"Well, Daddio," she hisses when I approach the Divine One's door, since I well know that Miss Savannah Ashleigh is detained above as long as her mispronunciation holds. "I suppose you are here to take advantage of a poor, ignorant, unsuspecting female."
That is not how I would describe it, and I am not about to describe things of an intimate nature between consenting kitties to my wayward daughter, who has renounced all such activity.
"I had no such plans toward you," I reply.
She hisses again. "I know you are besotted with that platinum airhead in the dressing room. And I know that your precious Yvette is now in no condition to reject your designs. Sssshe is in ssssteam heat."
Ah. So the stars have cooperated at last! My beloved is primed and I am on the scene. What more could a cat-about-town wish? How about a long-lost daughter who stays that way?
"If you truly care for Yvette, blond bimbo that she is," Midnight Louise goes on, "I beg you to consider her future. In her position, half-breed kits are the mark of shame. She will be drummed out of the Cat Fanciers Federation. She will shame her mistress, and her kits will be tossed out on the streets to eat insects. She will be a queen without a country, a marked feline. For once in your life, think before you act."
She has a point, being my daughter and no fool. I see two facts: the Divine Yvette is in that blessed condition called "heat," and any red-blooded male cat worth his hormones will be clawing down the doors to get to her... ergo--
I dash past Midnight Louise, throwing my entire weight against the dressing-room door. It gives with a creak and a crack.
Nosing my way in, I confront my worst suspicions: Maurice is inside, and the Divine Yvette's carrier has been knocked to the floor. Maurice is fussing over the zipper like a monkey trying to type Shakespeare to order on the first try.
I am on him like a banshee, all sound and fury. My claws are sawblades and he is yellow pine ...
yellow supine. I have him nailed on his back, while the females yowl in counterpoint.
A few biffs to the whiskers, and he finally gets the message. This is Midnight Louie's turf. He backs out into the corridor, back curled, tail kinked, hissing all the way.
I am not impressed, but Midnight Louise is.
"Good brawl, Daddio. Now do the right thing."
What can I say? I amble over to my Divine One's toppled carrier.
She is panting within, her eyes wide and wicked. The fall has done nothing to cool her ardor. We are talking platinum passion here. I can smell my future on a pheromone. Every fiber of my body screams for satisfaction, and the Divine Yvette is willing to indulge my every instinct.
Of course, I have a witness. My own kith and kin, suitably and surgically altered. She would never understand.
I sigh.
"Louie, Louie," the Divine Yvette mews, hot to trot.
One of us must do the right thing.
I push and pull her carrier into its proper upright position, then hook an incisor in the zipper tab and draw the bag slightly open. The Divine Yvette's long, spiderly whiskers poke through the gap.
"Louie , mon amour !"
That French does it every time.
"Ma cherie. We must wait and be wise. We will always have another A La Cat commercial."
"Louie!" she wails.
(And the Divine Yvette, for all her sublime delicacy, does indeed know how to wail, especially when she is in a wanton condition.)
"Until we meet again," I promise, withdrawing before I forget myself, knock Midnight Louise into a wall and have some long-deserved fun.
It is hard being a responsible male in these modern days. In fact, it is Hell.
The next evening I return to the Circle Ritz and Miss Temple Barr, a female I will never be tempted to ravage, given our separate species.
She seems glad to be home again, and is preparing for bed.
I notice a new object on her nightstand: a lone shoe that glitters like a Broadway opening. It bears a handsome representation of a black cat with a single green eye upon the heel. I prefer two eyes, but I have not seen the mate to this one yet.
"Louie!" Miss Temple greets me with an enthusiasm that is not steamy, but is most welcome, and even soothing after my many travails at the Crystal Phoenix. "Are you as tired of the romance ride as I am? Come on, your spot is waiting."
She pats the coverlet near her knees. Miss Temple has the most endearing habit of flexing her knees when she sleeps, at an angle custom-tailored for a dude of my size and temperament to curl into. And she will not carp about my reproductive habits, or, rather, my former thoughtless acts that resulted in unplanned pregnancies. I do understand that Midnight Louise's attitude is politically correct, but nobody ever had much fun being politically correct.
Miss Temple knows that well.
She pats my head and shoulders, and does delirious things to my ears that almost make me forget myself.
"Louie," she says, "love is murder, and love of money is the most murderous thing of all."
I would not know. Money is not one of my weaknesses, which is why I am such an ace crime-solver.
"And thanks for turning up the bloody glove." She goes on to confide all that happened on both the romance and crime-solving fronts, including the good news about "my" shoe.
It is nice to be the hero of the hour. I settle into my perfect spot and listen sagely, reflecting on the symmetry of life.
We are all in our proper places, and most is right with our world.
The murderers have met their just rewards: Fabrizio became a victim himself and Sharon Rose will be writing her bestsellers from prison in the future. No doubt her mild-mannered husband will miss the opportunity to bow-hunt, but the deer will be pleased. I applaud with silent cat feet. I never approve of wanton predation, unless it is mine.
And even I am reforming. After our on-camera tryst tomorrow, the Divine Yvette will depart for Malibu with her human, Miss Savannah Ashleigh, ecstatic that I will play opposite her again in these little exercises of television advertising.
Miss Savannah Ashleigh is ecstatic that she will appear in a videotape of the infamous Incredible Hunk pageant featuring two murders, which will air interminably and simultaneously on Hot Heads, A Current Affair and Hard Copy. The Divine Yvette told me this morning that her mistress was disappointed to learn that she has lost a pair of prize shoes to some anonymous shoe-hunter, but that she has enough money from Yvette's commercials to order a custom pair of Pave Collection shoes with Incredible Hunks on the heels.
Maurice will return to the trained-animal farm from whence he came.
Miss Temple has brought me home in both my forms: self and shoe. She has already presented this incontrovertible evidence that she found the location of the prize shoe to the Stuart Weitzman store. I expect to have a body double, times two, on the premises by Thanksgiving.
Speaking of which ... Thanksgiving, that is, not premises, I learn that: Mr. Matt Devine feels that his aquatic skills have justified themselves.
The Mystifying Max, wherever he is, has once again manipulated circumstances to his liking, and in a most generous manner, too.
Miss Temple Barr has come to terms with the fact that she must rely on the professional connections of Lieutenant C. R. Molina for some investigative work, such as international inquiries.
What more could one want? Midnight Louise would not understand. I muse upon my favorite lines in all literature:
It is a far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.
It is a far better place to which I go, than I have ever gone....
Of course, Sidney Carton did not have much self-esteem, and was co-dependent on top of that. He also did not get the girl. My world, and welcome to it, Sidney. Have I got a spokescat job for you...
Chapter - Tailpiece
Midnight Louie Celebrates
Well, this is more like it! All things come to he who waits, and I have been waiting for my just desserts for some time. I had just expected them to be edible ins
tead of esthetic. But that is okay. I can roll with the rewards.
I have been the object of a kick more than once before, during my street days, but I have never been on a shoe before.
"The Midnight Louie Shoe." That phrase has a ring to it. "The Midnight Louie Pussyfoot Pump."
Toney. "The Midnight Louie Sophisticat Spikes." Better! More guts. These shoes were made for stompin'--not at the Savoy, but at the Crystal Phoenix.
You may distrust my exuberance. You may suspect that I have been dipping into the nip too much lately. I may even sound a trifle giddy. But I am one to whom recognition has come late . . . er, later ... in life. Observing the shenanigans of these romance cover-model hunks, what reader may have considered that Midnight Louie once nearly was one? True, I am a cover model now, but only after much time and travail, and only after a golden opportunity for fame was cruelly snatched away in my youth, when I was svelte and swell-headed enough to really enjoy it.
You may recall my abortive venture into a romance-novel quartet a decade ago, wherein I was soundly scolded for conduct unbecoming a romance character and relieved of forty percent of my literary weight (i.e., almost half of my lines ended up on the cutting room floor), thanks to the ministrations of a nervous editor who judged Midnight Louie too powerful for the romance reader of a decade ago.
Savvy early thought of using me as a cover image, albeit minor, was soon quashed by a flurry of actions to conceal all things furry and feline about the romances in question. I did make it onto a
promotional page at the books' rear, but the volumes quickly plunged into the river of pulp from whence all paperbacks flow and eventually return. Now, of course, romance series with continuing cat characters are the "in" thing; some even pretend to talk, like me. (I refuse to talk to inferior species, which is why I write my opinions.) Today romance short-fiction anthologies are built around those of my ilk, on the cover and inside it. I was obviously (I say with almost no hubris) ahead of my time.
But the future was unseen during that bleak period of rejection and exile. Oh, I soldiered on with my customary bravado, but the entire episode stuck in my claw. So how I relish my long overdue vindication as a rightfully celebrated covercat not only on my own mystery series ... but on a custom pair of designer high heels as well. I can hardly wait to see what heights of fame my forthcoming cat food gig will bring!
Very best fishes,
Midnight Louie, Esq. P.S.
You can reach Midnight Louie on the Internet at: http://www.catwriter.com/cdouglas
--CND
Carole Nelson Douglas
Talks Shoes and Show Biz
Midnight Louie and I agree for once: his new prominence in the fashion-footwear world is the cat's meow.
Writers sometimes burden characters with their own quirks; Temple's high-heel addiction is such an inherited trait. So do the details of a writer's life and fiction blend.
Here's another relevant example of this eternal intertwining: At the 1995 Romantic Times magazine Booklovers Convention in Fort Worth, a grandmotherly costume volunteer delivered a drop-dead hilarious monologue about her adventures with the daring young men in the cover model pageant.
These included emergency repairs of a delicate nature, given the men's costuming, or lack of same.
Romance convention attendees might assume that this true-to-life incident inspired a scene in this book in which Temple faces a similar crisis. Not so. Time passes, but classic human dilemmas do not.
During college theatrical days I myself confronted a panicked Mountie from Little Mary Sunshine who had altogether too much sun shining on a place where it shouldn't, and was due onstage for an athletic dance number in minutes . . . heck, seconds! He, too, had no time to remove his pants. He also had a lot more panicking to do before the situation was all sewed up, but he didn't miss his cue ... or suffer any pain, although I can't speak for humiliation on either of our parts.
This is one story that leaves everyone in stitches
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