A cat's story

Her wailing voice was unmistakable. She was in heat. Her wailing came one evening somewhere in the neighbourhood of the apartment where I and four other siblings have been raised and grew up. Then a strange scent filled the cold night air that had my hair standing on their ends. This was the second time I felt this sensation. It kind of excited me that my small penis became stiff. According to my mother – I don’t know where she is now – tomcats get this kind of sensation in their body when it had already come of age. Since two moons ago, I knew I was ready to mate.

And this has worried me to no end. I had become the butt of my younger siblings’ jokes every time they saw me licking my stiff little penis . For someone who prided himself with being a handsome tomcat, it was embarrassing. But what could I do? There was no available female cat within the perimeter of my territory that did not encroach on the territories of three other tomcats. These guys have been lording it over the neighbourhood ever since I can remember. One of these even mated my mother once when I was much younger, and I could not understand why they made a lot of noise at night.

The white cat was brought around by a couple who came to live in the next apartment together with a thin but noisy small dog. From a window protected by glass jalousies, I could see her small body on a steel chair as she licked herself clean after meals, a habit which we cats can’t do without. Then we would take a nap that could last for hours until my master called us for our next meals. Sometimes, I would stare outside and just wondered how life would have been different had I been a stray cat like the big tomcats in the territory. But there she was, that white feline whose nightly sounds made me tingle and wishing I was near her.

Moments later, a cross-eyed tomcat started to flirt, with a snarling sound meant to terrify smaller tomcats and tell us, “Hey, stay put. She is mine.” The mating rites would begin, unless another tomcat raised a challenge.

Even without the cross-eyed cat, there were still two others I had to contend with. I had often dreamed of unleashing my cat claws on any of them and inflicting punishments on their unsoiled, proud features in a fight that would decide once and for all who was the king cat in the neighborhood. But like all dreams, they ended up like wishful thoughts that I could summon in moments of despair and wretched boredom.

A cat’s life was only exciting the first few months after birth when the sight of fast-moving cockroaches was enough to trigger a chase. Later, we went after the small rats in the house, exterminating the helpless creatures after playing with them. The poor fellows often died of exhaustion rather than from our bites or sharp claws. That was no contest. That’s why chasing rats and cockroaches were relegated to the younger cats. I have arrived at this new stage of my life called cat maturity, with that penis-licking habit as a reminder that I have finally come of age.

Besides the cross-eyed cat, there was ‘goldie’ who had a short tail like mine but whose mane was decidedly bigger. Maybe he was older than the cross-eyed tomcat. Probably he had surrendered his dominance to some one stronger in the neighborhood. The third tomcat in the pecking order had a beautiful black fur. He could probably have been victorious had he pushed his dominance, but this old tomcat seemed to have outgrown this flirting ritual. The guy wanted to retire from all that. So it had to be between me and this cross-eyed fellow.

My owner had often taken pride in my well-formed physique that he would endlessly fondle, my belly especially, massaging my nape and sometimes tickling my back. Among his five cats, two of which were females, he was obviously fond of my physique. He would feel the muscles of my arms and hind legs and he would whisper things which I could only interpret as words of endearment, and to which I would respond with soft purring sounds. I did not want to disappoint the man.

Neither did I want to disappoint my siblings who looked up to me as an older ‘bro’. So the confrontation with the cross-eyed terror was inevitable. It happened two nights later when this tomcat began his flirting ritual, lying on his back and twisting his body from side to side, in a cat’s unabashed display of feline affection. When he saw me, he stood up, his body arched, tail bristling and eyes suddenly focused. The only fight I had in my life was with my smaller siblings, but these were mock fights. Here was something real and terrifying. I knew I could get mangled. But a tomcat’s pride was something one wore like a badge of honor, never mind if one ended up in a heap. bruised and bloodied.

We dived at each other but the heavier of us landed on top. I was pinned but still clawing. His front paws were on my chest, but my hind legs tried pushing him away. It won’t do. Very soon I could feel his fangs on the right side of my throat as he lifted me with his teeth. It was probably by pure accident that my right claw hit his left eye, so he had to let go of me. I scampered away. Being bitten on a throat was enough punishment for a day. I limped to our backyard where a hole in the door was cut for us cats to use. Inside the house, my blood dripped. I made a mess on the floor.

I was lucky that day because my owner saw the incident and met me at the door, then carried me to a chair where he carefully examined my wound. The fangs of my cross-eyed enemy had pierced close to my breathing apparatus, missing by a few millimetres. My owner at once applied first aid on my wound, treating it with some medicine that was good for human wounds. He used some bandages to stop the blood flow and placed me gently on an empty rice sack, then tied one of my hind legs to the chair to prevent me from moving. I would be a convalescent for one week.

Then he started talking to me in a language that only humans could understand. But we cats, especially those of us who have been living with him for some time, could already sense what he was talking about. It was one of encouragement. There was no sense of giving up what has been started. Since I had issued the challenge, I felt duty bound to pursue it to its bitter end. No matter what.

He felt my muscles and squeezed my nape as he continued speaking. Then he showed me what seemed to be his tonic drink, his asthma relief. He lectured shortly about it, and as usual, I pretended to understand by emitting soft purring sounds of approval. I didn’t realize that he wanted me to drink the brew until he forced my mouth open and poured in a spoonful of the mixture. It tasted sweet, a bit alcoholic and felt warm inside. I was forced fed that way for almost a week when I had fully recovered.

It felt strange after five days of taking my master’s tonic brew. I stretched, feeling the muscles behind my shoulder. I could sense a newfound strength inside me, that seemed to bolster my courage to renew hostilities with my cross-eyed rival. Time to recoup lost pride, I told myself.

That night when our white feline neighbour again made wailing sounds, I waited for our cross-eyed friend to make his appearance. True enough, he showed off again in his best flirting stance right in front of his lady love, pretending he did not to see me. But when I snarled and went into a fighting stance, his back arched and his eyes focused on me. As before, we lunged at each other clawing and scratching.

But this time, I showed him my new-found strength. When he struck with his right paw, I stepped back and suddenly leapt at him like one possessed, clawing at his unguarded eyes. He cried in pain. But he was not done. Again my rival lunged forward, again I parried and then clawed. I hit the other eyelids and felt my claws were stuck for a moment, until blood flowed. Cats are usually alarmed when they see their own blood flowing. Sensing his defeat, the cross-eyed cat slowly turned away as if in shame.

The night’s crowning glory came when I was finally able to mate the white feline neighbour. A few months later, one member of her brood had a short tail, gray and white fur and green eyes that could have come only from me.

Finally I had become the undisputed king of cats in the neighbourhood.







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