Prompt Post No. 17
Welcome to Round 17 of the Inception Kink Meme.
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"It's a good thing we're poor, and you're smart, Yusuf. Now go get your brother from the streets, he is about to be run over by the afternoon crowd."
And then life became too busy to pine for a pet. Even cats, which Yusuf had often watched howling on the roofs, baying for mates or simply to annoy the sleeping humans under their feet, because it was certainly the sort of thing they would do, he thought.
He graduates with honors. He's an understated sort of brilliant, and knows it. He is hired for pharmaceuticals, and by the time he is thirty, he has his own business. His suburban home is a charm, but the most charming part about it is the pod of wild kittens each summer that invariably settle their way into the neighborhood, behind flower pots, under cars, inside bushes. In certain periods of July and August, the sight of tiny dappled paws and thin, curled tails was even more plentiful than the rabbits that would freeze and sniff the air nervously as soon as human eyes spotted them.
So Yusuf has always loved cats, admires their dedicated arrogance, which he thinks can be a little understated like his own, but he doesn't even consider owning one, not even when the routine of his life sets in, until he sees the tomcat sitting outside near his doorstep. It has no collar, but is obviously domesticated. Yusuf knows when he nears, and it doesn't flee, only regards him with slightly narrowed eyes. It's orange, almost blond, and deigns to be petted.
"You should have a collar, my friend," Yusuf tells it. It squints up at him.
The cat sleeps on the windowsill that night. He must think the foot of the bed a little lowly, and Yusuf would agree that it's not a good place to rest. He often kicks in his sleep.
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Especially during breakfast. It takes Yusuf a while to process that, since he has never had a cat before, he consequently has no cat food.
"You are right. Cats cannot starve," Yusuf says.
He feeds the tom a little bit of left over salmon from the fridge to tide the creature over. Luckily, it is Saturday.
"Stay," Yusuf tells the cat, but he only squints back. "I mean. Please stay?"
The cat's whiskers twitch, as if to say, 'closer, but not quite.'
"I will need to get you food," says Yusuf. "I don't suppose you would know whether you prefer dry or wet brands?"
The cat does seem to know, but Yusuf can't understand him.
He drives to the nearest Petco, fretting about it the whole way. There is a language to cats, he is very sure, but he is too incompetent to read it, not yet at least. Was it in the eyes or the flick of the tail? What about the ears. Certainly those were important.
"Am I being too easy?" he asks himself as he gets out of his car, realizing he is already a slave.
A woman walking by looks at him weird.
"I--wasn't speaking to you!" Yusuf calls out. She only walks faster. "People can be so presumptuous."
Yusuf enters the pet store. It is frighteningly white and clean. About fifty million different pet foods await on the shelves, and there are different colors and textures and fashion styles of collars, and each cage seems to be different from the next--
"Guh," he says.
"Oh, new pet owner?" someone says brightly.
Yusuf spins around and sees no one. Sweet mother of kittens, he'd gone crazy already.
"Um," says the voice again, annoyed. Yusuf looks down.
"It's okay, I get that a lot," says the girl. "Hello, I'm Ariadne, how may I help you sir?"
"That's a strange name," says Yusuf.
"Oh, well, what's yours then--I mean, it sure is," says Ariadne.
"Yusuf," he says. "I know it seems funny in your country, but it's very common in mine. Perhaps it's better to be rare."
"Are you a cat owner?" Ariadne says, brightening again.
"Yes. How did you know?" says Yusuf.
"You have a hunted, eager-to-please look to you," says Ariadne. "Shall we start down this aisle?
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Also, I love the bit with Ariadne. Very cute.
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******
"Well, if you don't know what he likes, I'd get a little of both and come back when he develops a preference," said Ariadne, piling more bags into Yusuf's arms. Yusuf regrets not making good on his gym membership more often.
"Right," he manages, "so, then--"
But then they pass the little table the local shelter has set up, and spies the pamphlet.
It is Yusuf's cat printed above the little words. Except Yusuf's cat is apparently called Cob (strange tastes, this neighborhood) and has a family already.
"Oh, that," says Yusuf, gesturing with his elbows for lack of any other manner of communication.
"Yeah, that one ran away a while ago," Ariadne says sadly. "I liked him, too! The family brought him along every time they came shopping here, like he was part of the family. That was almost a year ago, though. The family moved back to France."
"Oh," says Yusuf. He pauses. "Well. Can I keep Cob?"
"You?" Ariadne squeals, basically leaping on to him. That's the breaking point. Yusuf's arms give way, as does most everything else.
***
"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry," says Ariadne.
"No, it's alright," Yusuf manages. "Could you please get off my stomach."
***
And then Ariadne INSISTS she must see Cob.
"See, I don't have contact with his family anymore. And, well. It looks like he's picked you now."
"How can you tell?" Yusuf asks, mystified. Is Ariadne privy to the language of cats?
"Well, he pooped under your coffee table. That must be to make a point, right?" says Ariadne, nodding to the living room. She quickly goes off into Yusuf's most private home, calling, "Here, Cobby Cobby Cobby," while Yusuf fumbles for a paper towel, a plastic bag, anything.
Ariadne seems to have no qualms about going to the homes of strange, foreign men and digging around their belongings. Yusuf supposes she must have been a very lucky child to have lived this long.
"Look who I found," Ariadne says, beaming, holding up Cob. Cob is a pretty large cat, and Yusuf takes a moment to admire how skillfully she cradles Cob.
Cob gives Ariadne a look of endearment and suffering tolerance.
"I used to bring him little treats," she says, tickling under his chin. "See, the owner was this be-yoo-tiful French lady. Seriously, being next to her was like seeing a movie star." Her smile falters. "But I heard she committed suicide and jumped off the office building near the turnpike. And that's why her parents left for France."
What does one say to that.
"I'm sorry," Yusuf says, though it comes out as more of a question than anything else.
"So am I," says Ariadne, "But now Cobby has you!"
She thrusts Cob out as if he is the new baby Jesus. Cob squints at Yusuf, DARING him to do something he'll regret.
"Why don't you open up the food for him? I'll, uh, set up the litterbox," Yusuf says weakly.
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"Why hello," he says cautiously.
"Meow," says the cat. I mean, what else would it say, fuck you Yusuf, he thinks to himself.
The cat pointedly lets itself in. Yusuf, aware he is now five minutes late to work and not really caring--it's his office, isn't it--follows the tuxedo cat inside.
Tuxedo cat nimbly leaps onto the windowsill on which Cobb is dozing and smacks Cobb in the face twice. For posterity, Yusuf supposes.
Cobb sits up, startled and ready to scratch some faces off, but then sees Arthur and looks oddly cowed. He makes some sort of apologetic meowing, and then they groom each other briefly, as if they are sympathizing with each other or something and Yusuf is so confused.
"Right. Then. I'll leave you two," says Yusuf awkwardly.
The tuxedo cat lifts his head and meows at Yusuf. Maybe like, 'Remember to buy extra food'.
"Right. I'm late to work," he says. He reaches over absentmindedly to scratch both their ears, and Cobb and Tuxedo cat purr.
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"Wait, what," says Yusuf.
First, because Ariadne invited herself over via kitchen window through the backyard and second, because,
"How do you know?" says Yusuf.
Ariadne looks at him like he is not smart.
"I just do," she says finally with a hint of disgust, like Yusuf is a bad owner or something
Arthur regards them with faint amusement. See, that is the air that Yusuf gets from him. He is a strangely laid-back cat when he is not badgering Cobb from kitchen to living room to outdoors like some kind of totalitarian fitness guru. It is like Arthur thinks Cobb is an old man that must be looked after, which given the frequency with which Cobb squints, may not be an outlandish presumption.
"Is there such thing as cat glasses?" says Yusuf.
"What?" says Ariadne, holding Arthur closer. He noses her cheek, like a kiss, and she squeals in delight. "You mean, for you, to see how cats see?"
"No," Yusuf says patiently, "For Cobb, to see how people--animals--cats--see without myopia."
Ariadne squints at Yusuf.
"I don't know what kind of opia you have, mister, but I don't think Cobby wants it, do you Cobby?"
She scoops up Cobb in her arms, too, and he is significantly more stocky and crammed against Arthur. Arthur blinks. And Yusuf is beginning to understand him. His gaze is like that of the artist, quiet and dignified suffering. It says,
'My face is too close to Cobb's.'
"Ariadne, how about we put down Cobb before Arthur gives him the most painful opia of his life?" says Yusuf.
"You pharmaceuticals are always so secretly filthy," says Ariadne, settling Cobb onto the kitchen counter, whereupon he resumes his semi-bask, semi-sulk.
"Cobb looks a little depressed," says Yusuf, studying the tom.
"I would be, too, in this cat wasteland. Look at you! Not a feathery toy-thing in sight! Not a single squeaky mouse ma-bob. And no fluffy tunnels to crawl through."
"I don't know, you just make it sound like a sex den," Yusuf says nervously.
"Scandalous," says Ariadne, looking awed by him.
XXX
So that's fine. Yusuf is beginning to renew that ancient fiery love of cats, and Arthur is stoking most of his fire, because Arthur is a bright, intelligent, if stunningly meticulous young cat. Cobb is a bit of a let down sometimes. He reminds Yusuf of a brilliant but aging professor, downtrodden by life, unsure of his prospects in life, content to doze in a rectangle of sun on the light purple carpet in the living room (admittedly flamboyant, but it came with the house and the house came with such a good closing price) but yes, yes, Cobb, Yusuf was sure, was in the throes of middle age and as such, a perfect father, but not a very good cat.
Arthur, though, does scare Yusuf a little. Yusuf wonders if he might be magic. For some reason, the day after Arthur arrived, all the cups and plates directed themselves into separate cupboards in an organized fashion, lined up per size and color. Which is great, now Yusuf can't find anything he wants but colleagues and Ariadne who visit are in awe at his kitchen directive skills. It is no small laughing matter for a bachelor, they grudgingly admit.
And then things in Yusuf's house magically get cleaner, and he swears to god that the house seems vacuumed one Tuesday that he gets back and he stares really hard at Arthur.
"Are you an angel?" he asks, sinking to his knees.
Arthur smacks him on the nose.
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I wish I had an Arthur with kitchen directive skill... Would be so awesome!
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"Dear God is it free cat month?" Yusuf implores the roof.
Arthur pads into the sunroom then and immediately hisses.
"Dear God, your angels have spoken and it is the devil," says Yusuf. "Arthur, slay him!"
But to no avail. Actually, Yusuf thinks maybe Arthur is just angry that the devil cat has stolen his favorite seat. He tried to shove devil cat off, but the main coon has a lot of added bulk and only presides over his ill-begotten spot smugly.
Yusuf names him Eames, because he only seems to like the quirky Eames chairs from Ikea that come in bright colors. That is not much of a problem, though, since Yusuf shops almost exclusively from the store. It's only an actual problem because Arthur likes them, too.
"Ikea?" says Ariadne. "How commercial. You just wanted to name him before I did, right? Ikea," she mutters, shaking her head.
What, how could he go anywhere else, would you look at those prices and seriously the meatballs and a dinner plate for 99 cents who was going to beat that--
"Yusuf, are you okay," says Ariadne.
"Of course I am," says Yusuf. "Anyway, the other reason I named him Eames is because he seems to have quite the affinity for tea. Arthur, though, is a coffee drinker."
Eames shoves Arthur off his seat and purrs on the orange, sunlit plastic.
"They do not agree with each other," says Yusuf.
"Ooooh, we're going to have kittens!" Ariadne says, cupping her face and twirling around.
"Wait, what," says Yusuf, and he squints at Ariadne and so does Cobb, and it seems at last, they understand each other.
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HI. I LOVE THIS. PLEASE CONTINUE SOON.
i'll be watching you...
haha
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XX
And then one week, Yusuf accepts the invitation to attend a pharmaceuticals conference in Maine. He's been somewhat of a recluse lately. People have started to wonder if he is on an early slow spiral downward into late age cat dementia, at which he just sputters.
Because it does seem that way. He has three cats in his house and an Ariadne, and he didn't actually ask for any of those things, to be honest, but neither is he complaining. Everyone's really getting along great. Except that Arthur has stopped organizing the kitchenware and started dropping plates on Eames, and usually be misses and then Arthur looks at Yusuf apologetically over the dashed bits of porcelain as if to say I'm sorry, Yusuf, I don't know what got into me, and then Yusuf picks up the pieces and nods.
Eames is somewhat of a little fart, and he seems to have bulled all the seedier, mangly cats away, the ones that yowl at the sky and hiss on neighbors' fences. Instead, every morning, he takes their place and sings Arthur a serenade. Or a deathsong.
Arthur has stopped sitting by the window in the morning.
Even Cobb has come to be of good cheer, because Ariadne, despite burbling and making gushy sounds over the non-existent romance of Yusuf's apparently homosexual cats ("Yusuf, they're just pulling each other's pigtails? Can't you tell? " "No.") all she does when she comes over is cuddle Cob and pet him and feed him, and sometimes comment on his pouching belly. That last one makes Cobb grumpy, but grumpy is better than depressed.
And with that, Yusuf sets out the food, gives Ariadne the cat-sitter his cellphone number--he suspects she already has it judging by the way she tosses the slip of paper into the trash bin--and nods at all of them. He takes his two suitcases, sends a short prayer to god, and then all the cats are lined up kind of expectantly at the doorway (there are stools for them here) and Yusuf is like, what?
"Hello, you have to kiss them goodbye," says Ariadne. "That is the way of cats, mister man."
"But," says Yusuf.
Ariadne looks at him threateningly.
"Don't you have a job?" Yusuf demanded.
"Yes. Keeping your cats all tidy and neat and happy," said Ariadne, swooping in to pick up Cobb. Eames turned to Arthur and wiggled his eyebrows, vernacular that Yusuf hypothesized was something along the lines of "Baby, I can take you for a spin if you want, too" or maybe Eames is just wiggling his eyebrows--which wait cats don't have.
"Come on, pucker up," said Ariadne. Yusuf sighed, and touched his nose to Cobb's because that was a cat kiss.
Cobb smelled like mid-age crisis. It was tempered by Ariadne's perfume.
Arthur reared up his elegant little head next and there was coffee on his breath (Yusuf has stopped wondering if cats can and should drink coffee. Arthur doesn't seem to worry about it. ).
Eames smells like coffee, too. Yusuf looks down at him in wonder for a moment. Perhaps Ariadne is not crazy (yes she is but her roommate at college won't let her have a cat, which is good intuition).
And then, he is all ready to go, but on the way he passes Ariadne and rubs noses with her, too, and he doesn't know why, and he turns red and fumbles the door open and shouts "Goodbye" or "Goawejawejd" and gets into his car and drives very quickly away, possibly denting Mrs. Kravinsky's mailbox on the reverse.
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