

"Fifteen," she replied, rubbing her cheek against the cat's ear. Ok, so my guesstimate of fifty was a little off. It was still a lot of damned cats. "Do you have any pets?"

"Me?" I shook my head with a smile. "I don't even have plants."

"Do you like cats?" she asked.

I was about give my usual response: 'Yes, braised in light cream sauce'—the one I always used when someone asked me if I liked kids or animals. Then I saw her pink panties still bunched up in her hand and remembered the way she had looked sprawled across the washer.

"Sure," I said. "Love them." I reached out to pet the cat she was holding on the head to prove it. He flattened his ears and gave a low cat-growl.

"Well, thanks again," she said, turning and starting to climb the stairs. "Maybe I'll see you around?"

My eyes were on back on her ass, where the water from her feet had made little wet spots on her shorts when she was hanging over the edge of the washing machine.

"What are you doing tonight?" I asked.

She turned to me with a smile. "Making you a nice 'thank-you' dinner?"

I raised my eyebrows but I was grinning. "That would be great!"

"Seven-thirty," she said, going back up the stairs. I couldn't help watching how her hips swayed, and I stood there for a while longer even after she'd closed the basement door, feeling warm in spite of the fact that I was in bare feet standing in a cold, wet puddle.

*****

I figured I would to have to herd cats back into her apartment when I got there—but I got way more than I expected. I had already knocked before I heard them, or I probably would have just left.

"Malcolm, you're an ass!" It was Katie's voice, and she sounded—well, scared. I stood there, shifting from foot to foot, trying to decide what exactly I should do. "Get out!"

"Alright, doll." A guy's voice. "Take it easy. I'm going."

The door opened and I found myself face-to-face with Mr. Testosterone. This guy was twice my size, which would have been formidable enough, but he also had a shaved head, a goatee, and a bunch of tribal tattoos. He didn't even look at me as he shoved by, using his shoulder to knock me out of the way as he headed past. I stared after him as he clomped down the stairs, straight-arming the back screen door on the way out.

"Sorry," Katie apologized from behind me and I turned to look at her. She was hugging herself like she was cold, although it was still eighty degrees outside and probably hotter up here.

"That's alright," I said, accepting her invitation as she waved me in. Whatever she was cooking smelled even better in here than it did in the hallway. The first thing I noticed were the cats—they were everywhere—stretched out on the sofa, curled into those little cat towers, there was even one lying belly-up in the middle of the kitchen table. I didn't want to think about the fact that we were going to be eating there soon. I counted seven. Not even half of them!

"Have a seat," Katie said, waving me into the living room. She shooed a cat off a chair for me, and I sat in a thick pile of white hair. "Do you want something to drink?"

"What do you have?" I asked as the white cat leapt back up into my lap, her blue eyes checking me out as she turned around and flicked her tail past my nose. I wanted to push her off, but I thought Katie wouldn't like it, so I tolerated the paws kneading against my thigh.

"Coke, water, orange juice, wine," she said, standing in front of the open refrigerator on one bare foot, the other tucked behind her ankle.

"Coke," I said, wincing as the cat's claws dug into my leg. I was glad I'd worn jeans instead of shorts. Katie handed me a can and sat across from me on the sofa with a soda of her own.

"I'm really sorry about that," she apologized again, looking toward the door. "Malcolm is..."

I popped the lid and sucked off the foam, waiting. The cat winced at the noise but then wiggled her nose against the can.

"He's an ass," she finished with a sigh, holding her own can of soda against the side of her neck.

"So I heard," I replied, leaning back away from the cat in my lap and discovering another one draped over the back of my chair. "So who is he?"

"Boyfriend," she said, opening her Coke and taking a long drink. I watched her slim throat working as she swallowed. She let out a soft burp, smiling apologetically. "Well, he was. I guess he is. I don't know."

"Sounds complicated," I said as the black cat lying behind me starting making his way across my shoulder.

"Yeah," she replied with a sigh as the white cat dug her back claws into my leg when she jumped off. I cringed but didn't make a sound. Katie made a soft noise in her throat at the cat striding toward her, and she picked her up and cuddled her against her cheek. The cat looked like it was tolerating it rather than enjoying it.

"So... what's for dinner?" I asked, watching Katie kiss the cat's pink nose before dropping her to the floor.

"Lasagna. Oh! The garlic bread!" She jumped up and rushed through the doorway into the kitchen.

From where I sat, I could see her bending over to look into the oven. She wasn't wearing the boy shorts anymore—too bad—but the cutoffs she had on rode up her thighs quite nicely. I liked the way her red t-shirt pulled up a little when she stretched to get plates out of the cupboard, and the way she had pulled her long hair up into some sort of pony tail configuration on the back of her head, all loose and droopy, like it could fall out at any minute.

I shrugged the cat off my shoulder and stood. "Can I help?"

"Sure!" She was plucking pieces of hot garlic bread from a cookie sheet and tossing them into a towel-lined basket, blowing on her fingers between each one.

I opened a drawer and got lucky, pulling out a spatula. "Here." I slipped the spatula under the rest of the bread and up-ended it into the basket.

"Thanks." God, that smile. I couldn't help smiling back, even though it felt goofy to be standing there in her kitchen just smiling at each other. "It was really nice of you to come."

What was I supposed to say to that? "It was nice of you to ask." Wasn't that the polite response? I didn't think either of us was paying attention to the words, anyway. We were too busy looking at each other and smiling.

When I looked down to see what was rubbing against my feet, Katie moved around me to grab the plates. It was a huge orange cat, fatter than any television Morris or Garfield. He must muscle out the rest of them at dinner time, I thought, opening the drawer back up that I'd just closed and grabbing two forks.

Katie retrieved our sodas from the living room, shooing two cats who were trying to make figure-8's around her ankles as she went. I found napkins on the counter, and put the basket of garlic bread on the table.

"Wow," I said when she pulled the lasagna out of the oven. "That's not even Stouffer's!"

She laughed, using the spatula to cut a huge corner chunk and plopping it on my plate. The fat orange cat was sitting at my feet, looking up at me and blinking like he was bored, but his tail was swishing and his eyes were on my plate. The lasagna was too hot to eat so I munched on garlic bread while I watched Katie serve herself about half my portion.

"So what's your major?" It was the number one leading question on a college campus. It had to be asked, so I figured I'd get it out of the way.

"Veterinary medicine," she replied, tucking her foot under her as she sat. I looked at the pink instep of her foot and found myself wanting to kiss it.

"Could have guessed that." I grinned, watching a grey cat I hadn't seen yet appear from around the corner and jump up into her lap. She just adjusted as it settled in.

"Bet I can guess yours," she said, blowing on a piece of lasagna hanging off her fork. Her mouth made a little 'o' when she did that and it fascinated me.

"Try," I said, taking another bite of garlic bread and following it with a swig of soda.

"Music," she said, testing the pasta with her lips and finding it cool enough to slide into her mouth.

"Hey!" I said, nearly choking on my Coke. "How did you know that?"

"I think it must be music performance, rather than theory or composition," she mused, smiling down at her plate.

Then it dawned on me. If I could hear fifteen cats running for her kitchen, she must be able to hear me singing in the basement.

"Good guess," I conceded, trying out my lasagna. It was still way too hot. I felt embarrassed now, knowing she must have heard me.

"You're very good," she said, licking a bit of sauce off her lip. "Although I have to say, you don't look like a guy who's got a voice that big."

I knew I was flushing. I could feel the heat creeping up my neck. I tried to change the subject. "Thanks. So what year are you?"

"Senior. You?"

"Grad school," I replied.

"So you're, what, twenty-four?" she asked, reaching for another piece of garlic bread.

"Twenty-five," I corrected. "And you're, what, twenty-two?"

"Just passed into the land of official drinking age." She smiled. She seemed and felt much older to me, although she didn't look it. "So do you sing anything except opera?"

I winced. I was hoping I'd succeeded with my subject change. Singing opera didn't exactly make me a chick magnet—quite the opposite, since girls seemed to find it about as masculine as a guy in a tutu. It was definitely not something I advertised. I felt like I'd gotten caught with my shorts down.

"Sure," I replied, shoving lasagna into my mouth in spite of the still-scalding temperature and burning the hell out of my tongue. "Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle, lots of other stuff."

"I think it's sexy," she said, looking over at me.

"You do?" I was talking through a mouthful of pasta and the Coke I was swishing around trying to cool it all down. Not one girl I'd known had ever been impressed by my singing opera.

"Yeah." She was leaning her chin on her hand. "Italian, German, French... you sing in all the romance languages."

"Ah," I nodded, swallowing. "Most opera singers don't know the languages they sing in. They just learn the words."

"Do you?" she asked, still looking at me with those dark blue eyes. The cat in her lap had nearly identical ones, and they were both staring at me, blinking.

"Uh..." I took another drink, trying to hide behind the can, but I finally admitted it. "Yeah. I'm fluent in seven languages, but I'm conversational in twelve."

"Wow."

I cleared my throat. "Almost as many languages as you have cats."

She laughed. "I like you, Sebastian."

Her laugh was even better than her smile, I decided. "Thanks. I like you, too."

*****

Katie and I liking each other turned out to be more of a nuisance to me than her fifteen cats. We started spending time together, hanging out, mostly at her place. The cats got used to me, and I even grew to like a few of them. At first, I thought it was all progressing nicely—we were talking a lot, joking around, getting to know each other—and then she gave me the talk. You know, the "I like you too much to risk this being anything more than a friendship" talk.

The problem was really Malcolm. At least, that was my judgment. It wasn't only the cats I could hear from my basement apartment. Malcolm showed up at her place several times a week riding his little yellow crotch rocket—I heard them arguing, I heard them talking, and I heard them fucking. I couldn't stand it. Most times, I ended up storming out of my apartment and just walking up and down the block at two in the morning, even if I had a performance the next day.

We were doing "Cléopâtre," and although she kept saying how much she wanted to hear me perform, Katie had missed it twice. She told me she was sick, but I knew—Malcolm had shown up unannounced and she got busy. They got busy.

Well, this is her last chance, I thought as I paced backstage, my jaw working, my teeth grinding.

"Ready for the big finale?" Anne's speaking voice was as soft as her singing voice was loud. I'd never heard a woman who could project like she could, especially when she started out with something that seemed so small.

She was smiling up at me, already in full costume, her eyes heavily darkened for the role. For a while, I thought she and I might hook up, but it didn't work out. Performers had big egos, and they got in the way. Anne was too much of a diva for me.

"Sure," I said, stopping in mid-pace. "You?"

"Look what Theo gave me." She arched her neck, lifting a small pendant on a gold chain. "He told me you should go see him."

I raised my eyebrows. "Finale gift?" Theo was known for his prudence when it came to putting on shows. My entire costume had been acquired from a Salvation Army thrift store.

"Sort of." Her eyes were bright. "He's got boxes of stuff in his office that he's giving away. He doesn't want the university to get any of it."

"Holy shit!" My eyes widened and I laughed. "He's retiring isn't he? Sly old fox."

She just smiled. "Go see him."

I shook my head, heading back toward his office. He growled a "Come in!" when I knocked.

"Hey, ol' man," I said, crossing my arms and surveying the stacks of boxes in his office. "I heard you wanted to see me."

"Good!" It came out 'Goot.' Theo's English was 'goot' but his accent was still very German, and he often slipped back into the language when he was angry. We'd all been berated in German more times than we could count—I was probably the only one, though, who had been called a "verfluchter hurensohn" and knew that it actually meant some approximation of "stupid son of a bitch!"

"Anything you want," he said, nodding at the pile of boxes. "You choose."

"I'd rather have you stay," I said, meeting his eyes.

He shrugged one shoulder at me. "Can I help it if Italian women are opinionated?"

"Ah," I said, poking through the box closest to me. It was full of the props we had used for "Don Giovanni." "Lil wants to go back to Italy?"

Theo sighed, leaning back in his chair and taking off his round glasses to rub his eyes with his thumbs. "Europe isn't what it was."

"Nothing is," I replied, sifting through another box. God, the memories. These were the props from my very first performance as a freshman in "Le Boheme," as a lowly Studenti. I went over to his desk and sat on the edge, swinging my Marc-Antoine sandal. It looked great under the toga.

"Truth is," he said, putting his glasses back on. "They're bringing in someone else. An upstart—some kid—they want to modernize, dean says."

I frowned. "Great. We'll be doing Carmen using cell phones and wearing leather chaps. They think modernizing means cultural rape."

"Preaching to the choir," Theo said, waving his hand at the boxes. "Anyway, it's done. Take what you want. I wanted you and Anne to have first pick. After that, it's to the vultures."

"I don't want anything," I replied, sliding off his desk. "Just glad next year is my last."

"Maybe you can come to Italy?" Theo said and I glanced back at him. Singing at Teatro alla Scala? I could only dream of it.

"If that's an offer, I'll take it," I said, noticing a sandal very similar to the one I was wearing sticking out of a box in the corner. I went over to investigate.

"If I can make one to you, I will," Theo replied, standing.

The box looked like rejected props from "Cléopâtre"—there were all sorts of Egyptian relics piled in with gold headdresses and jewelry.

"Where'd this come from?" I asked, lifting the box and tilting it in his direction.

"Curio shop in town," he said, leaning over to look out the window. It was still an hour until show time and the parking lot was empty. "Just junk we couldn't use."

I investigated further, past the tangled gold chains and vases decorated with hyrogliephs and little gold pyramids made in China. At the bottom, I found a small statue of a svelte cat. It had a winged figure carved on the front. I turned it over, looking for its "Made in Taiwan" sticker, but saw the word "Bast" carved into the bottom. It was perfect for Katie—I knew the minute I saw it that she would love it.

"I'll take this," I said, holding up the little two-inch figure between my thumb and forefinger.

"Whatever you like," Theo replied, his eyes still scanning the parking lot. "Ah, here's someone. Our finale will at least have an audience."

I was heading for the door and smiled at his words. "Isn't that the best we can ever hope for?"

*****

I was lying on the sofa, balancing a bowl of Trix cereal on my chest. Deciding I was mostly done, I let my namesake cat drink out of the bowl. He lapped around the little fruity circles, his tongue soaking up the sweetened milk.

"That's not good for them." Katie didn't even look at me from her perch in the chair. She was peering out the window.

"He likes it," I said, tipping the bowl so he could get more. He sneezed when some milk got up his nose.

She snorted, tilting her head as she watched a bird move skyward. "Just because we like something, doesn't mean it's good for us."

"Tell me about it," I replied, pushing the cat off my stomach and sitting up, setting the bowl on the end table. "So how's ol' Mal?"

"Sebastian." Her voice had that warning tone, the one that said, 'Don't Start.'

I changed the subject. "The new director is a complete fuck-up. He wants me to sing baritone, and he refuses to put Anne in the lead. Although, I don't know why she'd want to dress up as a cat, anyway."

"A cat?" Katie's nose wrinkled and she did look at me then. She was sprawled across the chair by the window on her belly, her hands draped over the edge so she could look outside. Fall had finally come, and we'd been blessed with some cooler weather.

"'The English Cat,'" I said with a snort. "That's our next production. He wanted us to do The Fairy Queen—nude. Like a Midsummer Night's Dream version of Hair. The dean shot that down in a hurry. Now we're stuck with this—what are you doing?"

Katie had rolled over and was leaning her head back over the arm and batting at the white filmy curtains. "Nothing," she said, not stopping.

"I almost didn't get the lead, either," I said, noticing how her sweater rode up when she was arched backwards like that, showing her navel. God, I missed summer, just for the sight of her tank tees. "New director nearly gave it to a freshman, and I found out later, it's his cousin. Holy nepotism, Batman."

I noticed that Sebastian the cat had settled back in front of my bowl of cereal milk and was lapping away. The white cat, Sassy, who had jumped on my lap that first day, was sitting below Katie's chair and batting at her long dark hair hanging off the side.

"But you got the lead, right?"

"Yeah," I grumbled, leaning back on the sofa. "But this freshman kid is the new bane of my existence. Now he stalks me all over campus, and I think he's the one who's been going all Hannibal on me and leaving dead animals at my front door front."

Katie looked over at me, her eyes wide. "You're kidding?"

"Nope." I watched her stand up, taking the bowl of milk away from the cat and shooing him off the table. I smiled, noticing that she was wearing the necklace I had made for her out of the cat statue I took from Theo. I'd had a friend drill a small hole through the ears and had strung it on a soft leather tie. "I'm just so glad it's my last year."

"What are you going to do, then?" she asked, walking the bowl toward the kitchen.

"Sing or teach singing, I guess," I replied, putting my feet up on the arm of the sofa so I could watch her. "Nothing else I'm qualified to do."

"I'm thinking about changing my major," she said. She was standing at the sink, her back to me.

"What?" I sat up, stepping on Sassy's tail as I stood. She hissed and bolted down the hallway. "You're kidding, right?"

"Not kidding," she replied. "I quit my job last week."

"Why?" I leaned against the doorway, staring at her back. She worked in a vet's office as a receptionist and was hoping to have an "in" there once she was done with school. "The dogs," she said, turning toward me, still holding the bowl of milk. Her eyes were wide, and I rarely saw her look like that, except the few times she had told me about Malcolm and his "mean streak."

"The—dogs?" I shook my head at her and we both jumped at a crashing sound from down the hall.

"Damn cat," I said, waving her away. "I'll get it."

I went to investigate, finding Sassy sitting on the bathroom counter, her tail swishing as she looked down over the edge—there was water everywhere.

"Stupid animal," I muttered, heading back toward the kitchen for a broom. I turned the corner to the kitchen doorway. "Sassy knocked a glass off the—"

Katie was on her hands and knees on the kitchen table with my cereal bowl in front of her. Her eyes were closed, and I stood, transfixed, watching her tongue dipping into the bowl and then pulling back into her mouth as she lapped at the milk. I'd seen enough cats drinking over the past few months to know what it looked like.

"Katie?" I whispered, still not quite believing what I was seeing. Her bottom was way up in the air, waving a little, and her hands were flat on the table as she leaned in to the bowl. When her eyes opened and she looked up at me, they were a huge, luminescent green and I noticed she had milk dribbling off her chin.

"Katie!" The pounding at the door made us both jump. Katie leapt off the table, her eyes wide.

"Yeah?" I opened the door. Malcolm—who else? He didn't say anything to me. It was like I wasn't even there. Katie was standing in the doorway to the kitchen and he stalked over to her.

"I went by your work," he said, leaning his hand above her head against the door frame. "What the hell, you're just quitting jobs now, not even telling me shit?"

"It just happened," Katie said. Her voice was small, and her hand was at her throat, fingering the cat statue there like it could protect her.

"Katie, do you want me to go?" It took everything I had to say those words.

"I guess." She looked at me and then back to Malcolm.

"I don't like you doing shit without telling me," Malcolm said, leaning in and kissing her. I winced, and I noticed that she did, too, as if he were hurting her. He went into the kitchen and I heard him open her refrigerator.

"Go," she mouthed, waving toward the door. I could feel my jaw working.

"Hey, Debbie Boone!" Malcolm poked his head around the kitchen doorway and grinned at me as I stood with my hand still on the front doorknob. "You heard her. Shoo. Scat."

"No." I told him, my eyes on her. "I don't think so."

"What?" Malcolm stepped fully into the living room and my flight or fight response kicked in, telling me to take off. But the look in her eyes rooted me to the spot.

"Katie," I said, my eyes never leaving hers. "Do you really want me to go?"

She looked at Malcolm's back and then around to me. She shook her head, but didn't speak.

"Malcolm," I said, opening the front door. "I think it's time for you to go."

He laughed, looking back at Katie, and then stopped. When he turned back to me, his eyes were dark. "Listen, fairy boy," he said, stepping toward me. I didn't move back an inch, although instinct told me to. "You don't call the shots around here."

"No," I replied. "She does. Katie, tell him what you want."

"I want you to leave," she said. There were tears in her eyes and that infuriated me.

"What?" He moved toward her. She didn't stop him when he put his arms around her and pulled her close. "Hey... doll... you don't mean that."

"Yes," she replied, pushing against his chest, her face twisted and I could tell she was trying not to cry. "I do. I'm tired of it. You just come when you want, you take what you want. I'm—I'm done. Go, Mal. Just go."

"But, I—"

She put a hand over his mouth. "No. You don't. You don't even know what that means. Now, please. Go."

"You know what—fine." He turned away from her and when he let go, she nearly fell to the floor. "I'm getting tired of you. There's more where you came from."

He snarled at me, and pushed me hard in the middle of the chest, slamming me against the door as he went out.

"This isn't over!" he yelled from the bottom of the stairs as I shut the door and hooked the chain. I hadn't expected that to go so well. In fact, I'd expected to end up in the hospital. My heart was hammering in my chest.

"Are you okay?" I asked, hearing the door slam downstairs hard enough to shake the whole house. She was collapsed on the floor, curled around herself, and I knelt beside her.

"Katie? Katie-did?" I used my nickname for her, trying to call her back from wherever she seemed to have gone. It wasn't working. I tried to get her to stand, but she just went limp again, her eyes blank. I listened for sounds of Malcolm coming back up the stairs, but didn't hear anything.

I was no He-Man, but I got her propped over my shoulder and did a fireman's carry to her bedroom, laying her on the bed. She curled up around herself like that again, her hand clutching the necklace I'd given her, and I just decided to slide in beside her and curl myself around her, too.

I held her like that for a long while, stroking her hair, just waiting. I don't know if either of us drifted. We must have. The light changed in the room from late afternoon toward dusk, and I knew I should have been clocking in to work at the Sav-Mor right about now.

"Thank you." Those were the first words she said, and they startled me. I wasn't sure if I'd been sleeping or not.

"What are friends for, right?" I asked. My voice was thick and I realized that my hand had found its way up under her sweater and was resting flat against her bare belly. I started to withdraw it, but she tucked her hand over mine, pressing it there and then sliding it further upward.

"Oh, Katie," I said and sighed. "No. Not like this."

"Yes," she said, sliding my hand up over her bra, and wiggling back against me. "Just like this."

She turned in my arms, wrapping herself around me as her mouth found mine. This was no chaste first kiss—her tongue probed deep and her hands grabbed at my t-shirt, pulling it out of my jeans, seeking skin.

"Katie," I murmured, groaning when her thigh moved between mine, rubbing there. I knew I should stop her, but the more she rubbed her soft body against me, the harder she kissed me, her mouth eagerly sucking and licking at mine, the further that part of my brain seemed to get.

She shoved my t-shirt up over my head and I let her as she nuzzled my neck, biting there, her teeth sharp, making me wince. She was sitting up on me then, looking down with greedy eyes in the half-light, pulling off her sweater, unhooking her bra. Her body was everything I'd dreamed. The necklace that I'd given her swung between her high, pink-tipped breasts above her smooth, flat belly.

Part of me was still listening for Malcolm coming back up the stairs, but that part of me was losing focus, too. She grabbed my hands and put them on her breasts, leaning over to kiss me, grinding her hips into mine, denim against denim. God, the feel of her flesh under my hands, the way she moaned against my mouth when I squeezed her nipples, making her pelvis rock—I couldn't resist.

I kissed her back, now, sucking her tongue into my mouth. Her belly undulated against mine, and I rolled over onto her, unsnapping and unzipping her jeans. My cock was straining against the material as she rubbed her hand between my legs, scratching her nails there.

"Hurry," she murmured as I tugged her jeans off. I couldn't believe that she was wearing the very pink panties I'd seen in her hands the first day I met her, or a close facsimile. Her pubic hair was a dark patch underneath the pale material. If that wasn't a sign—but I didn't have time to finish the thought before she was peeling them off, exposing her soft, glistening triangle.

"Come on," she whispered, grabbing the waistband of my jeans as I knelt between her thighs. She tugged at the snap, unzipping me, pulling them down my hips. It still wasn't fast enough for her, and she knelt up, too, kissing me as she slipped a hand into my boxers, squeezing my shaft.

"Oh god," I said, thrusting into her hand and pressing her to me, her breasts flattening against my chest.

"Mmmm." She hummed against my mouth, pushing me back onto the bed and then pulling my jeans and boxers off. My cock was pointing straight up to the ceiling as she crawled up my legs on her hands and knees, her nipples grazing my thighs.

I groaned when she slipped the tip of my cock into her mouth and started giving me a hot, wet suck that seemed to go on and on. I couldn't keep up with her—her hand and mouth and the eager noises she made. My breath came faster and faster, and my hand went to her hair, pressing in deeper. It just made her moan louder and the sound of her lust made me want to cum in her mouth.

I held back, my eyes looking for a distraction. I could hear purring, and saw Sassy, the white cat, lazing on the dresser and watching us with half-closed eyes. Her motor was really running, and I wondered if cats knew when humans were having sex, what they were really doing and feeling. Ah, that was better—thinking about that helped hold off my climax.

I could feel Katie's nails scratching lightly over my balls, sending shivers through me. My eyes rolled back into my head as she continued to swallow my cock again and again, and I found myself petting her head, her hair soft under my fingers. Her tongue slipped underneath my cock as she sucked me, running under the shaft, and then she used her hand, pumping as she slid her mouth further down.

"Oh, Katie!" I cried, feeling her tongue moving over the sensitive skin of my balls. She was lapping at me, long, rough licks that were working their way back up my shaft again. The skin there was tender, but her tongue was softly grating, almost irritating. The sensation was oddly familiar but somehow completely out of context. I couldn't place it.

Jesus, what the hell was she doing?

My hand tightened in her hair, but there wasn't anything to grip. I felt something softly pointed on the side of her head, moving, nuzzling, underneath my hand. When I looked down, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Katie's eyes glowed a bright, luminescent green—that was the first thing I noticed and the one thing my mind seemed to want to stay focused on.

Blue. Katie's eyes are blue.

My mind didn't want to register the rest, and it was happening too fast for me to try to digest it. She slid her body upward, and I could feel the skin of her belly and breasts, and that was alright, in fact that was incredible, but her thighs, spreading against mine, were so soft—impossibly soft, really, like she was covered in some sort of velvety down.

What the fuck?!

"Katie?" The light in the room was fading, but I could still see her eyes, that odd luminous green, as she nuzzled her way up my chest. Her body was rumbling under my hands as she kissed me, her tongue rasping over mine, and I realized with a sudden jolt that it wasn't Sassy I'd heard purring—it was Katie. The sound quivered through her and seemed to be coming from between her breasts as they pressed hard into my chest.

She sat up on me and pressed my cock between us, trapping me between her pussy lips and rocking. I gasped, looking up at her, my breath gone, just gone. I couldn't move, I couldn't think, I couldn't possibly be seeing—was her hair pulled back? No—it was gone, just gone. My brain tried to assimilate the transformation, but there wasn't enough blood left there as Katie tugged on my erection, which was still like steel in spite of my shock—it was as frozen as I was.

It was the long, black tail I saw swishing back and forth behind her back that brought my breath back, in one long groan, expressing both the pleasure of her sliding herself down onto my shaft and my sudden astonishment and dismay. Katie was purring louder now as she began to ride me, making little kitten noises as she rolled her hips.

Her eyes were closed, concentrating on the sensation between her legs, and I was getting lost in my own. God damn, she felt good—I had to fight my first instinct to throw her off me in my shock, but I was starting to be carried away by the delicious, slick squeeze of her pussy. When I closed my eyes, I could imagine it was Katie—it was Katie—grinding herself on top of me.

My hands fell to her thighs, the long muscles in her legs working her up and down, and I felt the soft black fur there, running my fingers through it in wonder. She pressed her hands—paws?—down against me and began kneading my belly just like a kitten would. I didn't feel any claws, but the sensation of her massaging my stomach while she made little circles on my cock was glorious.

She started making louder mewing sounds, little cries that sent shivers through me. I could feel her muscles quivering around my cock, and I watched her face in the dimness, seeing the unmistakable shudder and tremble of an orgasm hovering there.

I wanted to be the one to take her there, and that's what finally moved me. I grabbed her hips—oh god, she was covered in fur there, too, luxuriously soft under my hands—thrusting deep up inside of her.

"Oh yes!" she cried, and I watched her knead her breasts, the tips of her fingers rubbing the nipples again and again. "Oh, Sebastian, yes!"

I groaned at the sound of my name in her mouth when she was so close, and I drove a little harder, a little faster, watching her ride the wave that was starting to overtake her. She leaned into me, biting her lip and gripping me with her thighs.

It happened like that, her body thundering with the quiet roar of her purr as she rubbed herself on top of me. I could feel the rhythmic quaver of her cunt, the light fluttering of her muscles squeezing and releasing my cock as she gripped my shoulders, her claws sinking into my flesh, making me gasp.

"Oh god," she whispered, and I winced as I felt her retracting her claws. I knew I had to be bleeding. It stung like a bitch. She was still purring like crazy, and I could feel the wet pulse of her all around me.

"Katie," I said, reaching to touch her face as she rested against my chest. It was her face, still, the delicate features, the little freckled nose, but there were whiskers emerging from her cheeks that quivered when I touched her and her ears twitched on the top of her dark head. The fur all over her body was sleek and black, covering every part of her except for her belly and breasts.

I looked at her in wonder, still not quite believing what I was seeing. "Are you ok?"

It was probably the dumbest thing in the world to say, but it was all I could think of. What was I supposed to ask? 'Did you turn into a cat?' My senses were telling me what had happened—it was my rational mind that needed to catch up.

"More than ok," she answered. When she smiled and climbed off me, nuzzling my cock with her soft, furry head, like she wanted her ears scratched, my senses threatened to take over again.

When she turned around and presented her behind to me like an offering, and I saw her, open and exposed, her lips swollen and wet, her black tail rising in the air and curving at the tip like a question mark, my senses weren't threatening anymore—they overpowered everything else.

My cock knew exactly what it wanted and it jerked me up until I was kneeling behind her, spreading her lips with my fingers. I couldn't resist tasting her, slipping my tongue into the softness between her thighs. It was a shock not to feel the wiry sensation of pubic hair against my lips, but rather a slick, light fuzz that gave way to the pink flesh of her pussy.

She was purring loudly as I licked her from behind, lifting her ass high in the air so I could slide a finger into her wetness. Her tail twitched above my head, back and forth, putting her whole bottom on display, the pink tender flesh of her cunt and the little wink of her tiny asshole. I wanted to press my finger there, but I didn't dare.

When I slid a hand down the fur along her spine, from her neck to her lower back, she arched, first down and then up, her pelvis tilting with the motion. When her bottom rose up again like that, I groaned, feeling my cock jump. I wanted her. I had to have her.

Kneeling up between her legs, I pressed my cock into the pink heat of her flesh. She cried out when I slid into her, burying myself balls-deep. Her tail swished slowly back and forth in front of my face as she arched, meeting my thrusts. The light was nearly gone, now, but I could see her kneading the mattress in front of her, and I could feel the roar of her purr deep in my pelvis. I could actually feel it vibrating my cock. It was extraordinary.

I grabbed her furry hips, feeling the shock of her fur-covered thighs every time I drove back into her. She was making little mewing cries, louder and louder, and still the purring went on underneath, like a running motor, signaling her pleasure. She was arching back, again and again, still massaging the mattress like it was clay or something she could shape and form with the heat and pressure of her hands.

"Oh god, Katie," I groaned, feeling her tail curling around my back, the tug of it pulling me deeper as she rounded her spine and arched, again and again, purring and mewing all the while. I couldn't stand much more, and I think she knew it.

"I want your cum," she purred, the sound of her voice trembling with a soft vibrato. "Fill this pussy, baby."

Oh, fuck! That was it—I jerked up hard against her fur-covered flesh, grunting as I thrust my cum into her, waves of hot white fluid pulsing deep into her body. She mewed softly, and I could feel the quivering of her muscles around me and I moaned louder as she came again around my cock, milking my shaft with her cunt.

When I slid out of her, she mewed, a forlorn sound, and she turned around, nuzzling her head against my belly and chest, rubbing her velvety ears against me. Breathless, I collapsed back onto the bed and she following, crawling up me and settling against my side, her furry thigh over mine, her whiskers tickling my cheek.

I stared up at the ceiling and listened to her purring, soft now, a low, contented sound. I waited until I was sure she was asleep before I tried slipping out from beneath her. She sighed and moved around on the bed a little, adjusting herself to my absence, but she stayed asleep. I could barely see her outline on the bed now, but I knew what I'd seen, what I'd experienced. I grabbed my clothes, tugging them on as I headed out the door to my apartment.

*****

I sat staring into the glowing square of my laptop at the figure on the screen. I had typed one word into the search engine: "Bast," and had come up with 2,940,000 results. It wasn't long before I found what I was looking for, though. I clicked over to "images" and there it was—the little statue of the cat that Katie was wearing around her neck.

It was the only explanation I could imagine.

The page read: "Bast is the daughter of Ra, and she is the intrinsic, instinctive rage of the sun-god. Bast is his instrument of vengeance. She is the cat-goddess of the Egyptian civilization who destroys vermin, but yet, she is approachable, if you are fearless, and she can be stroked."

I sat there lost in my own thoughts for a long time. Too long. I wasn't listening closely enough, and I didn't hear her. It was a Friday night, and the house was busy. The dog was barking upstairs somewhere, and there was some sort of party going on next door, from the thumping sound of the music. Still—I should have heard.

When I started climbing the stairs back to Katie's apartment, I knew what I had to do. I saw Sassy sitting on the steps, licking her paw and washing her ear. That was my first hint, and it jolted my numbed and overloaded senses awake again. I bolted to the top of the stairs to find the door wide open.

"Katie!"

I could hear her crying. Oh, thank god. I closed my eyes for a moment. She was alive.

I ran back to the bedroom, flipping on the overhead light. She was crouched on the bed, and I had a moment of deja-vu, remembering Sassy sitting on the step, washing herself. Katie looked almost the same, except that her black fur was matted in blood.

"Oh my god," I breathed, seeing blood all over the covers. I looked her over, frantic, to find where it was coming from. "Where are you hurt?"

"It's not me," she croaked, pointing to the other side of the bed.

When I peered over the side, I somehow already knew what I was going to find. It was Malcolm, his sightless eyes peering up at me, his throat slit in four long slashes, ear to ear.

"What did you do?" I whispered, covering my mouth with my hand.

"I killed some vermin." Those words jerked my head toward her, remembering what I'd found on the Internet, and I saw her green eyes flashing.

Katie's eyes are blue.

I looked at the cat statue hanging around her neck for a moment, and then I looked into her eyes, which were wide with fear now.

I knew what I had to do.

"I love you, Katie," I said, kneeling next to her by the bed, taking her hand and turning it over, kissing a bare place on her palm where it wasn't stained with blood.

"I worship you," I whispered. "You've been my goddess since the day I met you."

She gave me a small, trembling smile.

"Come on," I said, standing and holding out my hand to her. "We need to get you cleaned up."

She cocked her head at me. "Where are we going?"

"Italy," I replied, pulling her up and heading toward the shower. "You'll love it there."

P.S. To the writers out there, I allow you to add chapters to my stories if you want to. I would love to see what you can do with these characters, and to see how you choose to develope them. Especially this story... I want to know what you want Artemis and Katie to do in Italy. If you do choose to write a chapter, I will record it and give you complete credit for it if i ever do use it some where else.