Top Cat and Tales, page 1
Top Cat and Tales
Elizabeth Bevarly
Copyright Elizabeth Bevarly
All Rights Reserved
Smashwords Edition
Prologue
“Oh, I bet you Trojans say that to all the girls.”
Aphrodite, goddess of love, fluttered her golden eyelashes coyly, then drew her finger along the chiseled jaw of the closest of the three men she’d brought home for cocktails. No wonder those twenty-first-century folks had a contraceptive named after the men of Troy. They were indeed a randy bunch. Just the way she liked them.
“Do come in,” she instructed her guests as she pushed open the door to her temple. “Artemis just turned me on to this new label of ouzo that’s absolutely—”
She halted midsentence as she stepped inside, the acrid stench of cat refuse filling her nose and burning her eyes. Not again. Honestly. You ask your son to perform one lousy chore before he goes out charioting with his friends, and what happens? He completely ignores you. Then again, what did she expect from a surly adolescent like Cupid? Changing the litter box was evidently beneath a god, even one who was still too young and impulsive to have achieved full deity status.
Aphrodite spun around to offer her apologies for the stink, but her gorgeous, ebony-haired Trojans were already backing away. “I am so sorry,” she said, trying anyway. She chuckled a little anxiously. “We can take our party out to the pool. How would that be?”
The men obviously had other ideas, as each suddenly began to mutter an excuse for having to be elsewhere immediately. Aphrodite frowned as she watched the Trojans make their escape, then sighed with much gusto. Unfortunately the gesture only filled her nostrils with eau de wet litter. There was nothing like the smell of cat pee to ruin an otherwise promising romantic interlude. She was going to strangle Cupid when she got her hands on him.
As if conjured by her murderous thoughts, a door slammed somewhere at the back of the temple, and an uneven voice, sometimes tenor, sometimes baritone, called out, “Yo, Mom! I’m home! What’s for dinner?”
Aphrodite spun around and made her way toward her son’s voice, her gauzy white robes swishing around her silver sandals, her golden hair dancing about her shoulders. She found him in the kitchen, standing in front of the open refrigerator door. As always, she softened some when she saw him. Even at thirteen he was nearly as beautiful as she, with blond curls that hung to his shoulders and eyes bluer than the Aegean. Her son would be gorgeous hunk of manhood someday, she conceded.
If he lived that long.
“Cupid, I told you this morning to clean out the catbox,” she stated without preamble.
He shrugged without concern and snatched a golden apple from the crisper. “I had other things to do.”
That was it—no explanation, no apology. For that as much as anything, Aphrodite decided, her son was going to pay. He might be a god, but she held an infinitely more powerful position than mere deity—she was a mother.
“This is the last time you’re going to find other things to do when I assign you a chore,” she told him. “So far this week, you’ve refused to walk Cerberus for your Uncle Hades, you didn’t take out the trash, and you ignored me when I reminded you it was your turn to mow the Elysian Fields.” She crossed her arms menacingly over her midriff. “Medea and Ione are your cats, buster, and you promised to take care of them.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Don’t you ‘yeah, but’ me, young man. That catbox smells bad enough to make a minotaur heave.”
“But, Mo-o-m, my homeys and me were going down to the arcade to—”
“I don’t care what you and your homeys were going to do. You and those boys spend far too much time playing those bloody gladiator X-box games as it is. You’ve left me no choice but to do something that will ensure you don’t conveniently forget to do your chores in the future.”
Cupid eyed her warily. “Whaddaya mean?”
Aphrodite smiled and pushed back the sleeves of her translucent white gown to her elbows. She gave her fingers an experiment wiggle—it had been a while since she cast anyone down from Mt. Olympus—then cracked her knuckles one by one.
“Yo, Mom?” Cupid asked, his eyes widening when he noted her gesture. “What are you doing?”
Aphrodite arched one perfect blond eyebrow. “I’m going to send you on a little quest,” she told him. “And you’re not coming back until you prove yourself worthy.”
“Worthy?” he echoed with obvious trepidation.
“Yes, worthy. You haven’t behaved in a godly fashion lately,” she said. “Now you’re going to have to perform a deed for me.”
He panicked visibly at her announcement. “Oh, no. Please. Not that. Not a deed.”
She ignored his plea. “If you’re successful, you can come back to Mount Olympus with my blessing, provided you do as I say in the future. But if you fail…” she deliberately left the threat unfinished. Let the little blighter chew on that for a while.
“If I fail?” Cupid asked, his expression growing even more concerned.
“Well. You’ll remain an outcast until you succeed. Now then,” she hurried on before he could object again, “what would be a suitable deed for you to perform? Hmm…”
“How about I just, like, run down to the Agora and pick up some groceries for dinner?” Cupid suggested. “I’ll cook tonight to make it up to you. Tacos,” he added, knowing they were her favorite.
“No, I don’t think so.” An idea came to her in a flash, and she smiled. “You’re a god of love, too. It’s about time you proved yourself in that respect.”
“Love?” Cupid fairly spat the word at her. “Oh, gross. Don’t make me hurl.”
She chuckled merrily. “Well, then, that’s it. Your deed is to go down to earth and bring two mortals together in a love to transcend all time. Not to the classical Greece we all hold so dear here on Mount Olympus,” she added quickly when she saw her son begin to grin smugly. “They’re far too romantic, It would be too easy for you.”
“But, Mom—”
“So I’m sending you to… Hmm… Let’s see now…”
Aphrodite thought for a moment, then smiled as she recalled her earlier reflection about those twenty-first century folks and their classically inspired contraception. “You’re going to the New World, Cupid darling. To a time when rabid fear of commitment makes it nearly impossible for two people to get together for any length of time.” She nodded at her idea. “Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
“Mom! That’s like…so harsh!”
“So is coming home with some truly lovely people with whom you’ve looked forward to having hours and hours of, um…stimulating conversation, and having the house smell like a catbox.” Aphrodite raised her arms above her head and flexed her fingers lightly. “Off you go, then,” she said. “Happy trails.”
And poof! Cupid was gone.
He landed with a thud in a cold, wretched downpour, in the middle of the night, without a friend to be had. Icy water slammed down around him, clinging to his face and back and tail, and he—
Wait a minute… Tail?
Cupid glanced down at himself, then howled a loud curse toward the dark night sky. Only instead of a shout, the sound that emerged was a strangled, feral growl. His mom had not only cast him down among those lame mortals, but she’d turned him into a cat. Oh, man. And with that babe Andromeda waiting for him at the arcade, too. Perseus was sure to move in on her now.
Standing, Cupid shook all four paws fruitlessly and glanced around at his surroundings. A tall brick building silhouetted against the night sky caught his attention. All the windows were dark, except for one near a metal staircase that wound up one side. Archer Arms Apartments, read a sign over the front door. At least, he was pretty sure that was what it said. His grades at school in modern languages hadn’t been so good lately.
Might as well get this over with as quickly as possible, he thought. Surely there were two people around here somewhere who could stand each other for an eternity. Cupid squinted through the cold rain, then stumbled haphazardly toward the building as he maneuvered four feet instead of his usual two.
He wondered who could be up so much later than everyone else…
Chapter 1
Abby Walden watched the cursor on her computer screen go blink blink blink and listened to the rain pelt the dark window beside her with an identical staccato beat of plink plink plink. Halfheartedly, she gazed at the keyboard and pushed the shift key, followed by the letter D. Then a small case e. Then an a. And, finally, an r. Sighing she brought her other hand into the action, thumbed the space bar and added F-r-u-s-t-r-a-t-e-d--i-n--F-r-e-s-n-o. She sat back to admire her handiwork. There. She had the first full line for her latest column. She was going like gangbusters.
Exactly where she was going, however… Now that was a mystery. Just what exactly did one say to a man who was worried about the size of his penis? Not that she hadn’t pondered such a dilemma before. An inordinate number of her readers seemed to be concerned about that very thing. But she was no closer to providing a convincingly reassuring answer now than she was when she first started writing her column for Cavalier magazine two years ago.
Maybe she could just ignore Frustrated in Fresno this month and include his letter in next month’s column instead. There was a pile of other question addressed to Abby’s alter ego, the celebrated Candida. They were questions that were infinitely more interesting than Frustrated’s, too. That one about zucchini, for example, was just begging to be answere
Abby highlighted the greeting she just typed and reached for the delete key. But she paused before completing the action. “Candida’s Room,” the erotic advice column she authored for Cavalier, was the most faithfully read part of the men’s lifestyle magazine, a regular feature that had driven subscriptions way up since its introduction. She owed her readers the frank, in-your-face answers for which she had become famous, meeting, without flinching, their queries about what it took to please women sexually, romantically, and emotionally.
Even if half the time she had no idea what she was talking about. Not from personal experience anyway. She’d proposed the playful sexual advice column for men written by a woman to Cavalier’s publisher on a lark, only half-serious about it. But the publisher, who also happened to be Abby’s Aunt Victoria, had thought the column was a fabulous idea, and who better to write it than Abby?
Who better? Abby wondered as she invariably did whenever she sat down at the computer wearing her Candida hat. Who better to write a hip, happening, how-to column for young, upscale men who were hungry for sexual and romantic expertise? Oh, gee, Abby didn’t know. Maybe someone who didn’t major in medieval studies? Maybe someone who didn’t teach Chaucer to dozing college students in her real life? Maybe someone who actually had sex on a regular basis and could claim some working knowledge about such a thing?
No, no, Aunt Victoria had assured her. Abby was perfect. Literary background. Unafraid of strong language. Extensive vocabulary. Irreverent outlook on life. Used to working on a deadline, thanks to that obscure underground fiction magazine she edited in college. And she’d had boyfriends in the past—long ago, in a galaxy far away—so she must have some working knowledge of sex. Best of all, she was female. Abby could make such a column tasteful and fun, Aunt Victoria had insisted. Even if she wasn’t exactly an expert.
She could make it fictional, too, Abby thought wryly as she shoved her big glasses up higher on her nose and ran a quick hand through her long, dark bangs. Which may have been why the column was so wildly successful with her predominantly male readers. Candida was the ultimate fantasy female for them. Now whether or not her advice was at least grounded in reality, well… Maybe Abby would find out for herself someday what these things called love and romance were really all about.
In the meantime, she had a column to make up…er, write. She snuggled more deeply into the wool afghan she’d wrapped around her flannel pajamas, reached for her chamomile tea, and thought about penis size. Hmm. This was going to be a hard one…
A movement outside the window by her desk brought her attention around with a start, and she cried out when she saw a face peering in at her from the other side. Then she realized the face was kind of…fuzzy. With a little pink triangle nose. And pointy ears and huge blue eyes and droopy little white whiskers. Abby’s heart turned over as the wet, shivering cat opened its mouth and cried out at the storm attacking it.
As quickly as she could, she set down her tea, jumped up from her chair, and shoved the window high. The icy February rain assaulted her as she stuck her upper body outside and scooped the soggy buff tabby off the fire escape. The scrawny creature was shivering wildly, so Abby shrugged out of the afghan and wrapped the warm wool around it, rubbing gently to jump-start the cat’s circulation.
“Poor little thing,” she cooed softly. “What are you doing outside on a night like this?”
With no small effort, and ignoring the puddle of water on the hardwood floor, she tried to shut the window with one hand. Unfortunately, it got stuck with a good three or four inches left to clear, and no amount of shoving on her part would close it. Ignoring it for now, Abby made a mental note to call Billy-the-super about it in the morning. Right now, she had a frozen catsicle to thaw out.
The radiator hissed as she padded to the kitchen, her heavy socks muffling her footsteps as she went. She continued to cuddle and dry the stray as she fumbled to warm milk in a pan. Then, when she’d done all she could to dry it, she set the animal on the floor. Immediately, it sneezed hard enough to knock itself down, and Abby had to bite back her laughter.
“Where on earth did you come from?” she asked. “You can’t be from here, because pets aren’t allowed at the Archer Arms.”
In response, the damp cat took a few steps forward, shaking each of its paws in turn, as if it were doing a drunken samba. When Abby laughed again, it halted and glared at her. Actually glared, as if her chuckles insulted it. She laughed harder.
“Boy, you are one pathetic-looking little refugee.” She shook her head at the limp animal. “Are you a boy cat or a girl cat?”
Without awaiting a reply, she lifted the cat from the floor again, snatched up its tail and inspected it from behind. “Boy cat,” she said as she set him down again.
The moment she did, he spun on her, bucked up his back, fuzzed out his tail—well, as fuzzy as it could go, all waterlogged as it was—and hissed at her long and low.
She arched her brows in surprise. “Don’t tell me I insulted you.” When his expression suggested she had done just that, she added graciously, “I do beg your pardon.”
The cat eased off some at that but still eyed her warily. Abby poured the warm milk into a bowl and placed it on the floor before him. He dipped his head and lapped experimentally, gagged a bit, then lapped a little more. He wasn’t quite a kitten, but he didn’t seem full grown, either. Funny how he came out of nowhere like that.
Satisfied he was okay for the time being, Abby fished a roll of paper towels from above the sink and returned to the dining room that doubled as her office to wipe the rain off the floor. That done, she put both hands and arms to work closing the window, but the fool thing refused to budge. Instead, it only seemed to get jammed even tighter.
A quiet noise outside suddenly cut through the darkness and the downpour, a steady hum that halted her efforts completely and nearly stopped her heart. As quickly as her pulse rate ceased, however, it jumped to life again, pumping double time. She switched off the single lamp burning on her desk, then gazed through the window, beyond the black zigzag of the fire escape, down to the alley behind the apartment building where the Archer Arms residents parked. A single white light cut through the darkness at the very end of the alley to announce his arrival, followed by the shadow of a motorcycle.
Then she saw him. The man in black. Her upstairs neighbor, who had fascinated her from the day he moved in nearly three months ago. His last name was Tandem—at least, that was what the label beside his door buzzer said. And his first name was Joel, if the oversize mail the postman left on the floor from time to time—mail she might have accidentally glanced at once or twice—was correct.
Automatically, her gaze flew to the green numbers illuminated by the clock on her desk. Four-fifteen A.M. on the nose. He was right on time.
Just where did a man who dressed in black leather and drove a Harley go every single night except Sundays, at exactly ten forty-five in the evening, only to return five and a half hours later on the dot, when most people would be fast asleep? The question erupted in Abby’s brain, as it always did this time of the morning, when he was returning home from whatever strange place he visited night after night after night. Occasionally, the sound of his motorcycle woke her from sleep. More often, she was still wide awake when he returned home, writing Candida’s column or working on her class notes for the following day.
A night owl since childhood, she taught classes only in the afternoons and evenings, and she always wrote Candida’s column during the darkest hours of the morning. It just seemed appropriate somehow to be Candida only after midnight. Something about the wee hours made her feel less inhibited, more inspired. Well, that and the generous two fingers of vodka she normally poured into her chamomile tea.
At least she was home during the darkest hours of the night. Joel Tandem was out running around on his motorcycle, performing god knew what kind of black deeds. Not that there were necessarily all that many black deeds to be performed in a little town like Kenwood, Massachusetts, where the only thing of note was tiny Kenwood College, where Abby taught. But still…
