by Bogdan Mureşanu
translation from Romanian by Alexandra Sârbu [MTTLC]
The mistress is lying idly on the divan while grabbing lazily a lemonade carafe. Just then a bead happens to glide from her red lips towards her empty chest, and then there down towards the breasts’ parting. My eyes go blear and my mind can only ponder our teasing through the softness of the sheets, prrrrr! The mistress has stony flesh which I would greedily thrust my fangs into and when she carelessly bends over the sorbet pot with her feline moves, parole d’honneur! I peep the prick pointed nipples of her firm breasts and pass the tongue over my muzzle.
In older days, before the beau came into our lives, I was the only living thing she would press to her bosom. Long gone are are the times when I was the only one she caressed so affectionately on the belly, prrrrr! when I was the only one she would allow to touch her warm feet, prrrrr! At night, through her large flaxen nightie, I was the only one to see, under her belly, the shady parting with its little pinkish pulp, prrrrr! I would nestle under the quilt next to her sweet-smelling body and lick the fingers she would caress me with. We were happy until this mess hall dog, this stray revolutionary disturbed our life and won the mistress’s heart with his trimming uniform, all sorts of trifles and trickery, with polished pistols and especially with his moustache, pomade smeared à la française. So what? Don’t I have whiskers as well? Oh yes, monsieur, and some enormous ones for my height. I’ve got claws and long whiskers, my tail up high and striped fur. And a poet’s soul, prrr! not some soldier boy’s bad manners accustomed in who knows what barracks. I wonder how can I ever have any kind of things in common with someone who, in those seldom times when he does pet me, he does it opposite the fur’s growing direction? A true Jacobin, no doubt about it! Whereas we, tomcats, are indeed conservative and it’s in our very nature to hate any sort of change, especially the brandy stench.
Poor girl is crying all day long because her ‘general’ won’t come back from the absinthe war he’s waging in bars, pfui! On top on that, I bet that good-for-nothing jumps on every bitch that wags her tail around him! His appetite for love-making is indeed cat-like, that scoundrel, no sooner does he open the door than he jumps on the divan where she sits, still sad, and starts torturing her breasts between his churlish hands, he slowly undresses her while kissing her everywhere, especially lingering between her legs, until the mistress twists her body unleashing screams like arrows shot randomly through the room. When they start smooching, I hole up in a corner where I start peeping, je suis un voyeur, voila! The mistress avoids my being witness of the their alcove struggles, when the ’general’, as she spoils her beau, breaks spear after spear. I don’t know how he has the strength to run so many miles without stopping, as if in double time! It would be wise to shine up to this cad, or I’ll found myself thrown in the street where it’s dirty and cold and ‘proletarian revolution’, whereas I can’t stand the ‘revolution’ because it’s noisy and full of fleay curs. The only worse thing would be to geld and to send me straight to the tomcat hell, where love does not reach the rooftops and tails cannot be held up.
In my quiet hours, when time drips lazily from my whiskers, I indulge in compiling an elaborate taxonomy, without claiming to be a tomcat of science. In my opinion, people fall into two big categories: those of dog lovers and the more evolved one, of cat lovers. In its turn, the latter divides into two sub-categories: those who geld tomcats and those who keep their tomcatness intact. These latter ones can also be separated into… but what is this unfortunate noise? Sapristi! The wretched beau came in and I must scuttle away from the warmth of the hearth and dodge under the divan, otherwise I will be surprised with a boot in my behind. Look how she’s glowing with happiness, now that her leman is back! She throws him down the divan… opens his fly and… ahaa, good cherie, I have never imagined something like this… Mais, mon Dieu, qu’est elle fait?