Labour Day

The van sped down the motorway like there was no tomorrow. But the reason why they were speeding down the road was all about the future. The future that was supposed to start that very same day.

Her sweaty hands held fast onto the handle in the door at her side and the other one embedded in the ceiling above her head, when she realised that this – above all – might possibly be her first near death experience. And even though she was a mother of eight, and like her ambitious husband liked to emphasise – still counting –, she wasn’t willing to let go of anything that she already had and what she was going to accomplish soon.

He, on the other hand, was drumming the rhythm of the song that was playing on the radio with his fingers on the steering wheel, whistling the tune. New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle. He smiled into the rear-view mirror at the Caucasian mountain dog in the back of the van, giving it the thumbs up. The massive beast itself was wagging its enormous tail, pounding it against the backrest of the back seat.

And that’s when they hit the traffic jam. He slammed on the brakes. She almost wrenched the handles out of the door panel and the ceiling. But the dog only bumped mildly into the backseat, while his unforgiving claws dug themselves relentlessly into the carpety boot floor. The car came to a halt.

“Bloody hell, we are in such a tearing hurry, for fuck sake!” He slammed his fist down on the steering wheel.

“Language, please.” She let go of the handles reluctantly.

“Oh c’mon, please, he is not even here, yet!”

“A ‘he’, you say? No, it’s going to be a girl. I can feel it, now even more than ever before.”

“Then tell me, why do we always have to do this blind flight thing? I mean, it’s not like it’s our first time where multiplying still has something magical about it.”

“Hmm, it’s going to be number nine, to be precise. But say, isn’t that what you always wanted?”

“I want a boy! After eight girls, the only thing I want is a boy!” Only a split second before his other hand was about to vent his annoyance – on the dashboard this time –, he stopped himself. Because she was twisting and turning in her seat – clutching the handle in the door again, but now for different reasons.

“Oh no, not now! Not here!” His edgy voice made known.

“Shut up, I don’t need this now!” She barked at him. The handle crunching in her vice-like fist.

“But look at you, I can’t help you. Not here. Not now. You need a doctor.” He whined, patting her hand that was clinging to the hand brake.

She turned around and looked at him “A midwife is all I need! Shut up now and don’t be such a wimp!” She hissed through her clenched teeth. “You are a bigger sissy than your eight daughters combined!” she spat at him.

It is not known whether she intended the following to happen or not, but he straightened himself up, released the brakes and floored the accelerator. The car – for the want of space – pushed itself up the crash barrier. With the two wheels on the barrier guiding the other two along the road, the car picked up speed quickly, bypassing the traffic jam that way. After quite some distance the van jumped off the end of the barrier and gained, even more, speed.

As soon as the van was back on the road, he pushed the car even further, trying to make the needle perform a three sixty. The engine was roaring. However, the vehicle’s speed was inversely proportional to the dog’s level of comfort. The poor creature started howling in the back like it was going out of fashion. He, with both hands on the steering wheel, tried to calm the dog, talking to it, which aroused in the animal the wish to be with its master in the front. In the rear-view mirror, he could see how the terrified dog tried to climb over the back seat. While staring daggers at the dog, he was shouting at the confused creature. Its master’s loud and booming voice eventually compelled the poor thing to obey him and stay where it was, even though it was shitting bricks.

Both of them were completely oblivious of the ghastly ordeal she was going through, twisting and turning in the passenger seat. Even though she was a pro for that matter, it seemed that this time she wasn’t able to deal with the situation, obviously due to the slightly different circumstances. Her pain, his shouting, the dog’s howling and their speeding was perhaps a bit too much for her to handle at a time. The repeatedly breaking of painful waves made her clutch the door handle and the hand brake again. A big one caused her to take action by ripping the handle out of the door panel and by pulling the hand brake. The latter action caused the car to violently veer off course, resulting in a collision with the aforementioned crash barrier.

The understanding of motion teaches us about inertia as the measure of a body’s resistance to changes in velocity. The second when the colossal Caucasian mountain dog smashed through the backrest of the back seat and hit her seat was exactly the moment when her water broke.

Hunger

If it is in your nature you cannot win. And she had the craving in her veins.

As soon as she let go of the piece of rope that she had noosed around his neck, tied tight and choked him, he flung his huge hand uncontrollably from out of the dark into her face. Not a dislocated jaw again, she hoped. No, this time it felt different, something broke.

She knew what she was in for. So, no complaints there. Not from her. Since she went to the group meetings several nights during the week, she had met others with more extravagant needs. There was that fellow who only could come when his balls were banded tightly. The first time they were shagging, his shiny purple ball bag almost dropped off, because the rubber band was tied too tightly. Before he eventually came – in apparently quite painful spasms – he handed her a rusty razor blade and begged her to cut his balls and his cock off. The ecstatic combination of pleasure and pain had numbed his wits and senses and so he believed by making the cut things would last forever.

The one she was riding like a horse right underneath her, lying on his back – virtually dead – was not any different. Either the rope or a plastic bag were his accessories of choice. Asphyxiophilia. The lack of oxygen kicked him through the stages up to the redeeming climax. It is actually pretty easy, deprive your brain of oxygen and it induces a lucid, semi-hallucinogenic state called hypoxia. Combine this with an orgasm and you will get a rush that is no less powerful than cocaine, and highly addictive on top of it.

The force bottled-up by the rope – then suddenly released – let him kick and beat around in inadvertently violent eruptions, not paying any kind of attention to his surroundings in his struggle back into oxygenic life.

One of her front teeth and the bridge of her nose had given in to the force coming from the dark side. The blood running down the back of her mouth and then down her throat tasted like the sweetest honey. What if love is a bear that feeds you honey with its claws?

It was long ago when she fell in love for the first (and maybe the last) time, which of course involved sex. At least this part has proven to be highly rewarding to her. And naturally reinforcing, as well. What followed next were somewhat excessive activations of the so called reward-reinforcement mechanisms, which led inevitably to the development of compulsive sexual behaviour. That is a rather clinical observation, coming from some guy in the SAA group, to be honest.

Naturally speaking, sleeping around is a comparatively effective relationship killer. Because she also called a significant bit of narcissism her own that energetically demanded its share of affection and affirmation. This can be bought through sexual interaction quite efficiently, though. She could not help but get involved with her male friends and the friends of friends and so on. So it was just a matter of time until she was ousted by her friends and the people around her.

Every one of us has an appetite for something. Until we get what we want, we are starving. What followed in her case were lots of co-dependent relationships. Rather dysfunctional in nature. She more or less got what she wanted and in return had to give what the others asked for.

The compulsive need for affirmation and sex has brought in its wake an expansion of her hunting grounds. And since society rather cheers for openly virile men, women who live their life actively are frowned upon, to put it mildly. Losing job after job and being on the dole for what felt like an eternity, made her reality a very dark place to live in.

First it was just alcohol. Then later, this kind of escape behaviour did not suffice any longer, she slumped into drugs of every kind to fade out reality.

Without the opportunity of sufficient funding of her basic human needs, she got a couple of times involved in drug-related crimes of more or less serious nature. Although, there was rarely money left for food, after a hit and run or a break and enter, though, there was always money for a celebration of some sorts.

Carelessness or the state of permanent midnight she had manoeuvred herself into, got her caught at some stage. Part of her sentence stipulated the attendance of so called self-help groups. But the groups she was forced to be present at had the opposite effect on her. In AA she found people for occasional drinking binges. NA helped her to a steady supply of narcotics. And SAA with their twelve step plan to your next score … of course, you only went there if you were in for a lay.

That is what he did and that is how she met him, the man with the huge bear claws.

“Go and get yourself a towel from the bathroom, but do not bleed on the tiles.” he said, still lying on the bed, holding his hurting punch hand.

“Okay.” was her very thin and rather powerless response. Scuffling her feet, she went into the dark bathroom and turned on the lights and then the water. In the mirror, she had a look at her bony self – even paler than before, she looked, like a laboratory rat doped up on Valium with her red rimmed and bloodshot eyes.

“What the hell are you doing? Turn the fucking water off and get out of there!” he shouted over the noise of the running water. When she came obediently out of the bathroom, he had turned on the lights in the bedroom, still lying on the bed.

“Get your stuff and leave, will you? I call you later, okay?!” he said and added quickly, “Here are twenty bucks. You are getting skinnier every time we meet. Get yourself something to eat. You look hungry.”

A Furry Tale

I just can’t seem to figure it out! Why does she always sound like a big sponge in her mouth is sucking up all her saliva when she talks to me on the phone? This time, she called me in the middle of the night with a muffled voice, like there was hair growing all over her teeth, to ask me if there was still a chance for us. “Tomorrow, three in the afternoon, my place.” I had said, quite reserved of course, whereupon she simply replied “Okay, fee you fen.” There was also a droning but less stifled bass in the background, and before I could ask her where she was, and what she was doing, she had hung up on me already.

“Phoebe, what’s this supposed to mean?” Like agreed last night, she arrives at my apartment at three o’clock sharp with a suitcase in tow that is bursting at the seams.

“What?”

“The bloody suitcase!”

“Oh yeah, I need that for later, perhaps. Then you’ll see.”

“Uh huh, then I’ll see?!”

“Yes, then you’ll see!”

“What will I see then?”

“Don’t be ridiculous Coeus, if I tell you now, it won’t be a surprise later, right?!”

“A surprise? You must be fucking kidding me, Phoebe, you are not moving in here again!” I say, “Not now!”

“You are really funny, babe. But I wasn’t planning on moving in with you, again. Where do you always get these absurd ideas from?! I just want us to have a talk. That’s all.” says Phoebe. Then she jumps with feline elegance onto the leather couch and drapes herself on the worn-out piece of seating furniture. Her arms are stretched out on a pile of cushions, while her legs are curled up under her belly. She looks like a shrunken but very much alive version of the Sphinx. Her behind, though, sticks out enticingly and makes me feel woozy with its hypnotising movements before it eventually finds the most comfortable resting position. I’ve taken a seat right in front of the sofa on an ordinary kitchen chair and look at her.

“So, what do you want?” I say after I have toughened myself against her eccentric attempts of seduction.

“We’ve had good times, haven’t we?” Phoebe starts.

“Of course, we had. But we also had bad times.”

“Yes, but that’s normal, I suppose. You can’t have sunshine all year long, can you?!”

“Well, then let me put it that way, you brought the rain upon us.” I spurt out, crossing my arms in front of me.

“That’s great, it always happens when I want to talk to you! Can you please – just for once – stop talking in riddles!” Phoebe says with an edgy timbre in her words.

“What I mean is, you started to fuck around!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I didn’t fuck up our relationship by myself, it takes more than one person to do that. You had your own part in this too!” Phoebe says, pointing at me – her hand trembling slightly.

“You started acting strange. You became very distant and there was no way of talking to you back then!”

“Well, I got the same impression from you. When I wanted to talk, you always had excuses. Perhaps you didn’t want to hear what I had to say?!” Her voice is getting thinner now.

“Oh, and that’s why you decided to go out by yourself?!”

“I went out with my friends, and I told you!” Now it’s shaking.

“Friends I never was introduced to, for some reason!” I say, “Because you started sleeping around! That’s it, right?!” I look straight at her but go on anyway, picking up speed. “You are like those little rodents, the ones where the female dies when she doesn’t mate. When she is in heat, and doesn’t get it, the female will secrete high levels of oestrogen and if this hormone stays in the blood for too long, it will cause a progressive depression of bone marrow that results in a severe, life threatening aplastic anaemia which is fatal. Yeah, you are a female ferret! That’s what you are!”

“Excusez moi!” she says with her neck straightened, looking me straight in the eye. And then she – very slowly – turns her head towards the window to her right. She actually doesn’t have any French, but she sometimes uses it to emphasise her indignation. I, however, say nothing.

“You! Little! Piece! Of! Shit! And your wanton imagination! That’s so sad, you are so sad!” And then she turns slowly back to me, “And by the way, ferrets are not rodents, they are like martens, some kind of mini predators,” and then she finishes me off with, “you dimwit!”

“Ahem … whatever, I found hair on your clothes and even on you. And then when you came home, all that sweat and the smell of sex and whatnot?!”

“Hair, smell of sex? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Hair that was not your hair, short blond hair or even red. And then sometimes you brought home some fur, as well, hair of animals. And you perhaps remember my difficult pet hair allergy?! But you just don’t seem to care!”

“Are you done now?” Phoebe says, her voice gaining back strength, “Seriously, you are out of your fucking mind! And by the way, you have stopped making any sense to me at all!”

“That’s just perfect, that’s so you, Phoebe! I have stopped making sense, and so have you! But already a long time ago. All the get-togethers with your new friends and the hair and fur and shit, all that secrecy. If you want to keep it that way, that’s up to you. But then I simply ask you to leave now, because I’ve had it for a long time, and I’m tired of this shit.”

Phoebe doesn’t say a single word, she purses her lips instead and lifts her head, looking up at the ceiling – not at a particular spot, though – just to avoid looking at me, while she turns her head to the left and lowers her gaze down at the pitch-black TV screen in my back.

“No! Please! Wait!” I say, my thoughts have gone head over heels just now. “I need to know! What did you do with your friends, these men? I want details! The not-knowing is driving me mad. I need to know; this is essential for my sanity!”

Either I am or Phoebe is losing it right now; because after all this messed up scene she is smiling, a very happy smile. It almost looks like she is going to relieve herself of a burden she has been carrying around for quite a long time.

In some catlike fashion, she gets up from the sofa, jumps light-footed over to her suitcase and drags it back to the couch again.

And then she put on the contents of the suitcase she had brought along. I see her taking off her bra. Her small but firm breasts are covered in goose bumps, and I realise that it is quite chilly in here. This reminds me of the first time we got naked. Back then she had said that she liked my rather smallish hands, because they made her boobs feel bigger. She changes right in front of me, and now puts on some plush bra and furry knickers.

“Jesus Christ, stop staring at me like this, Coeus, you creep!” Phoebe says and chuckles tensely, “You have seen me naked before, remember?!”

No, I have not, not like this. And I must admit that this is a rather bizarre development, which I did not anticipate in any form, because – to my knowledge – she hates body hair. She once even said to me that from under her nose down to her toes, I would not be able to find a single piece of hair on her body. And honestly, I never did. I tried really hard.

Right now, and I am not making this up, she takes a jumpsuit out of her suitcase. This thing is made of brown fluffy fur. The front is white and the arms and legs are almost black. Then I see something that makes me cringe. There is a very dark brown tail sewed on to the back of the jumpsuit.

With the same elegant gracefulness, she seated herself onto the couch with, she now slips into the exceptional jumpsuit. The suit also sports a dark brown hood with two white and wire framed plush ears attached to it. The hood can be partially closed with a mask that covers nose and mouth, although it allows you to open the mouth. Of course, it is plushy white and has a pink nose and enormous whiskers. And then she puts on a dark brown, almost black sleep mask made of plush, with two holes for her big brown eyes. And next, as if it was the most natural thing for her, which it probably is, she puts some plastic vampire fangs into her mouth, the ones you always can buy around Halloween. To complete the whole transformation, she puts on a pair of fluffy fur boots and plushy gloves, as well.

“Et voilà!” Phoebe says in a muffled voice but with a broad, but somewhat nervous smile, through her plastic vampire teeth.

During the entire conversion, I have been up on my feet, staring at her, while she turned into something else. Now I need to sit down again, because here right in front of me I have a human-size mini predator that winks at me through the holes in her plush sleep mask and gives me a big female ferret smile.

And with all this fur right here within arm’s reach, even though artificial, I am scared shitless of having an episode of an allergic reaction towards the plush – with seizures and all that jazz. But it is not happening. Instead I get my shit together and even realise that this is not a moment for my stupid jokes. I just sit down and try to look as normal as possible and listen to what she has to say.

The words are coming, although reluctantly, but they come – later in waves, huge waves. She talks about prejudices, bullies, openness and trust. She talks about furry fandom and their conventions. She talks about her new friends, her community, which I – in the past – would have referred to as a bunch of freaky people who fantasise about getting busy with anthropomorphised cartoon style animals. But from what she says, I can start to see past that. These people seem to be sensitive souls who love animals, probably trust animals even more than people due to bad experiences. But who am I to judge others for wanting to feel more connected with something which makes them feel safer and more loved?

Through her muffling plastic vampire fangs Phoebe concludes, “You have to learn to liffen, not to reply, but to underftand.”

Confessions of a Feline Mind

I do not seem to care about anything apart from myself. I like to ignore people, they say. But you know, it is not just that I blank them, I really ignore them. So I put a lot of effort into the action.

The thing is, you always have to be aware of what is going on around you, or otherwise you will miss ignoring people. By that I mean, I withdraw attention from a person deliberately. I always do that to get their attention. You see, that is how it works. Reciprocity is out of balance and needs to be restored. At least that is what people think. Cat people they call themselves, and live under the impression that they understand us. But under the cold prism of truth they do not – nobody understands cats, not even we ourselves.

I only ignore certain people. All would be too easy and that is boring. I like challenges. It challenges me to just ignore a particular group of people. That is usually the group that gives me the most attention already. And that is why I can afford to ignore them.

I do this because I am proud. Too full of pride, some might say. Some might even venture to say, my pride eats me up from the inside. But I could not care less. Well, I do care, but only briefly. Once I am sure, I have got their attention, I carry on ignoring them.

You may also have noticed that I tend to ignore people when they have crossed or criticised me. That is right. But I do not do it just for fun. I do it only when I do not agree with them. Which I never do. That is why I ignore them. I never agree with any of them because they are beneath me.

And then there are the people I do not ignore, because I cannot afford it. I pay close attention to them, because they do not take any notice of me. I suppose, deliberately. I have heard them referring to themselves as dog people.

Those kind of people usually have very little use for the likes of us cats. For me that means reciprocity is imbalanced. Then I generally take action. I jump on their lap when least they expect it. Or just prowl around their legs. Or I climb up the back of their armchairs, position myself close to their head and then I start purring into their ears, unexpectedly.

But if this does not help to get their attention I, in some very hard cases, have to resort to even more drastic measures. I remember one occasion where I had to climb up the drapes and jump onto the ignoramus’ back to compel that dog person’s attention.

But once I have got what I want – their attention –, I start ignoring them immediately. Of course, only after I have outrun them.