by Zack Love
“A tongue enema?” Heeb asked, in confused repulsion.
“Yeah. They’re amazing. And I’d give you one back in return.”
“A tongue enema?! I think that’s the most nauseating thing I’ve ever heard of.”
“How do you know you won’t like it?”
“You and your anything-once-philosophy! Next you’ll suggest that I make love to your cats.” The fifty-year-old next to him continued his look of appalled eavesdropping.
“It would be nice if you could love them.”
“See what I mean?”
“I was joking. You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Why not? Sodomy. Bestiality. Masturbating while skydiving on acid.”
The fifty-year-old looked up at Heeb, shook his head vituperatively and muttered loudly to himself: “You sick fuck!” Then he sped up to get away from Heeb.
Heeb reddened for a moment and continued, trying not to lose his point: “I mean, where does the search for new experiences end? Everyone has limits. Mine start with the anus.”
“You don’t even do ecstasy for God’s sake. How can you refuse to listen to Bach with me on ex? It’s the most incredible experience.”
“It’s illegal. And they do random drug testing at my work.”
“That’s corporate America talking again.”
“Would you stop with that corporate America crap? That’s my job, OK? One of these days you may have to go back to having one too.”
“Listen to what you’re saying to me! Can you believe what you just – ” Heeb blanked out on Melody for a moment as he remembered that he needed to deposit his mail in the mailbox a few feet away because it was the last one before he entered the Eighty-sixth Street subway station. He had been looking forward to this moment, after uncomfortably holding his mail in a stack that was sandwiched between his fingers and his cell phone, which was held down on the stack by his right thumb and pressed up to the side of his head for the conversation. He refocused on Melody’s rant: “…not fair…I mean, listen to how you communicate with me! I feel like that’s become our problem. That’s really what this is about now: we just don’t communicate like we used – ” And that was the last thing he heard Melody say. Heeb’s painfully cramped and over-encumbered fingers were so eager to release the stack of mail from his right hand into the mailbox that they released his cell phone as well.
Heeb stood there for a moment, in dazed disbelief, looking helplessly at the sides of the mailbox. Melody’s continuing diatribe could now be heard only as a series of strangely muffled, barely audible noises, emanating from within the metal mailbox, like a transistor radio that falls into a manhole and just gives off a faint, chattering buzz.
In absurd desperation, Heeb tried cupping his hands to the mailbox for a moment, and shouting into it, hoping that she might hear what happened and that he really didn’t mean to drop the phone in the mailbox just as she was complaining about how they don’t communicate as well as they used to.
“Melody! Melody! I can’t hear you! I dropped my phone in the mailbox! Can you hear me?! I’m sorry! It slipped!”
As several commuters walked by, looking oddly at this heavyset balding man in a suit and tie crouched down low and apparently talking rather urgently to a mailbox, Heeb felt that he may have reached the nadir of his follies in the New York dating scene. But it would actually get much worse.
Heeb was sure that Melody would call him at work that day and that the conversation would get even nastier because of how their last argument had ended. He had no promising strategy in mind for how to deal with her call at work, so it was with some measure of surprised relief that he reached the end of the day without having heard from her. He concluded that a Melody moratorium might do his nerves some good and decided not to call her that night. Sammy still couldn’t quite understand how someone who had been so timid that first night they met could turn out to be so ferocious over what seemed to him such trivial matters (particularly the cat bit).
The next day at his office was so hectic that it wasn’t until 7 p.m. that he even noticed that Melody still hadn’t called. He decided to call her as soon as he got home and before he even went shopping for a replacement cell phone. He found her number in his address book and then called her from his home phone.
“Are you still mad at me?”
“No. Actually, I should thank you.” There was a strangely amused and ironic tone to Melody’s voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I called you about two hours later, and guess who picked up?”
“The mailman.”
“That’s right, Kojak” Melody replied, complimenting Heeb’s legendary detective skills. But – in the context of their quarrel – her remark sounded to Heeb like an insult that cynically exploited his earlier confessions to her about his insecurities.
“Let me guess: he has lots of hair.”
“He sure does. But you know I don’t care about hair.”
“And you know that I do! So you already went on a date with him?”
“We really hit it off over the phone. I mean it was a pretty hysterical situation, me calling a cell phone in a mailbox just as he opened it to collect the mail.”
“Yeah, it’s not too hard to come up with a few jokes about that one. But I’m sure you thought he was very witty.”
“Maybe it was just fate.”
“It was an accident for God’s sake.”
“And what’s fate, if not a series of accidents that work out in just the right way?”
“I can’t believe you went postal on me just like that.”
“He’s got a great schedule too. Lots of time for me.”
“So you slept with him too?”
“No, Sammy. Don’t be silly.”
“So he couldn’t solve your riddle?”
“God, you’re quick. I will miss that about you.”
“Miss? You mean this is it?”
“Unless you’re willing to come over to my place.”
“So you’re going to take the mail guy over me because of the cat issue?” Heeb believed so strongly that he was in the right that, if this was in fact the end, he knew he’d be able to walk away with a clear conscience and relatively unscathed.
“He doesn’t have any cat issues.”
“But he has other issues.”
“I’m ready for some new issues.”
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
“Well I’m lying here in bed waiting for you, if you’d like to be doing something else with me.”
Heeb suddenly lost all of the fighting spirit fueled by his conviction that he was right in this dispute. With that invitation, he was ready to forgive her mailman date and just succumb to the twelve cats. As aggravating and stressful as Melody’s moodiness and irrationality had been, Heeb was more than ready for some make-up sex.
Chapter 18
Heeb Hits the Jackpot
During the thirty-minute commute to Melody’s studio in Queens, Sammy tried in vain not to think about the dozen cats that would be there to meow around his feet, shed their hair all over his clothes, and step nimbly out of his way just in the nick of time. He convinced himself that this trip would at least give him a new argument in future quarrels about the cat issue. He would be able to say, in his own defense, that he had legitimately “tried it once”: he had, in fact, tried to go to her place and the experience was so unpleasant that she should now understand if he doesn’t want to repeat it.
As Heeb walked down the hallway of Melody’s apartment building and got closer to the door of her studio, he could hear Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue in D minor blasting from within. The dark and ominous organ sounds made the experience all the more strangely cinematic – as if Heeb were the gallant knight of some gothic horror movie who, after an arduous and dangerous journey, had courageously arrived at the stygian chamber of reckoning.
The door opened and Melody’s lank figure appeared in a black leotard and
dark tights. Atop her purple-streaked, brunet hair, pulled back into a chignon, sat black felt cat ears. In addition to her usual dark makeup, the tip of her nose was painted black and her cheeks were penciled with charcoal cat whiskers.
She simpered, and tilted her head towards the inside of her apartment, signaling him to enter.
Heeb stepped inside. The walls of Melody’s studio were painted a tenebrous green, and the windows were covered by thick, black velvet curtains that ensured a total absence of light but for the scattered, plum colored candles burning in various corners and hanging from a small candelabrum. Crammed into the four-hundred-square-foot apartment were a kitchenette, a queen-sized bed, a tiny bathroom, a miniature table for eating and a large desk with a small stereo system, desktop computer, scanner, and printer for Melody’s freelance design work.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Heeb felt crowded by the dozen felines roaming about the cramped space. A chorus of meows went off as soon as he walked in, though they were largely drowned out by the booming, intense, and ominous Bach music.
Heeb did his best to absorb this dusky and cramped cat cave, but he found the Tocatta and Fugue in D minor to be too much for the moment. “Do you mind if we put on something a bit softer or more serene? Maybe his Cello Suite Number One in G major?”
“How about the English Suite Number Two?” she replied.
“Even better.”
While Melody searched for the right CD, Heeb continued to survey her place. He noticed that her cats came in three colors – black, grey, or tiger striped – and that they perched themselves anywhere they pleased. Three were lounging on Melody’s bed, one of which – a large black cat – lay directly on her pillow. Two sat atop the desk with her computer equipment. Two were playing with a ball of purple yarn on the wood floor. One lay in the path to the bathroom, another obstructed the approach to the refrigerator, and another roamed about the front door area. Two others were running about somewhat wildly in the longest open space in the apartment. Each of Heeb’s movements – whether it was a step of the foot, a swing of the arm, or an attempt to sit down – felt as though it barely missed a tail, a vibrissa, or a paw.
Cat hairs coated the floor and bedspread and clung to every piece of furniture. But the thick air in Melody’s apartment had no offensive odors, and smelled like a subtle blend of burning candles, incense, and dried fruit. This was because, to accommodate her olfactory sensitivities, Melody had hired a contractor to build a “mini cat-room” out of specially scented pinewood, so that she could place all of the litter boxes and cat food into one well-sealed and custom-ventilated corner of her apartment.
Melody found the English Suite Number Two CD and began removing it from the shelf. But she stopped at the jarring caterwaul emitted by the tabby mouser that had been roaming about by the front door. Melody saw that Heeb had inadvertently stepped on the end of its tail as he continued trying to adjust to the small and surreal space.
“Hey! You just stepped on Vagina. Apologize to her!”
“Did you really name your pussy that?” Sammy asked, in surprised amusement.
“Yep.”
“But isn’t that a bit generic?”
“Well, sometimes I call her Vaj for short. Now apologize.”
“Do you think she’ll understand me? How’s her vocabulary?”
“When talking to cats, it’s all about the intonation and sincerity. So you have to mean it. Come on, Sammy.”
Heeb crouched down to make amends with the irritated feline, using the most sincere voice he could summon under the circumstances. “Look, I'm really sorry about that. This is my first time meeting a Vagina with a tail, and I stepped out of line a bit. Literally. It was really an honest mistake. But I probably should have worn a condom on my shoe, just in case.”
Melody laughed. She crouched down and, in a voice one would use with a baby, she called her cat over for some palliative petting. “Come here, Vaj! Sammy’s really sorry. And very funny. Now come here and I’ll make it all better!” The tabby ran over to Melody, who scooped her up and started petting her. “That’s a good girl.”
Melody eventually released the cat onto the edge of the bed, so that she could finish inserting the CD. The tabby approached one of the bed pillows, where the large black cat was still perched, watching Heeb walk over to Melody. As Vaj arrived at the edge of the pillow, the black cat moved off of it – not out of fear or deference to Vaj, but only because he was curious about Heeb. The fourteen-pound Bombay moved to the edge of the bed, and stared up at Heeb, as if to assess him. Sammy looked into the feline’s yellow eyes, and then at his sleek black fur and sinuous body. The miniature panther eventually jumped down to the ground and circled around Melody’s leg, like a furry ball of oil hovering over the floor.
After Melody finished inserting the new Bach CD, she knelt down to pick up the Bombay. She turned towards Heeb and, in a maternal and protective voice, said, “Jackpot’s my favorite baby. Aren’t you, Jackpot? Do you know why his name is Jackpot?”
“Hmm…A black cat named Jackpot…Oh, I got it! You wanted to correct the superstition that black cats bring bad luck, right?”
“You’re a genius, Sammy,” she said. “No one gets that on the first try. Isn’t Sammy a little genius, Jackpot? Don’t you just love that about him?” she said to her cat as she rubbed her face affectionately into his soft fur. Melody held the cat closely against her breast, and walked towards Heeb. Once she was within a few feet of him, she pursed up her lips coyly and seductively asked, “Do you want some pussy?”
“As long as you’re not talking about Vaj,” Heeb replied, pointing to the tabby that had taken Jackpot’s spot on the bed pillow.
Melody chuckled, and then crouched down to let Jackpot drop gracefully to the floor. Emboldened by the affection that had just been showered upon him from the mistress of the house, Jackpot jumped back onto the bed to reclaim his throne from Vaj.
Melody stood back up and put her arms around Heeb and began kissing him.
She caressed him intensely and pressed herself up against him closely, as if a torrent of sexual favors might exonerate her from the mailman incident.
She slid her index finger up the length of his spine, until she could run her hand through the hair on the sides of his head.
But Heeb couldn’t readily refocus his attention from the feline circus in the background to the erotic overtures of the cat-woman grinding up and down on him.
“Heavy petting in front of pets,” he said, unable to keep the silly thought to himself.
Melody chuckled and whispered into Heeb’s ear, “I missed your humor.” She then proceeded to nibble on his ear as she undressed him.
But with eight of the twelve cats peering at him, it took about twenty minutes for Heeb to shake the idea that he was being closely watched. Even modeling nude for a room full of painters hadn’t prepared him for sexual intimacy in the presence of so many mammals.
Heeb, who was soon naked, had to make a concerted effort to concentrate on the action at hand. Rather than flow naturally with Melody’s physical movements, he was thinking about some National Geographic program he had seen a few years ago, in which the baritone narrator had declared that cats have the largest eyes of any mammal, in relation to body size.
Heeb finally returned to Melody enough to untie the knot of string in the center of her back that kept her leotard up. It unfurled gently off her torso and revealed her small breasts. She helped him to remove her leotard, so that she had nothing on except her black tights.
In a passionate frenzy, Melody moved them onto the bed, but Heeb abruptly stepped on the brakes, and got off the bed.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s no way I’m lying on all that cat hair!” he exclaimed, brushing off the part of his body that had touched the bedspread and examining himself for any cat hairs that might still be stuck to him.
“Sammy, it’s fine! Their hair is clean. I lie naked on that bedspread all the time.”
>
“Why did you have to tell me that? I didn’t need to know that about you.”
“Really, Sammy. It’s fine…Cats spend about thirty-four percent of their lives grooming themselves.”
“You mean using their tongues to put cat saliva on themselves.”
“And I bathe them once a week.”
“Can we just get under the covers?”
“OK.” Melody shooed the three cats off her bed and removed the bedspread. Heeb was relieved to see that the white sheets below were free of any cat hairs, but gave Melody a disapproving look as he flipped the pillows over so that the dirty, cat-used-side was no longer facing where they would rest their heads.
Melody blew out some candles and then joined Heeb under the covers.
She entangled her bare legs in his as their naked bodies approached each other. They hadn’t seen each other in almost four days and were meeting on the heels of a protracted fight that resulted in a near break-up. They grabbed each other in restless anticipation of make-up sex, knowing that the tension from their spat wouldn’t be fully relieved until its conclusion. The two unbridled libidos, brimming with the issues that had yet to be resolved, unleashed themselves under the covers.
Melody’s dozen cats reacted differently to the whirlwind of sheets and legs and arms spinning around atop the queen-sized bed: some began to run around wildly while others just sat and meowed, as if in homage to the mating rituals of a friendly species. Undoubtedly, Heeb would have found any perceptible cat reaction to be both unsettling and distracting, because it would have made him recognize that he was effectively performing in front of a mammalian audience. But Heeb was too absorbed in the moment to notice the cats.
The rhythm of the limbs and the sheets finally reached its crescendo and Heeb collapsed atop Melody’s sweaty body. Melody loved that coital moment more than any other: when a man’s orgasm rendered his entire body flaccid and heavy – as if she had squeezed all of the vitality out of him and replaced it with some powerful sedative.
