Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me - Ben Karlin [15]
Lesson#6
Don’t Come on Your Cat
by Neal Pollack
In the summer of 1995, I learned my roommate was leaving town. I decided to get my own apartment, and I needed a companion, which, in those bachelor days, meant a cat. Soon enough, I found one. Gabby was an ordinary-looking gray tabby, though her mother, attacked by a black tom in an alley rape, had apparently been Siamese. After spending a few minutes with her litter, I determined Gabby was by far the most amusing.
My first few years with Gabby were a magical textbook of owner-pet symbiosis. There was always another cat around; for a few months, Gabby shared space with my roommate’s cat, Sylvie, a dyspeptic, smelly Siamese who liked no one but her owner and, to everyone’s surprise, Gabby. Then I acquired Zimmy, a sorrowful creature with beautiful fur who liked to suck on her own tail. The two of them became close friends. Gabby was never jealous of the women who, on rare occasions, I brought home. She charmed all she surveyed; she was one of those cats who could be called, in that most backhanded of pet compliments, “like a dog.” I concluded that she was the perfect pet, that she, in fact, had magical powers.
In 1998, I moved in with Regina, the woman who I eventually married. She had two cats of her own, both extremely needy, enormous alpha males. One of those, Growltigger, was an obese sweetheart with a congenital heart defect. He had the terrible habit of excreting a foul-smelling viscous white liquid from his anal glands whenever he became excited, a process that Regina charmingly called “assing,” as in, “Eww. Growltigger just assed in my hair.”
Poor Zimmy shrank and metaphorically died in the face of Regina’s monsters, but Gabby somehow struck a truce, even curling up in their fat folds on especially cold Chicago days. At the same time, though, Gabby became increasingly attached to me, probably for protection. She developed a habit of draping herself around my shoulders as I wrote at my desk.
One day, Regina said, “Why is Gabby licking your ear?”
“Really?” I said. “I didn’t even notice.”
“You and that cat,” she said. “She’s in love with you. It’s unnatural.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “She’s just my wittle pet, aren’t you, Gabby wabby?” And we nuzzled, to Regina’s disgust.
In the fall of 2000, Regina and I moved to Philadelphia, for reasons I still don’t quite understand. The incident I’m about to describe took place in our Philadelphia bedroom, illumined by the full moon shining through our skylight.
I was having a sexy dream, the content of which I don’t quite recall. But I do remember feeling very warm and full and murmuring “Ohhhh,” if not out loud, then at least in my mind. Then came release, and a gradual satisfied emerging into consciousness.
Mmmm, I thought to myself.
Wait.
What was that between my legs?
No.
Please, no.
I looked under the covers. There, at my crotch, was Gabby. Oh, sweet God, no! I pulled her out. Gabby’s fur was completely slathered with my semen.
My brain filled with equal parts disgust, sadness, and panic. Gabby protested grandly as I ripped her out of the bed by her underside to keep her from touching the covers. I held her in front of me at a careful distance, went into the bathroom, put her on the sink, and locked the door.
Out came a washcloth and soap. I turned on the faucet and started scrubbing. Usually, I’m proud of the fact that I’m able to come buckets. But it was making this job much more difficult.
After a few minutes, Regina knocked on the door.
“What are you doing in there?” she said.
Gabby mewed in protest.
“Is Gabby in there with you?”
I was a twelve-year-old caught masturbating.
“Go away!” I said.
“Neal,” she said. “Open this door right now.”
I could no longer live in my private hell, so I let her in.
“What’s going on in here?” she said.
My sobbing began quickly and intensely.
“I . . . I . . . I came on Gabby!”
“You what?”
“She was between my legs, and I had a wet dream!”
Then Regina laughed, not just giggling, either, and not kindly. But it wasn’t funny to me. Not at all.
That