Trapped between screen and door, she leaped again, gripping the knob between her paws, swinging boldly until it turned.
She was in, dropping down to the cool floor of her own bright kitchen.
The room seemed huge. The skylight rose incredibly high. Far above her, through its curved plastic, the late afternoon sun sent slanting shadows down her pale oak cabinets and yellow walls. Time to start dinner.
The thought hit her with a knee jerk reaction.
She lashed her tail, amused. From now on, Jimmie was fixing his own dinner.
But she guessed he had been fixing his meals-the kitchen stank of dirty dishes. She wondered how long she’d been gone.
Didn’t he know how to rinse a dish, how to open the dishwasher? The floor tiles needed scrubbing, too. They were incredibly sticky. She sniffed at a spot of catsup near the refrigerator, and at a smear of jam. Every stain was magnified, both in smell and by her close proximity. People who owned cats ought to think how a dirty house looks to someone ten inches tall.
She had an unbroken view of the undersides of cabinets, and of the dust under the refrigerator. Far back beneath the stove lay the handle of a broken cup; she remembered throwing that cup in a fit of temper.
She had been alone. She hadn’t thrown it at Jimmie, though he had been the cause of her rage. She seldom let him see her anger, seldom let him know how he hurt her.
But that was past. Now, he could go torment some other woman.
When she leaped to the counter, her paws stuck in something he had spilled. It smelled like pickle juice. The sink was piled with dirty dishes. She stepped over egg-caked plates and pawed at the faucet handle until it released a drip of cold water. Hadn’t he cooked anything but eggs? Maybe his cholesterol would do him in, and good riddance. She was thinking not at all like Kate Osborne.
Being a cat was more than liberating, it was salvation, a lovely reprieve.
She licked at the thin stream of running water until her thirst was slaked, then sniffed at her canning kettle, which Jimmie had dumped in the sink with dried applesauce clinging. There was no sign of the golden jars of applesauce that should be standing on the counter. She wondered if she’d already put them away. Or if Jimmie, in a fit of rage because she was gone, had thrown them out.
Well if he had, there was nothing she could do about it. Besides, cats didn’t eat applesauce. Or, she supposed they didn’t.
Though at the moment, it didn’t sound bad. She was very hungry-she didn’t know when she’d last eaten, but it felt like weeks. She wondered what she might have devoured beneath the wharf.
She pawed the bread box open but it was empty. She eyed the refrigerator, but gave that up. She certainly wasn’t going to lick up dried egg from Jimmie’s abandoned plates.
She leaped down, crossed the kitchen, and went to inspect the living room, amused by the wobbly feel of the thick Timmerman rugs under her paws. Their softness made her want to claw, but she didn’t claw those lovely pieces. She scratched deep into the little Peruvian throw rug she kept before the front door to catch dirt. Raking long, sensual pulls at its center, she luxuriated in the delicious stretch of muscles down her legs and shoulders, the delightful stretch along her back.
She wandered the rooms aimlessly, looking up at the undersides of the furniture, and jumping up onto tables and onto the desk. She slid on her belly into the space beneath the couch, rolled over, and clawed a length of black dust cloth from the springs, then wondered why she’d done that.
In the center of the living room, on the slick oak floor, she chased her tail, spinning in circles, crashing into the rugs, giddy and laughing. She longed to race into the bedroom and stare into the mirror.
And she was terrified to look.
The idea of facing her own mirror and seeing it nearly blank, of looking into the glass where she combed her hair and put on lipstick, and seeing only a small cat looking back at her, was more than she could handle.
She delayed as long as she could, dawdling through the rooms, pawing at a loose fringe on the guest room rug, playing with a wadded-up scrap of paper Jimmie had dropped in the hall. But at last she padded into the bedroom and gathered herself, both in body and in mind, and leaped up onto the dresser facing her silver-framed mirror.
An incredibly ugly alley cat stared back at her.
Her color was the dirty gray of filthy scrub rags. Her fur was caked with dirt, her tail, that poor thin appendage looked, despite her efforts, like something that should be dropped in the trash. She was just a grimy cat skin stretched over thin, pitiful bones.
Standing on her dresser between her pretty, cut glass perfume bottle and her enameled powder box, a wailing mewl of rage escaped her. Sickened by the sight of herself, she began vehemently to wash, gagging at the taste of her dirty fur. She had to get the grime off, even if it made her throw up.
Licking, she could taste ancient fish on herself, and mud, and who knew what else. This was terrible, how did cats stand this?
But soon under her enraged washing her fur began to brighten, to grow lighter. A pretty creaminess began to appear, like the fur on her paws. And as her freshly washed fur began to dry, it began to fluff.
And she started to like the feel of licking, the feel of sucking away all the dirt. A surprising saliva came into her mouth, an aromatic spit that flowed sweet and cleansing, slicking into her fur and wiping away the filth, fluffing and brightening. Soon she was washing with a vengeance; she got so energetic about it that she nearly shoved her nice perfume bottle off the dresser.
As she removed the dirt she discovered little wounds, some quite sore, hidden beneath her fur, as if she had been fighting. Vaguely she remembered cat fights, brawling tangles, a lot of screaming and yowling. And for what? A rotten fish head or a patch of wet earth on which to curl up shivering.
Licking and salivating, drawing her tongue in long satisfying strokes, she was growing whiter. She had established a nice rhythm, pulling her barbed tongue down her sides and along her legs. Carefully and lovingly she groomed, attending to her pale, creamy chest, to her little, pink-skinned tummy, spitting on a paw to wash her face. It took a long time to get all her face and ears and the back of her head clean. The mirror was a great help, allowing her to check for missed spots. How could a cat wash properly without a mirror?
When she was satisfied with her face she reluctantly tended to her tail and to her hind parts, though she avoided certain areas. To lick herself there would take some getting used to.
It took a long time to clean herself up, but at last every inch shone creamy and fluffed. Staring into the glass at herself, she purred and posed. She turned around, gazing over her shoulder, vamping. She was the color of rich cream, her fur dense and short, as thick and soft as ermine. And her creamy coat was marbled all through with fascinating orange streaks, she had never seen a cat like herself. She looked as delicious as an exotic desert, like a rich vanilla mousse with orange marmalade folded in.
She was a big cat, rounded and voluptuous. The tip of her nose was shell pink, matching the translucent insides of her pink ears. Her eyes were huge and golden. When she opened them wide they were like twin moons.
Her creamy tail was fluffy now, and was delightfully ringed with orange, as if she wore wide golden tail bracelets. And when she smiled at herself, thinking giddily of the Cheshire cat, her teeth were very sharp, very white, as businesslike as her long, curving claws. How nice to flex her claws, to admire their sharp, curving blades. To think about them cutting deep into Lee Wark’s soft flesh.
She grew nearly drunk with admiring herself and with considering the possibilities of this new body. What stopped this delightful adulation was that she stared at the bedside clock and realized it was after six, that Jimmie would be home. She was standing on the dresser twitching the end of her tail, wondering what to do, when she heard his car in the drive.