“Says the ass-wad who plays air guitar to Adele.”
“I don’t air-guitar to Adele!”
“No…nobody normal air-guitars to Adele, but you do,” Kotik said and then mocked, “I wish nothing but the best for you-ooh….”
Greg felt a blush heat his face.
Kotik stopped suddenly, appearing to concentrate on something. “Damn, I always have to take a piss after I clean myself,” he said, and dropped to the floor. “That reminds me. When are you going to do something about my box? It’s like trying to do a squat-shot in a minefield.”
“I just changed it.”
“You changed it Monday. It’s been four days.”
“I thought days didn’t mean diddly-squat to you,” said Greg.
“Bite me.”
Greg figured it was a good time to go for a walk.
DAY 2
Kotik jumped onto the bed and bumped the tender egg on Greg’s head and started kneading the pillow.
“Scratch my rump,” the cat said.
“No,” said Greg. Ever since he had started communicating with the cat, he found that many of the affections he used to give Kotik without a second thought now caused a sense of aversion—one that even crossed into revulsion.
“What the hell? Did you eat an ass muffin for breakfast?” Kotik complained, jerking his head back.
“You never complained before.”
“Yeah, and you used to scratch my head and rub my tummy, crap like that. Why don’t you ever pet me anymore? It’s not like I’m asking for a blow job, for Christ’s sake.”
“It’s just freaking weird.”
“No, Duck Dynasty is weird. The crazy sex shit you do with Annie Wilkes is weird. Petting your cat is natural and relieves tension.”
“It’s different now. It’s kind of disturbing, actually,” said Greg. He sat up and swung his legs to the floor. “Okay, get up. I have to change the sheets.”
“Why, is Lizzie Borden coming over?”
“She’s hardly Lizzie Borden and yes she’s coming over, it’s Saturday. You’re jealous!” Greg said.
“Of that knob-jockey? Yeah…I don’t think so, but she’s got you totally whipped,” Kotik said, leaping to the floor.
“How so?” asked Greg. He rose and then steadied himself on the bedside table as intense vertigo washed over him.
“You clean the house and change your sheets every weekend.”
“So? Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Once the wooziness eased, Greg pulled the sheets from the bed, balled them, and tossed them near the door.
“Then you must have been the fucking devil my first two years here. You had tumbleweeds behind the couch—trust me, I know—and those sheets probably got changed twice a year until Broomhilda showed up.” Kotik jumped back onto the bed and sat. “It would make more sense to change the sheets after you and The Repugnant One defile them with your spunk and junk, but no, you let them fester for the week.”
“I never realized cats were such hypercritical dicks.” Greg picked up the bedding, a scattering of discarded clothing, and left the room. He was anxious about Cheryl coming over.
Kotik had been following him for the better part of the day, hounding him about everything. He supposed the cat wasn’t around any more than he’d been before, but the continuous banter was beginning to rattle him. At one point, he offered to let Kotik outside, holding open the door while the cat stood poised in indecision.
“What the hell’s wrong with you? Why won’t you go outside?”
“Who said I wanted to go outside?” asked Kotik.
“You did.”
“When?”
“Last night you complained that I’d made you an indoor cat.”
“No. I said you were the dip-wad who made me an indoor cat. Never once did I say I wanted to go out.”
Greg supposed that was true, but it only aggravated him more.
“You’re missing your opportunity. I’m closing the door in three seconds.”
“Are you really going to try that psychology crap with me, you condescending turd-handle?” Kotik turned dismissively and returned to the kitchen. “It may have worked for your mother, but not for you.”
How in the hell did he know that? Greg wondered, recalling his mother’s continuous requests for him to “just go out and play” or to “get out of my hair for a while”. The cat seemed especially good at hitting Greg where it hurt, almost as if he knew his weaknesses and insecurities. He’d always been a little paranoid, and Kotik played on it with little insinuations about Cheryl’s fidelity and his penchant to “relieve his itch” maybe a little more than was probably healthy. The cat seemed to know his innermost secrets and fears, which amped up two major concerns. If his communication with the cat was a result of the knock on the head, it showed no signs of diminishing and was, in truth, increasing. If not, and it turned out Cheryl could hear Kotik, it could be disastrous.
Holy shit, talk about a catfight! he mused.
Cheryl showed up at four that afternoon, walking into the kitchen unannounced and carrying a large, brown paper bag.
“She didn’t even knock,” Kotik complained. “She thinks she owns the place!”
Greg bristled and waited for Cheryl to freak out, but was astonished she seemed not to hear the cat. To him, the voice was loud and centered in his head as if he had earbuds in.
Cheryl set the bag on the kitchen table and planted a soft kiss on Greg’s cheek. “Hi, baby!” she purred, her voice so silky he wanted to take her right there on the table.
“Hi, sexy. You look absolutely delicious,” said Greg. He gave her a long hug and returned the kiss. He glared at Kotik.
“What the hell!” hissed the cat. “She just sashays right in and that’s it? Hi, sexy? Give her hell, for fuck’s sake!” He jumped to the floor from the couch and regarded Cheryl. “Wow, you splurged and went with the ten-dollar whore?”
Greg refrained, barely, from kicking him.
“Christ, you make me sick,” Kotik went on, and then proceeded to hack up a hairball on the living room rug.
“Eww,” said Cheryl.
“Nice,” complained Greg. He pulled a length of paper towel from the holder and cleaned up the mess.
“That’s right. Now you’re learning the natural order of things,” said the cat.
Greg shooed him away with the wad of paper towels, returned to the kitchen, and noticed Cheryl’s lip curl in distaste when he tossed the Bounty-wrapped hairball into the wastebasket.
“Not much of a cat fan, are you?” he asked her.
“No, they’re gross. They puke and spray everywhere, and they stink,” she said.
“Told you she’s a cat hater! And she stinks, too!” Kotik complained indignantly from behind the couch. “She’s pickled in perfume and smells like a brothel full of geriatric hookers.”
“Does Kotik smell?” asked Greg. “Can you smell him now?”
He had dumped the litterbox earlier that morning and used Fresh Step litter, which was supposed to send out a poof of freshness every time a cat sifted through it. He’d also sprayed the shit out of the house with disinfectant.
“Yeah, pretty bad,” said Cheryl, scrunching her nose again. She withdrew a bottle of wine and a white pastry box from within the bag and set them on the table. “Don’t you notice it?”
“Oh, up yours, you prima donna,” growled Kotik. “Will you get rid of her already, before I cuff her a good one?”
“I guess I’ve gotten used to it,” Greg said. He took four filet mignon portions from the fridge and set them on the counter near the stovetop.
“Sure, you get filet mignon,” grumbled the cat.
Greg shot a scowl toward the couch, hoping his miserable pet would see it. “I have been thinking that cats might be more trouble than they’re worth, lately,” he said.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kotik railed, his voice echoing inside his master’s head. He bounded out from behind the couch, launched himself over the armcha
ir, and slid across the end table, dragging the remote, a magazine, and a short, squat candle to the floor with him in a fury of scrabbling paws. Composing himself, the cat leaped onto the chair, successfully this time, with exaggerated aplomb and glowered balefully at Greg.
“He’s kind of disturbing, and dumb, too,” Cheryl added, watching the cat dubiously. “And what kind of name is Kotik? Does it mean anything? It reminds me of Kotex.”
“You remind me of Kotex because you’re a bloody twat!” Kotik said, and then proudly added, “Hey, that was pretty good for an unintentional pun.”
Greg chuckled. “I don’t know. I didn’t name him.”
“Well, it’s a stupid name,” said Cheryl.
“What? What? Are you for real? It’s Russian for cat, you buffoons! It’s the most appropriate name ever!”
“Oh, I guess it means cat in Russian, which kind of makes sense since he’s a Russian Blue.” Greg flashed his cat a glance. “It was his name when I got him from the SPCA.”
“Wait a minute…I’m adopted?” asked Kotik, sounding forlorn.
He sat and groveled for more than an hour as Greg and Cheryl prepared dinner and then proceeded to wolf down their meal along with two bottles of wine. Small talk turned to flirting, flirting turned to fondling, and soon they were entwined on the couch, petting, panting, and shedding their clothing.
Detaching long enough from the heated make-out session to catch his breath, Greg opened his eyes and noticed Kotik raptly watching them. Without interruption in their shameless groping, Greg rose from the couch, Cheryl’s naked body adhered to his like a leech, and moved to the bedroom as a single, eight-limbed entity. He closed the bedroom door with his rump and then dropped Cheryl onto the bed. He kissed a trail from her shoulder, down to her ankles and halfway back again, finding the central focus of his interest.
Grabbing Cheryl around the waist, he rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him… and then he heard the sound of the door latch springing and cursed his procrastination at getting the door aligned so it would close properly.
“Holy Christ, you’re doing that sixty-nine thing again?” Kotik said from somewhere behind him. “I don’t get it. Why are you so fascinated by something that almost suffocates you both to death?”
“Shut up,” Greg warned him mentally.
“Holy crap, she shaved that puppy clean as confession,” Kotik persisted. “Reminds me of this Sphynx I once screwed, not a hair on her, tail like a rat. It was different… kind of freaky, but not for me.”
Greg tried to ignore him and focus on his objective, but he heard the cat leap onto the dresser opposite the bed.
“Shit! Look at the meat wallet on her! I’ve never seen it from this angle before. That’s fucking frightening!”
“You’re a cat, you idiot,” Greg said, in his head. “Your pecker’s probably the size of a Mike and Ike. You’re obviously in no position to critique.”
“Man, that’s cold, criticizing the size of my dick. I was just saying it’s evident that yours wasn’t the first paddle in that creek.”
“Will you just shut up?” Greg pictured himself throwing the thought at the cat. He doubled his efforts with Cheryl.
Kotik remained silent…but not for long. “Sounds like you’re slopping a pig in there. Aren’t you afraid you might catch something with all those body juices going everywhere?”
Greg pulled Cheryl’s legs tighter to his ears to block the cat out, but to no avail; the voice was inside his head.
“How do you know they’re only her juices? Like, they could be leftovers, like from that guy she had here when you were working.”
What the fuck? Was Kotik telling the truth, or was he just talking shit because he was jealous of Cheryl?
“Now they do it right,” Kotik said. “Doggy style, just like we cats do it. I know that sounds fucked up…”
“Why would she bring a guy here when she has her own apartment?” Greg challenged.
“Why do people screw in a full-to-capacity Fenway Park? Why do we cats screw on the tops of cars in the middle of the night? It’s the thrill of the ride, and the boner you sprout getting away with it.”
“You’re lying.”
“I don’t know, am I?”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I guess you’d know, considering your trajectory.”
“You okay, baby?” asked Cheryl.
Greg, unaware of it, had begun growing limp.
“One minute,” he said, rolling her off him. “I can’t get into it with that cat staring at me.”
“He is freaky,” she agreed.
He grabbed Kotik from the bureau and tossed him down the hallway. He closed the door and wedged a chair under the knob.
“Okay, where were we?” he said, climbing back onto the bed, anxious to get back to the action, but a little seed of doubt had sprouted.
DAY 3
As Greg slept, the seed of doubt flourished into a Sycamore of suspicion. His night was wrought with dreams of Cheryl in his home and in his bed, hosting a multiplicity of men while he worked. Each dream was more perverse and explicit than the last, culminating with a most disturbing one where Kotik mocked him and explained that even he was putting it to her.
Greg sat up in bed, the sheets twisting awkwardly around both him and Cheryl, who was sleeping soundly despite his restlessness. He watched her in the dim light cast by the alarm clock and wondered if the suspicions were true. It wasn’t beyond belief. She was certainly beautiful enough. Maybe not in the classic Elizabeth Taylor sense, but in a voluptuous, contemporary way.
While this aroused him to no end, it also aroused his concerns to the point that he could think of little else. It was unsettling. He’d always had a lower-than-average self-esteem, which fostered his fair share of insecurities, but never this deeply. He’d never become obsessive about it.
A dull throb thrummed at the back of his head. He kneaded the knot, wondering if it were the cause of his elevated anxieties. It seemed a lot had changed or been generated since he had taken the hit. Although the swelling was mostly gone, it was still tender to the touch and centralized pressure caused queasiness and sent a bolt of pain that nested between his eyes and made them water. It was a familiar feeling that foretold of an oncoming migraine.
“You okay, baby?” Cheryl asked.
“Headache,” Greg said flatly.
He couldn’t shake the image of her lying in the same bed they were now in, but with another man…or two…or three. He squeezed the sides of his head with his hands, trying to drive the thoughts away, but it only fueled his headache.
Kotik never said there was more than one, he mentally reasoned. But even one is unacceptable, he counter-argued.
“What is it, honey?” Cheryl sat up and put an arm around him, her brow furrowed with concern. She looked and sounded sincere, but…
“Fuck!” he growled, and stood. He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth, rinsed and stared at his rheumy, red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. Ask her, you coward, he berated himself before returning to the bedroom.
“What’s going on? You’re very riled.”
I need the truth. I need the truth. The thought drilled into his head, an apt companion to his budding migraine.
“Did you come by here when I was at work last week?” Greg asked. He tried to smile and sound casual but failed miserably on both accounts.
“What?” Cheryl asked, taken aback. “Why would I be here when you’re not?”
“I was just wondering, because…” Think, think! “…because someone said they saw a woman coming into the house last week and I wanted to make sure it was you,” Greg said, sitting on the edge of the bed.
You pathetic ass!
Cheryl looked a little uncertain, so Greg gave a little nudge.
“I don’t know anyone else with a bright red Prius, but you never know,” he said, standing again.
“Oh yeah!” Cheryl said with an uneasy chuckle. “I did come by to … to look for
my nametag from work…I forgot. I’ve lost a few of them and my boss got upset the last time.”
“Did you find it?” Greg asked.
“No.”
He had a sudden urge to slap her and had to move away. He had never hit a woman in his life, and the feeling was distressing, so he left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen.
“Well, it’s about fucking time,” Kotik’s voice trumpeted inside Greg’s head as soon as the cat was within sight. “What kind of pet owner are you, leaving me locked out here with no food, no water, and no access to my litterbox?”
“Don’t start,” Greg said. “And get off of the counter.”
“Don’t start? Hell, I was running for cover last night. I thought there was an air raid.” Kotik leaped onto a chair at the table. “What do you do to the witch to get her shrieking like that? Christ, anything goes full banshee on me like that, I get far away.”
“Will you just shut up?” Greg insisted.
“Are you talking to me?” Cheryl asked from down the hallway. She sounded like she had a mouthful of toothpaste.”
“No…the cat!” Greg yelled back. He went into the utility room and pulled his other set of bed linens from the dryer, returned to the living room, dropped them on the couch, and started folding them.
“Man, I hope you bleached those, after what she and her man friend did on them,” said Kotik. “I mean, I made the mistake of going in there when they were going at it and it was like the day I was in the shower and you turned it on.”
“Enough!” Greg roared, and the pain in his head did as well.
“What is your problem?” demanded Cheryl. She stood in the archway between the kitchen and living room staring disapprovingly at him. “Why are you so upset? I figured it’d be okay. You gave me a key.”
“I’m not upset about that.” Greg pulled a pillowcase from the pile and started folding it, wondering if her head had been on it while some guy knelt over her chest, pressing between her pouty lips with his…”
A Variable Darkness: 13 Tales Page 21