A warm paw on her cheek brought her back. The black cat, all forty pounds of him, lay across her chest. When her eyes opened, he licked her nose. She reached up and scratched him behind his ear.
There was a touch of gray on his muzzle now, but he still moved like a younger cat most days. She sent him the warm feeling she thought of as love. He purred and sent her the image of the calico keeping the kittens away from Jack's Victorian furniture. If not closely watched, the kittens found the lion's-paw legs wonderful scratching posts.
Well, old friend, Jack turned me down again last night. What do you think is wrong? The subvocalized question received only a querying look from the cat at first, but then he sent the image of a hundred of Bagabond's creatures around her.
Yes, I know you're all there, but every once in a while I want another human. She created the image of the black and the calico together as mates. The black returned a vision of Bagabond and a human-sized cat. Bagabond nodded as she looked over at the kittens at play. Not my type, unfortunately. She wondered why Jack refused to sleep with her. Her frustration and lack of understanding were beginning to turn to anger. It had only begun the last year. Each time she played with the kittens, she felt a lack in her own life.
The feeling angered her, but she couldn't deny it. Recently she had turned to Jack for confort, but for once he had turned her away. She resolved not to ask again.
Without the layers of dirt and ancient clothing that protected her in the world outside, she knew she was not unattractive. To spare her other friend Rosemary embarrassment, she had learned to dress on rare occasions in an acceptable fashion. It never felt right, though. Those were the times she was really in costume and she hated them. Perhaps she had become too involved with Jack and Rosemary. Perhaps it was time to go underground again.