Life with a Sex Offending Feline

This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.30 Rock – Season 1, Episode 13

Jack Donaghey: I mean, one minute you’re newlyweds making love on the floor of the Concord, and the next your lawyers are fighting over who gets to keep the box your dog defecates in. 

Liz Lemon: Who taught you dog to poop in box? 

Jack Donaghey: Bianca did, but I want that box!

The fall my boyfriend’s father died I got him a cat for his birthday. He had stipulated that he was looking for three things in a cat:

Massive

Orange

Evil

I managed 1 ½ out of three. The cat was mostly orange and definitely evil. 

Three years later, in the divorce, I got three things of value (four if you count freedom), the house, a stock pot my ex had owned before we were together, and the “I’m sorry your dad’s dead birthday cat.” 

He was a Persian cat with teeth so crooked the vet had to grind down all of his canines so he could close his mouth. His nostrils were so tiny he wheezed perpetually – refusing to simply breath though his mouth – and he had a leaky heart valve. He was tiny, even by cat standards. The fluffy coat hid his rail thinness. When wet, because you have to bathe Persian cats regularly, he looked the product of and unholy union between a ferret and blobfish.

We called him Five Pounds of Furry Fury (FPFF) and I’m embarrassed to report (but not so embarrassed as to not report) that he was more than a bit of a rapist. I could say he lacked boundaries or that he was inappropriate, but that would be sugar coating things. He was a feline rapist with a sadistic heart.

Man, I miss that cat.

My current cat, Sam, is everything the FPFF was not: affectionate, snuggly, friendly to strangers. To be honest, Sam’s kind of a schmoe. I let him know on regular basis that he does not measure up to his deceased older brother. Fortunately, he’s a cat, so this does not unduly distress him.

For the record, I did not scheme to get the cat in the divorce and I didn’t take him from my ex for spite. The simple fact was, he required regular grooming and care that my ex wasn’t up to managing. But I’m petty and spiteful enough to enjoy that I took my ex’s cat in the divorce. 

Despite the fact that he had almost no teeth and was slightly larger than a squirrel the FPFF was, at heart, a killer. In the months before he died he captured and tormented his very first mouse and just a week later presented me with a second. These were likely the first two mice he had ever encountered, being a strictly indoor cat. On the rare occasions he was permitted outside in our fenced yard, under supervision (Persian cats don’t believe in climbing things, they believe in sitting on things), he would crouch in the grass like a lion and stalk squirrels and insects. Fortunately, the FPFF was not a particularly fast cat, I have absolute faith that any squirrel worth its nuts would have punked the FPFF in a heartbeat. The bugs were not so fortunate. 

The FPFF also chased off and treed no less than two dozen cats in his life. He wasn’t allowed outside, but on the odd occasion when one of the many neighborhood pets, strays, or feral cats chanced by our yard during a momentary door opening the FPFF was upon them. Not once, did any of these cats stand their ground. Every single one of them took off like a shot and made for the nearest tree while the FPFF stood below glaring, and gnashing the only three teeth he had left in a manner that left no doubt to the unnatural things he would do to their corpses if given the opportunity. My husband claims that all these cats, many veterans of more than few feline alley brawls with the scars to show it, sensed instantly that their pursuer was an unholy abomination from the depths of hell. 

The FPFF was a keen observer of humans and easily found weaknesses on which to prey. Whenever my mother-in-law visited his wheezing and goopy eyes would magically increase to alarming levels. He would make sure to keep himself well in her eyeline while sneezing and rubbing at his giant google eyes. Multiple times a day she would report that she was certain he was ill and on the verge of deaths door. To this day, I know she thinks I’m horribly callus for shrugging and saying that he was just being an asshole.

Another friend of ours is moderately allergic to cats. This friend liked to sit in a large overstuffed chair that was one of the FPFFs favorite sleeping places. The FPFF would sit across the way and glare at our friend. Between the sour cat glances, and the itching and sneezing induced by the cat saturated chair, he would often move over to the couch. What he didn’t realize, was that as soon as he moved to the couch, the cat would sneak around back and sit right behind him on the couch back like a vulture, grim delight dancing in his eyes while watching the itchy sneezing, and moaning.

Ethologists will tell you that cats don’t have the kind of memory retrieval that permits acts of revenge. I believe them, but I can report, that in the early years of my second marriage, before they made peace, the FPFF, who was a fascist about his litter box and required that it be cleaned every day, would go out of his way to pee on my husband’s most favorite possessions anytime said husband did something to annoy him. It took a while, but the husband eventually learned that just because cats land on their feet when you drop them, after say moving them out of your chair, doesn’t mean they are going to put up with that shit.

For casual friends, it was giant heart-rending crocodile tears. He would position himself on the coffee table, or right next to the television and silently weep. If you’ve ever seen a Persian cat, you can probably understand how watching a silent giant-fish-eyed cotton candy fluff coated cat shed enormous, copious tears would be disturbing. “Is he sad? Is he hurt? I didn’t know cats could cry like that,” they would inquire with concern. “No, that’s just his way of f@#$ing with you. He’s evil,” I would say and scratch his ears or fish goop out of his eye crevasses with a q-tip.

The FPFF didn’t meow so much as he emitted a small reproachful bark that conveyed an oceans worth of distain. Prior to the poisoning he was only heard to purr on two occasions, I was not there and remain skeptical that it even happened.

I suppose I should explain how the FPFF was a rapist. I’ve already explained his general hostility to strange felines, but I haven’t mentioned that for a time, I owned two Himalayan cats (those are Persians with point coloration like a Siamese). The female, a tortie-point, was gentle and affectionate, and wasn’t about to take guff from any runty little sex criminal. I think she is the only cat that the FPFF ever held any measure of respect for. Our flame-point male was another matter. We called him, “The Bear” he weighed 12 pounds, loved tummy scratches and was a champion mouser, despite the fact that he looked like nothing so much as a walking cloud of cotton candy. The Bear was a rough and tumble man-mans cat in the shell of an evil geniuses lap ornament.  The Bear didn’t take any crap, and wouldn’t hesitate to claw the crap out of anyone who stepped out of line. 

The Bear lived in terror of the FPFF. I would often catch the tiny little monstrosity bullying the much larger cat, but I didn’t really understand his true nature until one day when I heard a gentle, plaintive mewling coming from the stairs. I rounded the corner and there hunkered on the step making himself as small as possible, was the bear. Mounted on top of him, with no ambiguity as to intent of action, was the FPFF. He was biting the bears neck savagely, ripping out tufts of fur. I shouted in horror at him to stop. He glared at me and took another viscous go at the Bears neck fur. I pulled him off the Bear and held him up. He stared me right in the eye and casually worked the fur in his mouth, like it was a hunk of chaw.

I had promised my ex an evil cat and I had delivered. 

The Himalyans were eventually rehomed and after the divorce, the FPFF remained an only cat. The addition of a new spouse followed shortly by an infant and a few years later by stone stupid corgi hardly phased the FPFF. These creatures were, with the exception of the husband, whom he eventually conditioned to give the exact kind of scratches he liked, irrelevant to the FPFF. He remained aloof and diabolical. He let me know when I was needed for littler cleaning, eye crevasse grooming, and mandatory chest scratches, otherwise, he sat at a remove, silent, observing, judging.

Things changed somewhat after I accidentally poisoned him with a dog sized dose of cheap over the counter flea medicine. He really should have died. One pupil was blown, and he staggered about having seizures. But the FPFF persevered. I guess after that he decided life was too bloody short not to take advantage of available human body heat. He spent a lot more time on laps, once or twice accepted scratches from people other than me or my husband, and to my shock and horror started purring from time to time.

When he was just a kitten the vet told me the FPFF had a leaky heart valve that would worsen over time and eventually require medication. He would most likely die young from heart failure. The average life span of a healthy Persian cat dying of natural causes is 12-14 years. Even as his organs were shutting down and he’d shrunken down to 3 ½ pounds, his heart was going strong. The FPFF died of kidney failure a few days after his 15th birthday. But really, evil never dies. 

*This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.