by Janice Callisa
(08/13/08)
My cats like to watch me while I masturbate.
Perhaps they are jealous, perhaps they are curious, or, some days, I think they are just happy for me. They both curl up close, so close on either side of my spread legs that I can feel their breath on my skin.
Gloria is a golden tabby, and she begins to stalk me the moment I reach for the vibrator drawer -- she knows what's coming. Jerome is a black Bombay and he is a bit cooler about it, pretending he doesn't care where we're going, but he never misses an orgasm.
I stack at least three CDs on random -- Van Morrison for Gloria, the Grateful Dead for Jerome, Jeff Buckley for me, and then I strip, and we dance. I have always danced naked with every cat I've ever had since I was a little girl. There was safety in cats in my childhood -- I told them all my terrible family secrets, we played, we danced, I held them, they kept me soft. I slept with my cats every night of my young life, close to my face like a pillow, and some days I would wake up with my long red hair tangled and pulled by their claws, but I didn't care.
We dance, and then I hold them close and spin them around in my own tribal dance of love. If their claws dig into my breasts or my shoulders I don't care, it is a kind of foreplay. I have silver rings pierced through both of my nipples, and sometimes Stella will bat at them -- it's not truly sexual, it's play, but it sends a tingle straight down to my clit.
When I am tired from the dance, I lie down on the blue oriental rug on my hardwood floor, my head propped up by a soft pillow. If I have forgotten to grab the vibrator from where I left it on the armchair, one of the cats will find it and roll it toward me.
It may be the buzzing sound that they love so much -- they do not watch as closely when I am with a man and getting sexed-up. One night my lover put left-over sushi on my nipples and tried to get them to nip and lick at my nipples, but they only snatched the food and ran. It may be that they want me all to themselves. I have often been tempted to try spreading catfood tuna on my cunt to see what would happen, but I have a secret fear that I would like their tongues better than my lover's, and then where would I be?
I listen to the music when I touch myself, and I disappear into it. Let the music put you in the zone, I am lost, lost inside a rhythm. I become a little girl when I touch myself, traveling back to the world of an imaginary perfectly-loved child, a little girl hiding quietly under the bed on the hard floor, hugging herself, holding her kitten.
The feel of Gloria's claws on my thigh mixes with the vibrating pulse on my clit. We are free, we can fly, we have more than nine lives and they are all meant for sex. I imagine I am in a room full of cats and they all love me and they are quiet and warm, and I am warm and quiet and then I am hot -- and when I come, I am still quiet, but they begin to purr.
Afterwards, Jerome comes up to nuzzle my face, and I think he almost tries to kiss me, and then I know I am safe for another day.
