She could have reached to sign the order blank, but she leaned over. A light touch, but a lot of it. She was flexible, silky. Somehow, I got a picture of everything from knee to shoulder, and I was wondering how a fellow would keep his paws off of something like that.
Selene didn’t sign the blank after all. She looked up through her lashes and said, “That’s not necessary, is it?”
There was a twitch to her lips. They were red and her teeth were small and white and pointy. She smelled like a foreign garden; the odd perfume came from her hair, and oozed out of the vee of her lacy sweater. That sweater, I meant to remark, was filled with more than just perfume. Not too much, not too little, but just—just right. I had an armful of her. For a second I was wondering what I’d do if she squawked and called headquarters and said I’d gotten fresh. A fellow ought to have a little finesse. The way I grabbed was plain dumb. I was about scared into letting go and stuttering something about slips not counting, when she slunk up closer, so much like a pleased cat that I pretty nearly jumped a foot.
“You mustn’t,” she purred; but she wiggled a little closer, begging to be kissed.
I was getting dizzy. A fellow can soak up just so many sensations per second and more than that leaves him dopey. Selene slipped out of my arms just in time.
She laughed when I stood there, looking at my empty hands. “I’m terrible, teasing you. I’m a cat, I’m afraid.” She laid a red-nailed little hand on my arm. “I’m sorry. We can’t have everything, can we? But cats want everything, everything they see, don’t they?”
“Say—listen here!” Selene was a mind reader, playing up the thought I’d had ever since she gave me that first eye-smile. “You got cats on the brain?”
She nodded. Lights danced in orange-brown hair. It was sleek against her head like a copper helmet. It was as smooth as her white skin.
“I like them.” She caught my hand, and then she rippled into a chair, with me sitting on the arm. “I think you do, too.”
I watched her stretch those legs out and park her feet on the needlepoint footstool. She had a dainty way of making the move. “Yeah, I do. Honest.”
“I knew that.” She yawned; no, it was really a stretch, and it lifted my blood pressure, seeing that it was sleepy vitality. Lots of it, in reserve; not a bit like these peppy persons that haven’t really anything, but who work twenty-four hours a day to pretend they have.
“Mind opening that door?”
She pointed. When I got away from her, I began to notice that peculiar smell. A tiny whisper of an odor, all over the house. It wasn’t the big Boukhara rug. They have a goaty tang, and it takes a hot climate to bring it out. Then I got it: cat. Toned down, but no mistaking it.
I opened the door. There were a dozen or more of them. Long-haired Persians, short-haired alley cats—blue, striped, black, orange, pure white. Some of the toughest customers you’d ever find, even along the water front. Their ears were in ribbons. The fur was raked off their cheeks. Their purring sounded like a far-off airplane. It wasn’t until they pretended they’d just noticed me that I woke up to the size of the granddaddy of them all.
I bet he weighed twenty pounds or more. He was as big as a mountain bob cat, the kind with fringed ears. His face was hard, with big rolls of muscle at the base of his jaw. He had bull dog shoulders, and his hind end was lean. If he’d come toward me with his tail swaying sidewise, I’d have slammed the door in a hurry.
He was muttering and mumbling in his throat. Once, he meowed a hoarse, rasping bass. The cat smell in that glassed-in porch was heavy, though the place was spotless. Selene said, “I knew you liked them! Captain is awfully fussy, he hates strangers.”
The rest of the horde crowded around me. For a second, I felt squeamish. Ten-fifteen of them together pretty nearly outweighed me. I began thinking, “What if they got mad or hungry and teamed up?”
One is nice and harmless and soft, even if he’s a feline mug like Captain. But suppose a lot of them did gang up on a man, hanging on with those fingerlike claws? Ever notice, front and rear, how they have everything a human hand has, except a thumb? A man might conk a few, but by then he’d be nuts from panic and blind with blood. Crazy thought, but I think we all feel that way, from the old days when we wore tails and dodged sabre-tooth tigers.
Captain was the only out-size in the crowd, but the standard models were big and tough. Their yellow eyes never blinked. They lined up, with more than just a hint of order, waiting their turn to come up and rub against my leg. Those that waited studied me in the way a cat does: getting an answer, and then keeping it to himself.
Selene came out of her chair. She was smiling like a woman whose brat you’ve just called a handsome young man who’d undoubtedly be President someday. Then she began speaking to the brutes.
No, not baby-talk, no “muzzer’s-itty-bitty-kitty-kittens” stuff. It startled me. Her lips hardly moved. Just enough to show a little more of her teeth than with her mouth closed. The sound came from the hollow of her throat, one of the second or third places to kiss. It was that chirping a cat makes when he’s not meowing or squalling or spitting.
Captain answered her. Selene’s tone was liquid, silky, rounded; the rag-eared giant sounded like far-off buzz saws hitting knots. If I hadn’t actually seen it, if I’d just been listening from a distance, I’d have said, “She’s got an outlandish foreigner working for her.” It was almost articulate.
I must have jumped a foot and looked scared and silly. Selene said, “Oh, they do like you.”
Captain turned away from me, and all his gang turned with him. They marched back into the sun parlor. I couldn’t help believing she had told him to take them away, and he’d answered, “Okay, sister.”
Now that the other cats had made room for Selene, she snuggled close to me. “Lots of people hate them, and it’s mutual. I know you and I’ll be friends, won’t we?”
“Love me, love my cats, huh?” She nodded, smiled. I went on, “Long as they don’t get jealous, I’m not kicking. Say, did you train them?”
She shook her head. “Did you ever try training one?”
Well, whoever did? It can happen, but not often enough to count.
We ended up on the chesterfield. It had lots of cushions. The sun was setting, and the hills threw long shadows across the patio, and into the low-ceiled room. The taste of Selene’s lipstick filled my mouth. She purred something about it getting late. “Please—you mustn’t—do go away, I’ve been foolish—”
A door creaked. I sat up with a jerk and let go. Her lids nearly hid her eyes, and there was a lift to her breast, and she was shaking all over. She didn’t want me to leave. I didn’t either, but that hinge creak—
Well, it might have been the wind, and not her boyfriend. Only, it wasn’t either. It was the sun parlor door. The cats were filing out like soldiers in a column. Captain led the parade. I leaned over again to keep Selene from getting too far out of that heap of cushions. She didn’t try to stop me. She was slipping, fast.
But the cats swarmed over us. A hundred and fifty pounds of assorted cats. It was like a living stream swamping us. They got between us, purring and squirming. She tried to push them away, but there were too many. I shoved one, and then changed my mind. Captain had his two big paws on Selene’s bare shoulder. He just gave me a personal look and showed his teeth, and let hell blaze from his eyes.
“Sister, you win!” I said, getting sore, because they’d gotten my goat. “I’ll send your hosiery by mail.”
They always came by mail, direct from factory to the customer; I was just cracking off. Selene got up. The army was swarming around her ankles, purring and rubbing against her calves. Both stockings had new runners. With all those devils, she’d need hosiery by the gross, not by dozen.
“I didn’t—I couldn’t help—” She was breathless, pushing me toward the door. “Honestly, I didn’t, but it’s be
st—he’ll be home—soon—but bring them, don’t mail them.”
I slammed the door. It was too late to make any more calls. If it had been ten A.M., it’d still have been too late. For all Selene said, and I couldn’t help believing her, those cats had busted in to keep her in line. She meant she’d not called them in. Remembering the way she’d been hanging on, it’d be silly to say she hadn’t started playing for keeps. But her cats read something, way back in her mind, and thought she’d be sorry. Subconscious, I guess is the word. Or were they just jealous, and if that was it, what had I run into!
I’d hardly driven around the first curve of the narrow road that snaked through the hillside suburb of San Mateo when a big cream-colored coupé with a sharp-beaked radiator grille came swooping up to meet me. I damn near ran into the ditch. I killed my engine, and before I got it going, the bus was swinging into the drive of Selene’s bungalow. That was plain from the mirror.
On the way to town, I was wondering, “Is she psychic or are the cats, or, was that just the fellow’s regular time to come home?”
* * * *
Trying to figure that out began to get me down. The fact that I was thinking of such a screwy thing instead of dismissing it was what really worried me. Next day, I punched doorbells and blinked like a toad in a hailstorm. I had Selene on the brain. I didn’t get inside a single door. I guess I looked punch drunk. The gals eyed me and froze up. Some of them looked like they smelled something.
That worried me. “They smell those cats.”
I sent my clothes to the cleaner and put on the other suit. No go. I spent all night trying to figure out why Selene made me think of cats. Worse than that, Selene’s legs began winking at me; me, and I was so used to this business that legs were just things you stuff into Tru-Silk.
No, I couldn’t make any sales even when I did crash a door. I began to eye my reflection in door panes to see if I really looked goofy. I began looking just that way from trying to see if—this is getting complicated, but a state of mind does double up.
After a couple days of it, I decided to see Selene. I had crazy notions, such as the one that she was a cat in human form, and no wonder her oversize cats pushed prowling salesmen around. I had to see what that other guy did when he came to the house. Believe it or not, that’s why I went to peep.
I parked my bus at the city limits, and hoofed it into the hills. There were lights here and there along the narrow road, and the windows of cottages winked from dense growths of oak and laurel and buckeye. Selene’s place was somewhat beyond the development that had a road lighting system. It was dark, but I could have found my way with my eyes closed. Like a cat, huh?
The day I was there, I hadn’t had time to size up the layout of the house. Gravel walks are noisy, so I slipped along the patio wall, and ducked some cactus, and came to a lighted window.
Out there, people naturally are careless about shades. By day, it’d make no difference. At night, it was—man, man!
Selene was at her dressing table, powdering her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing much more than some of her powder. The big fluffy puff didn’t hide much. I gaped. Not at what you’d think. It was the way she moved. Sure, I did see things, but I wasn’t looking for them.
Watch a cat dolling itself up, slicking out its fur, and there’s Selene; except, she used a puff.
I backed away. First, it was lousy, standing there looking. Second, that slinky cat-motion wasn’t helping a bit. I heard a man’s voice, a man’s feet clumping around. For a while, I thought they were getting ready to go out.
But they weren’t.
The fellow was in the living room, pacing up and down. I could tell by his impatience that while he might drop in every evening after work, he did not have a mortgage on her.
A good looking chap. Big, husky, not hard-faced, not pretty, either; his gray suit went well with his black hair and tanned skin. The way he clamped down on his cigar showed he had definite ideas about everything.
Then Selene came out, and the way he grabbed an armful proved the cigar stance hadn’t lied. She wore a blue chiffon robe and blue mules; both were silver-shadowed.
There were cats asleep all over the living room. The door of the sun parlor was open. “Darling,” Selene wrapped slinky arms around the handsome fellow. “Let’s stay home this evening…”
Well, they stayed home. It was nice and quiet in the hills, and the crickets sounded loud and the stars were real close. Selene and her boyfriend had moved out of my view. That was okay, too. It also seemed okay with the cats.
Selene was getting the hell kissed out of her. All I could see was her silver and blue mules, but they told a lot. One fell off. The cats didn’t even wake up. One raised his big head, slowly opened his eyes, slowly closed them, and went back to sleep…
I checked out, quick!
That proves I wasn’t peeping for the usual reason. I’d learned something. Selene’s cats didn’t mind Mr. Garner. I got the name from his car registry papers. I heard so much “Darling, I’ve missed you so,” that I figured he didn’t show up every night, and she wanted to know why not. He was a chump for ever missing a chance.
But what was settled? That the cats ganged me when I was trying to get familiar with Selene; and that they didn’t move in on Garner? That proved nothing. Cats do things and only cats know why; and they aren’t telling. Here were ten-fifteen of them, all doing the same thing. There was a “so-what” that worried me.
The payoff was that scent from Selene’s bedroom. Perfumed odor that a well-kept woman’s wardrobe finally gives to a room. That was all there, and just a shade more. Yes—cat. I had known it right along; a tailor-made perfume to blend with, not drown out a cat scent.
Sure, that could be explained a dozen ways. Look at what perfumes are made of. Civet, from a kind of skunk. Musk from the glands of an Asiatic ox. Ambergris from a sickening by-product of a sick whale. A perfume is something that narrowly missed being a stench.
Cat scent is rank, the bigger the cat, the ranker. Try hanging around a tiger cage. Selene’s room had a tang which was cat odor that had crossed the borderline and become sweetness.
I mulled that over, all that night. She was making me dizzy. At the morning conference, I went to sleep and the sales manager gave me a dirty look; also some dirty remarks when he saw I’d not sold a thing for nearly a week. They meet every morning in the big town, listen to an hour of pep talks, and pep-songs. I used to laugh that off and say, “Nuts, I sell ’em, don’t I? Go ahead and sack me for missing these conferences.”
But now I wasn’t selling them.
I was waiting for Selene’s order to come from Chicago. I was hanging around in the laurel clumps that grew from the canyon and half way up the hillside. After trying all day to keep from coming out to the house, I finally went in the evening. Then I got cold feet, fearing Garner would show up.
But he didn’t. It got late, and still no Garner. Owls began to hoot, and somewhere, a wild cat began to howl. First like a woman moaning and then like nothing on earth. The hills behind San Mateo have plenty of wild life, even with San Francisco only twenty miles away.
Selene was alone. She was sitting there, not fidgeting like most impatient people do, or even looking at the clock. She was looking at the door, with that intent way a cat watches a gopher hole. Waiting. She’d cock her head, just a hair’s width. A moment or two later, I’d hear an engine, the one she’d already heard. By that time, she’d straighten up, knowing it was not Garner’s car.
Why didn’t I push the doorbell?
Nuh-uh. Not afraid Garner would drop in and she’d land behind the eight ball; just afraid to break in on a hundred and twenty pounds of hostile cat! She had everything but fur and pointed ears. By now, I’d sold myself on the idea that Selene was a cat goddess.
The next day, the hosiery arrived. I’d had it sent to my own address, so I could bring it to her
house.
She was glad to see me. She mixed me a drink. We sat there on the chesterfield and I could feel that we were both thinking things. Selene got up, made that curious, throaty chirping, and five or six of her cats went into the sun parlor with the others. This time she made sure the door was latched.
Then she gave a slow little smile and shook her head.
I said, “What the hell?”
Selene looked at me for a moment. I was sure now that some feline scent came from human skin. The breeze had shifted and it came through her bedroom window. Finally she said, “I told you I was a cat. I wasn’t playing with you.”
I believed her. “Maybe not.”
“You understand cats, don’t you?”
“Yes, some.”
“They stick to their house, don’t they?” She was saying something we both knew. That doesn’t hold for town, but it does in open country. When people move and leave a cat to shift for himself, he doesn’t follow them. He hangs around, and when someone else takes the house over, he comes back, looks the new owner over. If he likes him, he moves in.
Cats are opposite in every way from dogs. When they’re fighting mad, they wag their tails. You can’t browbeat them and make them like it. They don’t give a damn if they please you or not. People think they’re dumb because they won’t do tricks. That’s wrong. They do what they want, and nothing else. I knew all that, and I knew what Selene was. She had a human shape and mind, but the rest was feline.
Like in every woman, only a lot more so. She was a super-woman, with an extra touch of cat.
“So you stick to your house?”
She nodded. “I belong to it, and you don’t.”
This was getting close to telling me about Garner, and I wanted to change the subject. She was sitting so close that that was easy, but the kissing didn’t get very far. About the time we were both whirling, we heard the beasts in the sun parlor. They were clawing at the glass of the French doors. They were rearing up. Captain showed his teeth. He was working at the latch, and looked like a small tiger.
The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction Page 28