Tag archieven: cats

Home

At the sound of the door, two small shadows make their way towards us.
“ Ah! You’re a cat woman.”
Samuel’s big sweater fills my tiny hall. He places a messenger bag on the saddle of my bicycle.
He squats down, big fingers plucking through the white fur.
“That one is diabetic,”
A wide smile crosses his face. “So was mine! You give it insulin too?”

He leaves his phone and keys under the mirror. His empty shoes next to my high heels.
“I had no idea it would still be so cold at night,” I shiver.

I flip the switch. The bare light shines on us, on a pile of boxes, an unconnected computer, on a roll of carpet for my spare room.
“I don’t even have blinds yet.” I excuse myself.
“You have a Nimba!”
The wooden fertility sculpture with the sharply hooked nose looks small in his hands. The black layer of coaled wood has worn down.
“We used to live in Nigeria,” I say.
A solemn glance crosses over his face. “So does my father.”
His voice has dropped. There is an African word in his sentence that I don’t understand.

I reach up to kiss him, caress the biceps and chest through his clothes. Light as a feather he lifts me up. I bury my nose in his neck to smell him.
“I think it took ten whole minutes before you kissed me at the bar!” he smiles in my ear.
“It’s your scent,” I say between sniffs. “No. That’s not true. It’s everything.”

White carpet. White bed. White sheets. In the only room of the house that looks decent we undress each other. Passing cars, streetlights, moonlight. My skin looks fairer, his looks darker. I rub my legs to his. I press my breasts to his chest. Cub my hands around this skull. I cry tears in his arms when he asks me if it has really been a year.

“Tell me about Nigeria.”

And he tells me about spending his holidays in Lagos, about the sea. About the Yoruba, and missionaries who converted the parts of Nigeria where the climate was mild. He tells about the Jos Plateau, still torn between Islam and Christianity.
“Where did you live?” he asks my skin.

He tells about the North, about the Sahel, and that the desert expands every year, robbing the Touareg of their cattle.
“The drought started in the 70s, when you lived there.”
Touareg were our night watch,” I whisper.

His Dutch mother raised him in the Netherlands.
His dark skin on Dutch schools and my light tan between my black classmates.
He got swimming diplomas when I jumped in pools without supervision.
Samuel sled snow, while little Lauren caught snakes.
Our youths are a distorted mirror image of each other.

I stumble out of the bed naked. “Give me some time to find my condoms. I didn’t bother to unpack them.”

His head is resting on his hand and he throws me a superior smile.

My friend LS Harteveld ~ field report by Marieke

It’s been a year today, that I first rang the bell of my yoga teacher LS Harteveld.

“Ha! You look like an archaeologist!” she welcomed me as she opened the door. I inspected my clothes, but couldn’t detect any shovels or Sahara sand.
“Your bag is green, and you wear your strap across your chest,” LS Harteveld explained. “Maybe you were sent to dig up my sex life.”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but toughened up and shuffled inside.
“I study anthropology,” I said.

LS Harteveld and I planned on writing together every day. She intended to finish her novel Mango, I needed to get my thesis done. My green bag held a laptop and two chocolate muffins.
“They’re for with our coffee,” I excused myself for bringing such an unhealthy snack. “If you eat sugar, that is.”
“Of course I do! And I love muffins!” she laughed. “What do you think of me? That I am one of those fungus girls?”

Fungus girls: Women, between 30 and 40, who do not eat sugar or other refined carbohydrates, because alternative medicine claims vaginal Candida has infested their organs.

LS Harteveld also enlightened me on the concept of male group masturbation, the preferred size of an erect penis (categorized on what you want to do with it), and the beauty of male genitals. She considered ignorance a threat to spiritual growth. Which was the only trait she shared with my Swami at the yoga ashram.

In March LS Harteveld found out her best friend had screwed her over big time. This was when she taught by example how to hate properly. (it involved exploding like Rumpelstiltskin on a daily basis)
In Summer she would ask me to lie in bed with her, to check if it was big enough for a lover and two cats. After this, she started dating dark men, up to 1meter 80.
In Fall she went on her first holiday in years, because she now had me to look after her diabetic cat.
At Christmas we introduced each other to our families.
On New Years Eve we shared our annual depression at home on the couch. It was our best New Years Eve in years.

LS Harteveld and I see each other nearly every day. We share muffins, love, clothes, and that small double bed. All platonic.

I still don’t throw tantrums the way she does. But I did notice I had become a bit more evil when I was at a party recently and someone declined a piece of cake stating with a hint of spiritual arrogance, that she lived without sugar. Before I knew it I heard myself ask:
“Let me guess: Candida?”

The Joy of men and cats

two brothers both called MoonJoyce has two cats. Brothers, both called Moon, in different languages. Moon 1 and 2 have a different colour, but identical large physiques, friendly faces and those guilt trip almond shaped eyes. Joyce is a professional Tantra teacher and I am her professional yoga teacher. But we’re also friends.

The first time she invited me to her home, we were still discussing the feng-sui effects of her front door sticker “NO unaddressed mailings” (my advice was to replace it with a Yes! sign, a Thank you! sticker, or a pottery plate with Gratitude lives here) when I spotted Moon 1 lying belly up on the couch.
“Oh my God! Look who’s there!” I sneaked to the living room, tripped to the big feline, and kneeled down to introduce myself. The almond shaped eyes of Moon 1 were studying me upside-down.
“Are you relaxing here on the couch?” I made conversation, and mouth watered at the sight of it’s folded front paws, resting in the air close to it’s body.
I wasn’t going to hold this for a lot longer.
“You are so sweet, are you not?” I started caressing it’s belly. The cat did not object so I took the liberty of using both hands. Purring, and cooing I cuddled the furry belly with my fingertips and gently rocked the big cat a little from left to right.
“This is interesting,” Joyce analyzed. “Cat’s really move you, don’t they?”
“Yes, you move me, don’t you,” I cooed. And Moon 1 started to purr. Apparently it was mutual.
“I can imagine this is about the same way you respond to 20 year old guys,” she said.
I smiled.
“You bet!”
And then I went to look for Moon 2, who I found sleeping in the master bed. By the time Moon 2 and I were finished with our love-session, my friend had made tea, cleared the dish washer, and checked her email.

Joyce was right. It is not uncommon for me to think within 5 minutes of meeting a man: “Wouldn’t it be cool, to just take our clothes off and go to bed, and see what happens?” Only to then find out that the object of my affection is unavailable (always), irresponsible (in for a little side dish), or downright evil.

But I loved the men who were like cats.

I can still fantasize about guilt trip eyes, enchanting me.
His nails gently scratching over my skin. His cute belly turning up for me to kiss it.

And a yellow stick up note, next to his front door bell:
“Please use key! Waiting in bed – naked ;-)