I found her at the rubbish bin near home. I told my wife it was a black cat. My wife didn’t say anything.
I set up a corner of the living room for her to stay. She seemed to be happy. Much better than staying out on the street. It gets nasty out there quickly in November London.
What caught me at first sight was her thinness, and her giant eyes blinking through the darkness in the rubbish. I gave her lots of meats to eat as soon as we arrived home. I got them from the kebab place downstairs. She devoured them in no time. I was hugely satisfied by her visible hunger. My wife didn’t say anything.
Every evening after performing the daily rituals with my wife, instead of sitting in bed browsing on my phone like we usually did, now I would go to the living room to stay with her.
She hadn’t utter a word since I found her. The third evening I went to comb her hair. I had this impulse I couldn’t get out of my mind. When I actually acted it out I had a mixed feeling of strong disgust and strange attraction towards her, the sensation I experienced since the first time I saw her, which only grew stronger once I got physically close to her. I did not know what I was doing. I thought my taste must have gotten worse from all those short videos I scroll down on my phone.
Everything went by just fine. One day my wife asked me for the name of the new black cat I brought home. I said I didn’t know. That evening I went to ask her.
“What would you like to be called?” I asked in the dark.
No reply.
“It’s actually quite alright with me if you stay like this. But my wife asked me today what we should call you, and I thought I’d better ask you for your opinion. It’s okay if you don’t want to have a name, or don’t want to say anything.”
Silence.
My wife did not ask me again about the name. Everything went on peacefully. Until one day she had her period. My wife started to notice she was not a black cat.
My wife reacted by avoiding stepping into the living room. My wife now eats in the bedroom, watches TV on her laptop, and makes phone calls at the entrance door.
I have more space to take care of her. I find myself enjoying this new found freedom. She needs more care during her period - she eats more, sleeps more, and she looks grumpier. Another problem comes up: now I have to explain to our seven year old boy what period is.
“Ew, that explains the horrible smell !” My son comments after my educative explanation.
I think it is time to bring her to bath. As my son also spends most of his time in the bedroom now, I have much more liberty to do as I please with her.
She is visibly stronger now that she has stayed three weeks in my home doing only eating and sleeping. I wash her hair with the shower and realize her head is not hideously deformed as I remember. In the steam of hot water, she vaguely resembles a normal woman. I try not to fantasize too much, focusing only on washing her clean.
After the bath, I sit her on the balcony. She squints her eyes as the summer evening breeze caresses her skin and her fresh hair. The neighbors downstairs are having a party. Someone somewhere is playing guitar and singing a song.
“So I was … welcome back…” I catch these words in between the rumbles of the hairdryer in my hand.
“My name is…” She suddenly said.
I turned off the hairdryer.
“Pardon?”
“My name is Lu.” She said.
(End)
Note: I wrote this piece partly based on a dream I had on my wedding night, a short manga story I read when in high school, and the Dutch short film called “Lulu” (2005). It is an archetype that has appeared in art creations again and again, dressed up in different gender, different class, different culture. And this is my version, fresh out of the oven.
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