DISCLAIMER: I don't own Cats. It's copyrighted to RUG, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the late T.S. Eliot and whoever else who has rights to it. No infringement of their rights is intended and no money is being made through this writing.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is the fic I've been promising a bunch of people I'd post for over a year now. This is the result to the idea I had of how Demeter met up with Macavity. In short this is the poker game fic! Inspired by Bombalurina's look and line,"I know he cheats at cards". Why won't I write the poker game? I don't know how to play it, let alone cheat at it... Last notes the characters are cat-humans in this fic.
POKER ANYONE?
Chapter One
The Jellicle Ball
As Macavity stared down at the dancing cats in the junkyard he thought of what had driven him to this point. That blasted Demeter! It wasn't so much that he was obsessed with HAVING her, but the fact that SHE was the reason his former mate Bombalurina had left him. Tonight, in a ruse as Old Deuteronomy, he'd steal her away and make her regret that. He recalled vaguely how in one night he had won the night but lost everything at the same time by way of one poker game.
Bombalurina watched as the younger, gold and black queen danced remembering a confused night of something Bombalurina herself once knew all too well. Macavity. Bombalurina had come to know him more intimately than anyone. After all, she hadn't always been part of this tribe.
She used to despise Jellicles. Not because of a personal prejudice, but because of the wild stories they told about Macavity. True, the don of the feline-human underworld that they lived in was one to be feared, but deep down he was a good tom. Demeter had been fed outrageous stories about him since kittenhood, and in the course of one night she, Bombalurina, was able to meet many Jellicles first hand. On that night she left Macavity for the tribe.
Their's had been a loving, but VERY free and open relationship. Both had a list of one night stands to envy Tugger's. Yet, they always found more comfort and passion in each other's arms.
She watched as Demeter rubbed her hands over her chest and body- remembering Macavity's touch. Bombalurina herself became swept up in her own memories as she remembered the same touch Demeter had as well. A smile came to her face as she recalled it, but both shook it off violently. Bombalurina was as disgusted with him just as much as she loved him. She had witnessed him stoop to his lowest to "earn" the rights to Demeter for one night. The violence of their shaken memories was for two very different reasons. Demeter because of a mixture of hate, but yet in an erotic way fascination; Bombalurina because of what he did.
"But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!" Demeter dropped to her knees. She listened as her best friend described Macavity. She became transfixed- caught up in a mix of emotions. Fear, hate, fascination and lust warring in so many ways with her memories of him. She had in the course of one night became almost as worldy as Bombalurina.
She never understood exactly how Macavity had beaten Munkustarp in that card game. Munkustrap never lost... yet she had been able to see Macavity, thanks to it, in a new light. However, when she remembered the handy work she'd seen Macavity himself do to his enemies, and from the stories she'd been told, she found herself cringing as, so like Bomabalurina's former mate, Bomabalurina lashed out in her direction mimicking Macavity.
Then she also remembered how gentlemanly he acted throughout that fateful night. The fascination and strange erotic want clouding over her senses, she found herself standing and singing, "He's outwardly respectable."
She watched Bombalurina strike a sexy pose that seeped with cockiness and a smug knowing. Even as friends they still were competitors to some extent, especially where Macavity was concerned. She listened in horrified shock as Bombalurina walked by in a strut whispering, "I KNOW he cheats at cards."
Her eyes wide, she looked at Bombalurina both frustrated and unbelieving. Did she mean...? The look on Bombalurina's face confirmed her fear. He had cheated that night to win her.