When a Man Meets a Cat, and a Cat Meets a Man
The cat blew up. There's nothing odd about that. The oddity is in the fact that Brian Kinney didn't anticipate it. Brian should have. The man was with the cat right from the beginning. Brian should have known better.
The cat opened his baby blue eyes again at the 15th of March, 2007. The first thing the cat saw in this one of his nine lives was Brian. It was the cat's sixth life, so he was supposed to be quite well acquainted with the peculiarities of his human play-things. But nothing in his five former lives had prepared him to the likes of Brian Kinney.
First of all, at the moment when the cat opened his eyes, his new toy was not looking at the cat. Nothing like that. The toy was looking at something completely irrelevant; what has a dog ever done of any interest? Right away, the cat meowed. It was time that Brian took interest in him. Of course, the cat did not know then that Brian was Brian, but, anyway, the meow got the desired effect. The toy turned its face to the appropriate direction. At last the toy saw him, its new owner.
But the toy did not smile; the toy wasn't completely won over by the cat's cuteness as it should have been. The tiny bundle of furry joy did every cute thing he knew about. He pretended that he could not get to his stubby feet and, therefore, fell over. As if he had feebly tried to chase his tail, he nipped at it; for some reason, the toys thought that it was the cutest thing. He let his pink tongue loll out even if he knew how ridiculous that was. What a cat must do a cat must do. His toy had to learn to behave in the appropriate manner.
But the cat's new toy was not like the other toys. Instead of patting the cat gently on the top of his head, his newest toy grabbed the cat by his neck like it was his mama-cat. How humiliating! The cat was already more than fife lives old. Even his mama-cat had quickly stopped carrying him like that, like he was a first timer. With a loud meow, the cat let his toy know his indignation. The toy lifted the cat at the level of its eyes.
"What are you whining about, you puny little thing?" the toy growled at the cat. Before he could meow his protest, the toy went on with even worse insult. "There's nothing remarkable about you except for your tail: it's huge. Quite out of proportion with such a skinny ass I would say."
"And you, Brian", at last, the chuckling shopkeeper let the cat know his new toy's name, "know something about ass, that's for sure. I just didn't think that your expertise would range all the way from cock to pussy."
"Maybe my expertise does range onto pussy, but, for sure, it does not range far in that region." The Brian-toy still held the helpless but furious cat at its eye-level, and, without fanfare, lifted the cat even a bit higher. "At least this pussy has a cock", it declared.
The cat tried to claw the big fingers that held him, but it did him no good. The pin pricks of his claws just made the Brian-toy shake him. Where was the respect? He was due the respect of its toy. The cat sank his teeth into the thump of the Brian-toy.
"You moth-eaten little mitten," the Brian-toy growled, and, unceremoniously, dropped the cat back in his box. "I'm not sure if I should buy my son a dog, but not in a million years will I buy him a cat."
The toy was actually thinking about buying a dog? Was it insane in addition to being ill-behaved? And, even if the cat did not disagree with his toy not giving him to its son, he did disagree with the sentiment of not buying a cat in a million years. The toy was supposed to buy him at once. How else was he going to keep his toy in check?
"I wonder who would want a thing like you", the Brian-toy said then. "That blond fur of yours would be a nightmare for my cleaning lady. To get it away from my suits and my furniture would make her demand a rise in pay. I wouldn't let you stay in my place for any money", the unruly toy let out next.
What else would come out of that big mouth? The cat did not need to wait for long.
"You remind me of something", the toy said and poked its finger at the cat's nose, "or is it about someone?" The toy cocked its head and looked at the cat.
"Does that cat", and again the toy poked its finger at the cat, "have a name?"
The toy had turned away from the cat, and, instead, was facing the shopkeeper. The cat tried to swat the poking finger with his front paw. Unfortunately, his paw was too small to make a good swat. The shopkeeper told the Brian-toy that the cat had no name. As if. The cat pulled his upper lip back in a tiny whiny snarl. The toy smirked at the cat. The poking finger, anyway, disappeared.
"You could call it Gold, after a boy I once knew. The boy played a fiddle which sounded pretty much as awful as this cat," the toy made its supposedly witty suggestion as it walked to the door.
The cat was not amused.
"It's Justin, you moron!" the cat hissed with rage after the departing man. "You can't just go! You can't leave me here. I want to come home with you, asshole!"