by Ellee Hill
Chelsea was on the couch, methodically shredding some hapless cat toy with her back paws. Every once in a while she would lift her head to glare at Mitch, as if to make sure he knew exactly who she was disemboweling in effigy.
He hoped his swallowing wasn’t audible. “No, it’s fine. Chelsea and I really should get to know each other.”
Gordon’s delighted grin was all the proof Mitch needed that he’d made the right call. “Terrific! I’d planned to cook you dinner, but I didn’t want to start anything.” Gordon took Mitch’s hands and backed up to lead Mitch farther into his apartment.
“Sounds great,” Mitch said. Chelsea’s demonic yellow eyes followed him all the way to the loveseat. He sat very carefully, never taking his attention off the cat. “What is it?”
“Steak—I got it fresh today from the market.” Gordon rubbed his hands together. “You’ll love it.”
“Don’t you need it for her tribute?” Mitch asked, still watching Chelsea.
Gordon laughed. “You’re so funny,” he said as he disappeared into the kitchen.
Mitch tried not to feel abandoned. He eyed the cat. She eyed him.
Mitch cleared his throat. “What, ah, what should I do with her?” he called to Gordon. Chelsea’s ears twitched.
“Pet her behind the ears, she really likes that,” Gordon answered cheerfully. “Hey, do you like asparagus?”
“Love it,” Mitch murmured. He stood up.
Chelsea growled.
Mitch sat down. “Uh, Gordon?”
“Yeah?”
“What do I do if she doesn’t want me to come near her?”
Gordon poked his head out of the kitchen. “Oh, is she growling again? Yeah, she hates it when anyone but me approaches head-on. Try moving to the side first, and maybe crouch down a bit, so you don’t look so tall.” He ducked back into the kitchen.
“Lose the height advantage, got it.” Mitch nodded to himself. He took a deep breath and stood up.
Chelsea growled.
“I’m moving, I’m moving,” Mitch said. He edged sideways. Chelsea’s head swiveled to follow him like a turret gun. “Okay, that’s probably far enough.” Mitch licked his lips. “So now I crouch down….”
Luckily the kitchen was right next to the living room, so Mitch only screamed once before Gordon was right there to pull the cat off his face.
“Wow,” Gordon said, wide-eyed and holding the snarling, struggling cat in his arms. “Maybe she really does hate you.”
GORDON waited with him in the emergency room, which was pretty sweet of him, Mitch thought. Of course, Chelsea had tried to rip off his face, so maybe Gordon just figured he owed him. Either way it was nice to lean against him with one of Gordon’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, even if Gordon had done it so he could hold the towel-wrapped icepack over Mitch’s nose.
“I swear she’s never done this before,” Gordon said helplessly. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe… maybe it’s because I haven’t had anyone else in my life for so long. She’s been used to having me all to herself.”
“Mmm,” Mitch grunted, because it was hard to talk through the towel. He wanted to ask if Gordon’s former boyfriends had broken up with him after meeting Chelsea, but that would mean taking the icepack away from his face, and it was soothing.
“Next time we’re going to your place, no matter what,” Gordon said. “After your nose heals, I mean.”
“Mmm,” Mitch grunted.
“No, seriously,” Gordon said. “Obviously you two need to be kept apart until we can figure out a way to get her comfortable with you.”
“Mmm,” Mitch grunted.
“It’ll be okay, you’ll see,” Gordon said. “I’m sure Chelsea will be fine.”
“I’M sure Chelsea’s fine,” Mitch said. He and Gordon were making out on his couch, which wasn’t as nice as Gordon’s but served this purpose admirably. Or at least it would if Gordon didn’t stop every few minutes to glance longingly at the window, as if he expected Chelsea to suddenly materialize like Batman.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Sorry.” Gordon gave Mitch another one of his heartbreaking, “I’m-trying-to-be-brave” smiles, which Mitch had sadly become very familiar with in the last hour and a half. “It’s just—”
“You don’t normally leave her this long. I know,” Mitch said, pleased that he kept all trace of exasperation out of his voice. “But she’ll never get used to it if you keep going home early.”
“I know,” Gordon said. “I know. You’re totally right. It’s just….” He trailed off miserably, looking out the window again. “What if she’s scared? Or she hurts herself? You’ve seen how rambunctious she gets sometimes—what if she, I don’t know, pulls the bookcase over and gets crushed?”
Ding-dong, the witch is dead? Mitch thought. He prudently didn’t say that, however, despite how he still had three stitches from Chelsea’s teeth getting rambunctious all over his nose. “I really don’t think she’s strong enough to pull a bookcase over.”
“I know.” Gordon sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked very earnest. “I really want to be with you.”
“…But you’re worried about your cat. I get it.” Mitch heaved a breath and climbed off Gordon so he was standing on the worn fake wood floor in his sock feet. “Why don’t you go look after her, then? It’s okay,” he added to take away some of the bitterness in his voice.
“You sure?” Gordon looked so pathetically hopeful that Mitch could only nod and fake a smile for him, which got him wrapped in a very tight hug. “Thank you,” Gordon said. “Thank you so much for being so incredibly understanding.” He was beaming again when he let Mitch go, but Mitch couldn’t quite feel that it made everything worthwhile this time. “I’ll see you tomorrow at work, okay?”
“Okay, sure,” Mitch said. Then he walked Gordon to the door and watched him run down the stairs in his hurry to get back to his cat.
“WHY does it have to be a cat, you know? Or, no. Not a cat. Cats are fine. I mean, why does it have to be that cat? She’s from hell, I swear. She’s pure evil.”
“Maybe you just have, like, incompatible personalities?” said Doug, the salesclerk at the pet supply store who was into ferrets. “Some people just don’t get along.”
“She’s not a person. She’s a demonspawn,” Mitch said. He was sitting on a carpeted scratching post in the cat section, slumped forward with his chin in his hands. “She probably doesn’t get along with other cats, either. Probably ate her way out of the womb.” He had a feeling he was a bit too inebriated to be having a meaningful conversation, but he knew better than to drive and the pet supply store was on his way home and still open so what the hell. “How can I compete with a demonspawn who ate her way out of her mother’s womb?”
“Whoa. She didn’t, like, really do that, did she?” Doug stared at him.
Mitch shrugged. “Dunno. I wasn’t there. Wouldn’t put it past her.” He heaved a sigh. “We’re going to have to break up.”
Doug was still staring. “You and the cat?”
Mitch made a face. “No! Me and my boyfriend. Well, he’s not really my boyfriend,” he amended sadly. “We haven’t even had sex yet. Because of the cat. His cat. She’s his cat. And she hates me. And he loves her better.”
“Oh. Yeah, that sucks,” Doug said. “Me and my girlfriend broke up because of that. The ferrets, I mean. She didn’t have a cat. But, uh, yeah. She preferred the ferrets.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Mitch said. “I’m sure you’re at least as attractive as a ferret.”
“Thanks,” Doug said.
“I wish I had a ferret,” Mitch said wistfully. “Actually, no. Scratch that. I wish Gordon had a ferret, instead of a psychotic demon cat.”
“We have some specials on ferrets right now,” Doug said.
“IT’S not you, or me—it’s your cat,” Mitch said to the mirror then spit out the toothpaste. He put his brush back in his mouth and continued scrubbing. “Don’t ge
t me wrong,” he mumbled around the toothbrush. “I like you. I like you a lot. But I can’t stand your cat. And the feeling’s obviously mutual. And I can’t ask you to get rid of your cat, so….” He spat into the sink. “So, I’m volunteering to get rid of me,” he said to his reflection.
He sighed. “Fuck.”
Mitch rinsed his mouth and his toothbrush, but the mirrored version of him looked just as bad when he stood straight again. It had nothing to do with the three black stitches on his nose, which he was still pretending made him look rakish. It did have everything to do with how lousy he felt. The idea of never getting to spend time with Gordon again, of never getting to see those big, gorgeous smiles or enjoy that big, beautiful body or be touched by his surprisingly gentle hands, was awful. Mitch wanted to break up with Gordon’s cat, not Gordon, but he cared about him too much to ask Gordon to give up Chelsea for him. He might as well ask a parent to give up their kid. Even if the kid was a hellspawn demon child. With fur.
Sometimes Mitch wished he wasn’t so incredibly understanding.
MITCH drew a deep, fortifying breath. The noise and number of people in the cafeteria today seemed especially oppressive, like the walls were moving in on him. He wished he could attribute his painfully pounding heart to transient claustrophobia. “Gordon, I—”
“I’m giving Chelsea away,” Gordon blurted.
Mitch closed his mouth so fast he nearly severed his tongue. “What?”
Gordon nodded. “I’m giving her away.” He’d crumbled two packages worth of saltines into his soup but hadn’t actually eaten any of it. Now he was intently shredding the plastic they’d been wrapped in. “My sister said she’d take her.”
Mitch knew he was gaping. “Does she have children?”
Gordon nodded again. “Chelsea loves kids.”
Freshly killed, Mitch was sure. “But you love Chelsea,” he said. “You hate leaving her alone.”
Gordon nodded some more. The soup/cracker combination had become semi-solid, like congealed milk. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, looking like he was trying not to cry. “I’ve just gotten used to having her around, you know? And she loves sitting in my lap and getting petted, and she’s got such a great personality—”
“And very sharp teeth,” Mitch put in before he could stop himself.
“Yeah. I make sure to brush them regularly,” Gordon said. He swallowed. “The thing is, I love her, but… she’s not you. And, I’d really like to have you in my life, Mitchell. But I can’t have both of you.”
Mitch was so shocked it felt like he had to remind himself to breathe. “You’d give her up for me?”
“Yeah.” Gordon ducked his head and obviously thumbed a tear out of his eye under the pretense of scratching his nose. “I’m really going to miss her.”
“I can’t let you give up Chelsea,” Mitch said, firmly ignoring the part of him that was yelling that yes, yes he totally could. He put his hand over Gordon’s. “I’m really touched that you would do that, but I know how important she is to you. You can’t give her away.”
“You’re such a nice guy, Mitch.” Gordon smiled a little wetly. “But I don’t know what else to do. I mean, what other choice is there? Breaking up with you?”
“No!” Mitch said quickly. “No, no of course not.” He strangled out what he hoped sounded like a laugh. “No one said anything about breaking up. I sure didn’t!” He realized he was probably crushing Gordon’s hand and loosened his grip. “That would just be stupid.”
“I know,” Gordon said seriously. “There’s no way we could do that.” His face fell again. “So, it’s going to have to be Chelsea.”
And now, naturally, Mitch’s heart was breaking over an animal he couldn’t stand. “I don’t want you to give up Chelsea, Gordon,” he said firmly. “We’ll figure something out.”
Gordon gave him one of his being-brave smiles, and there went the last of Mitch’s heart, shattered like a dropped light bulb. “Thanks, Mitch. But I’ve made up my mind. It’ll be okay.”
“THERE really isn’t any Denise who works here, is there?”
“I think she’s on dinner break,” Doug said. He sliced open another bag of generic clay litter and dumped it into the very large “scoop it yourself” bin in front of the cat section. Dust billowed everywhere. Doug looked like he’d barely escaped a crematorium. “Do you, like, need help or something?”
Mitch couldn’t answer because he’d inhaled litter dust and was in the middle of a coughing fit. Doug waited patiently until he straightened up and wiped the gritty water out of his eyes.
“Yes, I do,” Mitch wheezed. “I need to figure out how to keep my boyfriend’s cat from killing me.”
Doug dropped the empty bag onto the growing pile next to the bin and then swiped vaguely at his shirt, which Mitch remembered had been cheerful yellow at some point. “Didn’t you break up with him?”
Mitch shook his head. “I tried. But before I could, he told me he’s getting rid of the cat.”
“Okay….” Doug looked confused, though Mitch figured that was pretty much his default. “So, does he, like, have another cat that hates you?”
“No,” Mitch said. “It’s the same cat who still hates me.”
“The one he’s getting rid of,” Doug said.
Mitch nodded. “Yeah. That one.”
Doug looked even more confused. “So, what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, I don’t want him to give up his cat,” Mitch said. He spread his hands. “He loves that cat. It’s breaking his heart, giving her away. I can’t do that to him.”
“Oh yeah, sure. I get it.” Doug nodded sagely. “Like Romeo and Juliet. But with cats.”
“Um, didn’t everyone die at the end of that?” Mitch asked. “That might not be the best analogy.”
“I dunno.” Doug shrugged. “I haven’t watched the movie yet. But my English teacher said it has, like, a prince called Cat in it, so, you know….” He trailed off, looking at Mitch expectantly.
“Not really,” Mitch said. He scrubbed his hand over his face, likely grinding cat litter dust into his pores. “Okay, look. I need help here. I need to make my boyfriend’s cat like me so he doesn’t have to get rid of her.”
“Did you try the catnip?” Doug asked.
Mitch shuddered. “Yes. Apparently it makes some cats very aggressive. Did you know that?”
“Sorry,” Doug said. “I’m mostly, like, into ferrets.”
“I know,” Mitch sighed. “I know. You like ferrets.” He leaned dejectedly against the cat litter bin and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sure ferrets never decide to hate people’s boyfriends for no reason whatsoever.”
Doug scratched the back of his head. “Well, Muffy was angry a lot before I got Chloe.”
Mitch looked at him. “Who’s Muffy?”
“Muffy was my first ferret,” Doug explained. “She used to bite me. Like, all the time.”
“So… you got another ferret so she’d bite her instead?” Mitch frowned. “That seems kind of cruel.”
“Well, they did fight a lot for a little while,” Doug said thoughtfully. “But they’re friends now. And Muffy stopped biting me.”
Mitch shoved himself away from the clay litter bin to stare at Doug. “Wait—are you saying that Muffy was aggressive because she was lonely?”
“Yeah, sure,” Doug said. “I couldn’t play with her enough. So she was, like, really depressed.”
“She was depressed,” Mitch parroted wonderingly. He pulled Doug into a tight embrace, not even caring how he got cat litter dust all over his work suit. “Thank you, Douglas. You might’ve just saved my relationship.”
“Oh, uh, cool,” Doug said, patting his back. “Are you going to get him a ferret? ’Cause we’ve got specials on ferrets right now.”
“Not exactly,” Mitch said.
“OH. Hi, Mitch,” Gordon said. He smiled, but there was barely a spark of his usual happiness in it. “I didn’t know you were coming ove
r. I’ve just been getting Chelsea’s stuff together.”
Chelsea’s stuff was possibly more things than Mitch had in his entire apartment. There were two oven-sized boxes sealed closed with packing tape that had “Chelsea” on the sides in Gordon’s neat handwriting. There was a small forest of scratching posts, two twelve-packs of cat food tins, and two litter boxes, each so clean they glowed. Chelsea herself was in a cloth carrier that Mitch would’ve enjoyed sleeping in if he could fit. She was flopped on her side, staring morosely into the middle distance as if she was aware of her fate. She barely spared Mitch a glare, which was somehow disconcerting.
“Hi,” Mitch said. He leaned up to give Gordon a quick peck. “I have something for Chelsea. Can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure, of course,” Gordon said, stepping aside for him. “Is it in the shoebox? It’s not more catnip, is it? Because I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“It’s not catnip,” Mitch reassured him. “Here.” He carefully opened the perforated lid, making sure to keep the box steady. “This is Buddy.”
Gordon stared at the very calm orange bundle, then scooped it out of the towel-lined box and cradled it against his chest. Buddy started purring immediately. “You got Chelsea a kitten?”
“Well, he’s a young adult, actually. The woman at the shelter said most adult cats don’t like kittens.” Mitch hoped his smile looked confident and not like a scared lion tamarin. “But, yeah. I talked to a guy in the pet supply store, and apparently cats can get aggressive when they’re lonely.” He tried to shrug like it was no big deal. “So, I got her a buddy cat. Named Buddy.”
“Hello, Buddy,” Gordon said quietly to the new cat. He started petting Buddy behind the ears, making the young cat purr even more loudly. Mitch was a little jealous. “But Chelsea has me, though.”
“Yeah, but that might be the problem,” Mitch said. He hoped desperately he was right, considering he’d come up with his theory during the ten-minute drive over. He pointed at Chelsea, who had perked up enough to lift her head. “She only has you, so she doesn’t want anyone else to get your attention.”