Cat Nap
by
Owlcroft
Lydia set her last folder aside and glanced at the clock on her desk. Lunchtime. And it was her husband's turn to prepare it for the two of them. With both the children in school, they tended to have something light for lunch these days – perhaps chicken salad for her and a pillbug sandwich for him. She rose and peeped through the door into the kitchen to see Beetlejuice sitting at the table, writing something, occasionally chewing the end of his pen in thought. He had one of the cats on his lap, petting it while it purred and kneaded bread on his thigh.
She grinned at the sight. He'd gotten used to the cats quickly but still tried to pretend he didn't like them all that much. The fact that they gravitated toward him whenever he was around put paid to that idea, though. Oscar especially tended to be right where Beetlejuice was planning to sit.
Oscar was an orange tabby; Beetlejuice had wanted to name him Ginger after a certain pink spider friend, but the kids didn't like that, so he suggested Oscar because, as he put it, "This thing is wild!"
Beatie and Chazz had chosen the name Patches for Oscar's calico sister (with a prompt from their Mama).
Lydia watched her husband now unconsciously stroking, even caressing Oscar while he wrote. That hand, with its long, clever fingers. The hand that wrote her love notes and played the piano. That just last night had played a piece for her that he called 'Lydia's Song' – a soft, lyrical melody that made her eyes misty and her heart swell. The hand that could be so tender, so firm, so . . . inventive, could do such wonderful, thrilling things.
She shook herself from her daydream, then tilted her head in thought. Quickly and quietly she sped up the back stairs and re-appeared in less than ten minutes, clad scantily in red silk and lace. Positioning herself in the door, she noticed the caresses hadn't slackened and she smiled, eyes half-closed, then cleared her throat gently.
Beetlejuice looked up at once, and at once his jaw dropped and his hand stilled. "Ah," he said, eyes wide, "um . . . is this . . . sort of a . . . an invitation?"
Lydia cocked a hip at him and growled softly. "What do you think?" she whispered.
Immediately he stood and put Oscar carefully on the chair and waved a hand at himself. He was then clad only in the purple satin boxer shorts she'd given him and a lascivious grin.
Oscar watched the two people in the room approach each other and wrap each other up. He sighed faintly, curling his feet under him as they disappeared. It seemed people liked being stroked, too.