Chapter 6 - Felines and Other Fetishes
With perhaps only one or two exceptions, all the owners I’ve come across over the years have been absolutely lovely. Yes, they may have had their own little eccentricities, just as their cats did, but all in all I counted myself very lucky.
When I first met Gordon and Camilla they seemed like a rather unexceptional but very affable middle-aged couple. Granted, I thought Camilla had rather overdone it on the black eyeliner and dark lipstick which I wasn’t convinced she could get away with at her age, but who was I to judge. I also noticed that Gordon’s rather thinning hair had an artificial dark copper look about it. Far be it from me to assume he’d applied ‘Grecian 2000’ or ‘Just for Men’ to his hair without any real idea of what he was doing, but that’s exactly what it looked like.
They lived in a suburban semi, with magnolia painted walls, Laura Ashley soft furnishings and a plum-coloured bathroom suite.
Sharing the house with them was Mistress Sadie, their five year-old female rescue cat who couldn’t have been more captivating. She was an all-black cat of diminutive proportions and had big green eyes that shone like emeralds. When Camilla introduced her not only did I almost burst a blood vessel in my efforts to keep a straight face, but I also curbed my curiosity as to the origins of the name, in this instance I really did think it best not to ask. However, as she was a cat that was allowed free access to the garden I knew that at some point I would inevitably have to face the ordeal of calling her in. In the fervent hope that I could avoid this embarrassment I asked Camilla “does she respond to any particular call?”
“Yes, she responds to Mistress Sadie,” Camilla replied in a rather puzzled tone of voice that implied ‘after all, that is her name.’
Mistress Sadie was clearly a people cat and at our first encounter she hurried towards me with her tail in that stiffly upright position that showed she was rather pleased to meet me. I crouched down expecting her to sniff the hand that I was proffering, but instead she planted her delicate little paws firmly on my knees, raised her head and put her moist little nose against mine.
I couldn’t help but wonder what her story was and why, prior to Gordon and Camilla’s ownership, she’d been relinquished to a rescue centre. Surely she was everything a cat lover could possibly want? Was there some problem lurking that would come to light during my visits? Given my track record of acquiring cat clients that had their fair share of funny little ways I wouldn’t be surprised. However, it turned out that the reason why Mistress Sadie had ended up in a rescue situation was because of her colour. Traditionally black cats have always been less popular than cats of other coat colours. Perhaps because they’ve been associated with bad luck, or maybe it’s something to do with the myth that in the Middle Ages they were thought to be the companions of witches. Whatever the reason, it meant that Mistress Sadie, the only all-black kitten in her litter, was given up for adoption.
On the face of it, looking after Mistress Sadie was going to be fairly straightforward. No litter trays to clean, just food and water top-ups and lots of play and cuddles. Or so I thought.
When Camilla had given me the grand tour of the house she’d left the master bedroom to last. Nothing unusual about that, but as we stepped over the threshold I understood why. In an enormous glass tank, precariously perched on a table in one corner of the room was the biggest snake I’d ever seen, other than in a zoo that is.
I noticed Camilla monitoring my expression carefully.
“We didn’t want to tell you about him before you came to see us in case it put you off,” she said with the air of someone who’d had a procession of pet-sitters through the door, all of whom, upon seeing the gargantuan reptile, had run for the hills. My thoughts were confirmed as she added “you’d be surprised at the number of pet sitters I’ve tried to engage who’ve turned me down. I can only think it’s because they felt rather uncomfortable about looking after a snake ... but honestly Sidney really is no trouble!”
Sidney? As I contemplated his name Camilla appeared to read my thoughts. “We named him after Gordon’s Uncle Ernest who lived in Australia before he died,” she said as if that explained it. However, it turned out that Gordon’s Uncle Ernest had in fact spent the final few years of his life living in Sydney.
“Oh, I thought you must have named him after Hissing Sid,” I quipped. She looked at me blankly. “Hissing Sid, from the Captain Beaky song” I persisted. Camilla appeared not to have heard of the iconic 1980s song ‘Captain Beaky’ in which a gang of brave woodland creatures, led by a rather dim-witted bird called Captain Beaky marched through the forest ‘righting wrongs’ and protecting other creatures from the evil snake that was Hissing Sid. I was a big fan of the song and even owned a t-shirt with ‘Hissing Sid is Innocent!’ printed on it.
Yes, I do like a snake. In fact the more of a social underdog a species is, the more I likely I am to be on its side. Pigeons and rats also count amongst my favourites, along with Hyenas and Vultures, though I can’t imagine finding either of those in a suburban semi on the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells. This particular snake was a rather striking fellow whose scales were adorned with a beautiful pattern of brown, yellow, golden and black hues. “What type is he?” I asked.
“A reticulated python,” Camilla answered rather proudly. “They kill their prey by wrapping themselves around them and squeezing, though he’s never showed any inclination of doing that to us!!”
Despite Camilla’s jocular tone this somehow didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, and neither did “he’s not anywhere near fully grown so we’ve got some lovely plans in the offing to convert the spare room to give him a bit more space.” I envisaged Sidney slithering freely around the room and having his own ‘snake-flap’ through which he could enter and exit as and when the mood took him.
“We’ve had him sex-probed so we know he’s a little boy,” Camilla went on. Never had I heard the term ‘little boy’ used so inappropriately and neither did I have the foggiest idea what sex-probing involved, but felt that this subject might be heading in a direction that was perhaps a little too intimate given that this was our first meeting. So I simply conveyed my appreciation of Sydney’s handsomeness to Camilla who appeared to interpret my compliment as a request for an even more up-close and personal experience, because the next thing she said was “would you like to hold him? He’s been fed fairly recently so there shouldn’t be a problem.” The use of the phrase ‘fairly recently’ seemed a bit vague for my liking and I wondered if this was some kind of pet-sitter initiation process. What would happen if I politely declined?
However, there was no stopping Camilla who had already started to remove the lid from the tank whilst shouting out to Gordon who’d been napping downstairs. “Gordon, come here please!” This was obviously a two-man job, or was it that she needed Gordon around just in case Sydney decided he liked me just a little too much?
By the time Gordon appeared Camilla had managed to remove the lid from the tank or ‘vivarium’ to give its correct name. “Darling would you mind helping me get Sydney out, Kat would like to give him a little cuddle.” I wasn’t sure which part of that sentence I objected to the most. The ‘would like’ was stretching it a bit too far and the fact that I was going to give him a ‘little cuddle’ was just plain ridiculous. Surely it would be the other way round? I imagined Sydney liked nothing better that to give a little cuddle to all his prey.
Between them Gordon and Camilla gently lifted Sydney out and placed him around my neck. He actually seemed rather dopey at first, perhaps he’d been rudely awoken from a deep sleep, but then wondered how one could tell if a snake was in a deep sleep. However, he soon livened up and started moving in a head-wards direction. Whilst Camilla and Gordon looked on like proud parents Sydney decided to investigate my hair. I doubted whether a head massage could get any kinkier and so tried not to enjoy the experience.
Even after only a few moments with a reticulated python slithering around in my hair, the w
eight began to take its toll on me so Camilla and Gordon duly removed him from my head and placed him back in his vivarium, whilst I instinctively put my hand to my head to re-arrange my dishevelled locks. As I did so, and not for the first time, my hand came into contact with something soft and squidgy. There was only one thing that he could have left behind...
“Oh that is unlucky,” Camilla commiserated. “His ‘movements’ are usually rather infrequent, only two or three times a month.” I couldn’t believe my luck either. I’d spent a good proportion of my life disposing of feline faeces but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that there’d come a time when I’d be clearing snake poo from my head.
Whilst Gordon trotted off to get me some loo roll with which to remove the offending item Camilla continued to admire Sydney. However, there was just one incy wincy little detail that had been filling me with apprehension ever since clapping eyes on him, and that was that Sydney would almost certainly have Mistress Sadie as an appetiser, if given the opportunity.
I felt it best to share my concerns with Camilla, however I also felt that raising such an important subject required a degree of gravitas which I wouldn’t be able to command until I’d removed Sydney’s unfortunate output from my hair. “What does Mistress Sadie think of Sydney?” I eventually asked diplomatically.
“Well she appears to be rather wary of him,” Camilla said. I imagined that being ‘rather wary’ was a bit of an understatement and sensing my disquiet she added “we do make sure that whenever we take him out he stays in our room with the door shut.” I’d noticed during Sydney’s outing on my head that the bedroom door had remained open and neither Gordon nor Camilla had asked where Mistress Sadie might be. I thought it best to let sleeping snakes lie and we headed back downstairs to where Mistress Sadie was sitting on the window, watching the world outside oblivious to the potential danger that was slithering around above her perfect little head.
With more than a few misgivings, I agreed to look after Sydney and Mistress Sadie for four days the following week whilst Camilla and Gordon were away at a conference in Kettering. There was no mention as to the theme of the conference and in fact it all seemed rather mysterious. What kind of conference would a semi-retired middle-aged couple be likely to attend? I decided it was some kind of hobby craft event and left it at that. It was only when I started visiting Mistress Sadie and Sydney that the mystery would be revealed.
So I turned up for my first visit, looking forward to some quality time with Mistress Sadie having been given strict instructions not to remove Sydney from his vivarium (as if!) As I suspected, she was an utter delight, trotting up to me and performing her funny little nose-rub routine, then rolling over and allowing me to give her an all-over tickle, after which we spent the next twenty minutes or so playing with the toys I’d brought. I wasn’t sure who was having more fun, her or me, and if all of my visits were like this I’d be very happy.
I eventually decided that I better go up and check on Sydney. I stood at the threshold of the door to the master bedroom and nervously opened it just enough for me to see into the room but not enough for him to get through should he be hiding behind it, ready to slink past me and straight down the stairs.
I needn’t have worried. There he was, safe and sound in his vivarium and I couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. Shouldn’t he be out roaming the rain forests of South East Asia, or wherever it was he was from? Having decided it was a bit impractical for me to start campaigning on behalf of reticulated pythons in suburban semis everywhere I headed back downstairs to attend to Mistress Sadie’s food.
For the next couple of days my visits followed the same pattern, lovely quality time with the gorgeous Mistress Sadie followed by a quick peek at Sydney.
On my final visit, and with some sadness, I finished my play session with Mistress Sadie and went up to see Sydney, opening the bedroom door with my usual caution. As I peered across the room to his glass home I saw with utter horror that the lid to the vivarium was slewed across the top of it, leaving a python-sized gap at one end.
I closed the door to the room quickly and then re-opened it hoping that what I had just seen had in fact been a hallucination. Unfortunately my eyes hadn’t deceived me and on the second opening the scene remained the same. However, from my position behind the door I couldn’t see Sydney. Where was he? The thought suddenly struck me that Camilla and Gordon might have left one of their small bedroom windows open. I could just see it, retired couples, worried parents, dog walkers and cats all running for their lives as a super heavy-weight reptile rampaged through the neighbourhood. The headline writers of the local papers would have a field day.
I had to find out if he was still in the room, so steeling myself, I slowly entered went in. With the curtains being half closed it was dim in there and the last thing I wanted was to step on him, for my safety not his. To make matters worse the carpet and all the bedclothes were black. At that moment I couldn’t decide if I wanted to find him in there or not. I walked slowly around the edges of the bed and it wasn’t until I reached the bottom end that I spotted Sydney on the other side of it, lounging on the carpet, and to my inexperienced eyes, seemingly without a care in the world.
I stood stock still and considered my options. What harm would there be leaving him loose in the room, assuming of course that the windows were closed? Then another thought occurred to me. If Sydney was able to get out of his vivarium, would he be able to get out of the room? I envisaged him somehow slithering up the door and over the door handle to the point at which his sheer bodyweight forced it down. The thought of Mistress Sadie’s life being ended in such an appalling way at Sydney’s hands (so to speak) was too much to bear.
In what could have been one of the most idiotic decisions I’d ever made, I was going to try and get the recumbent reptile back in his vivarium. But would years of trying to coax cats back indoors help me here? I had no idea if the food trick would work with Sydney, but I was going to give it a try. I was aware that snakes ate small rodents and was hoping that Camilla and Gordon would keep a supply of frozen bodies in the freezer; I really didn’t want to have to go through the whole experience of retrieving road kill again. I tippy-toed back to the bedroom door and shutting it firmly behind me hurried down to the kitchen. Thankfully Mistress Sadie seemed to have disappeared outside, just as I wished I could have. Scrutinizing the contents of the freezer I soon found what I was looking for. There were indeed dead rodents wrapped in plastic bags nestled in amongst the frozen cauliflower and ready-made Yorkshire puddings.
I grabbed one and dashed back upstairs. I entered the room and allowed my eyes to adjust to the light. I then decided to push the lid of the vivarium further across its top to ensure there would be no width restrictions when Sydney re-entered it. He may have managed to get out of it as it was, but I was taking no chances.
With my heart in my mouth I removed the frozen mouse from its wrapping and went over to Sydney’s head, stepping in and out of the loops made by his body as if I was doing some kind of advanced gym work-out. I dangled the mouse in front of him and waited. Would he respond to the frozen rodent or should I have de-frosted it first?
Unbelievably he started moving. With no room for me to turn around, I realised that reversing over his body was going to be much more difficult than it had been moving forwards. Luckily, Sydney was never going to break the land speed record so I had time to position my feet to avoid treading on him.
Over the course of the next few minutes Sydney and I edged ever closer to the vivarium, moving in unison in what could to some look like a bizarre tribal dance. When Sydney reached the floor next to the lid-less end of the tank I trailed the mouse up the brick-exposed wall next to it and along the edge of the table. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but he handled the ascent with surprising agility given his colossal size. I chucked the mouse in the tank and waited until he was fully immersed before shifting the lid back in position. I stood back, relieved and slightly
in awe of what I’d accomplished. I’d dine out on this for some time!
However, I’d not quite finished. If Sydney had done it once, he could do it again so making the lid secure was a must. My eyes scanned the room for something heavy that I could put on it, but nothing immediately sprang out at me. Then realising that desperate times called for desperate measures I did something that I never do. I went into Camilla and Gordon’s fitted wardrobe.
The wardrobe’s innards were divided up into pigeon holes for socks and knickers and, as it turned out stocks of ‘Just for Men’ hair dye (I knew it!) along with the usual area for hanging clothes, above which was a shelf. However, my focus was on the bottom of the wardrobe. As I’d slid the doors open shoes tumbled out along with, what was this - a thigh length pair of high heeled PVC boots? Heavens above, what was Camilla thinking, and at her age? A horrible thought then occurred to me that they could belong to Gordon. I shook that idea from my head as quickly as I could and carried on looking. The piles of shoes were indeed sitting on top of something which is presumably why they cascaded out of the wardrobe so easily. Removing a selection of open-toed sandals, court shoes, the PVC boots and some sensible flatties (from the sublime to the ridiculous I thought) I uncovered a very long, narrow metal case. Exactly what was required for the job!
As I shuffled the case towards me I could feel that it was going to be heavy too, which was just what was needed. However, lifting it over to the vivarium and placing it on top wasn’t going to be easy. There was nothing for it. I had to remove the contents first. I unclipped the catches, opened the lid and had my breath taken clean away.
Inside was a selection of ‘rubber products’. Masks; singlets; a peaked cap complete with chain adornment; a pair of PVC trousers that even Olivia Newton John in her ‘Grease’ days would have struggled to get into; a cat-suit that I rather fancied myself (for the purposes of fancy dress of course) and numerous sets of handcuffs from feathery to fur-lined. However, the piece de résistance was a whip. With its spectacular length and intricate leatherwork on the handle, I imagined it being used by a red-coated, top-hatted lion tamer in a Victorian circus.
It was then that the penny dropped. The weird Mistress Sadie name; a large snake; the bedroom’s black soft furnishings, Camilla’s dark eyeliner and lipstick, not to mention the rubber gear and whip. These were all hallmarks of the S&M community, either that or Camilla and Gordon were closet Goths.
I knew that this surprising middle-aged couple weren’t due back until the following morning but it would be just my luck for them to return early. I wasn’t taking any chances; I had to replace the case quick! I hadn’t touched its contents so I was hoping I could get away with locking it up, shoving it back into its original position in the wardrobe and re-covering it with shoes. I did though, take the precaution of wiping down the mirrored (what else!) wardrobe doors with loo paper, just in case I’d left any tell-tale fingerprints.
I still needed to secure the vivarium lid so I scurried out of the room and headed for the garden, hoping all the while that I wouldn’t stumble across any other unsavoury secrets hidden in the greenhouse. Thankfully I didn’t, but what I did find were a few house bricks near the pond which I successfully deposited on the vivarium lid, confident that no snake, reticulated python or otherwise, would be able to easily remove it.
I decided not to include the Sydney incident in the note that I left for Camilla and Gordon but planned to tell them all about it when I went to drop their keys off. However, the following evening Camilla, having arrived home and seen the bricks on top of the vivarium called me in a state of panic.
“Kat, what on earth happened with Sydney?” Not being one to hide my light under a bushel I regaled her with the story of my initial dilemma, followed by my quick thinking and strategic action. To say that she was grateful was an understatement. When I went to drop the keys off I was greeted by a huge bunch of purple lilies being thrust at me, quite frankly I was surprised they weren’t black.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Camilla said. “I knew that the clips on the lid of Sydney’s tank were broken but didn’t in a million years imagine he’d be able to push it open.” Broken clips?? I couldn’t believe that she’d omitted to tell me this vitally important piece of information, but there again I couldn’t believe that she and Gordon were into... whatever it was they were into.
Eventually she invited me in and ushered me into the living room for a cup of tea and a cuddle with Mistress Sadie. Placing my cup back on its saucer, I reiterated what a lovely time her gorgeous little cat and I had spent together and got up to leave. “Before you go would you like to say goodbye to Sydney?” Camilla asked, obviously believing that the snake and I developed a wonderful bond.
Before I knew it I was traipsing up the stairs and into the master bedroom for what felt like the umpteenth time. Sydney was there, in his tank, a knowing little glint in his eye. He’d of course witnessed my covert operation in the wardrobe and never was I more thankful that animals couldn’t talk, at least not in the way that we humans can. As Camilla chatted on, my eye caught something lying on the floor in the corner of the room by the window. It looked very much like a.... black, thigh length, high-heeled PVC boot! OMG, had I accidentally left it out? What if Camilla realised I’d been rummaging around in her secret box? My nightmarish speculation was interrupted by Camilla
“Kat, are you alright? You’ve gone quite red. I do hope the thought of what you did for my Sydney hasn’t scarred you for life!” Yes, I had been scarred for life in Camilla and Gordon’s bedroom, but not by Sydney.
When I got home I went straight to my laptop and typed in ‘S&M Community’ into my search engine, making a mental note to delete the search from my browser’s history later on. Avoiding what looked to be the more lurid results, I found an organisation claiming to be the UK’s central headquarters for S&M-ers. I took a deep breath and clicked on it. Before me was a page of information on the latest news and events from the S&M world laid out in such a way that that it could have been targeting a senior citizens knitting guild. One thing I couldn’t miss though was the headline, emblazoned across the centre of the page ‘Kettering 2015 - Update and Photos from our Annual Conference’.
I couldn’t help myself. I clicked on the link and amongst the plethora of photos was one of Camilla and Gordon in all their PVC glory. I was never going to be able to look them in the face again.
The Hairy Tails of a Cat Sitter Page 9