Chapter 6
The first thing Silvestro noticed when she walked into her apartment at 4pm after work, was that the entire place was a mess.
Books were strewn across the floor, her Peace Lilies were bowled over, and there was a trail of potting mix leading from said plant all across the hardwood. The fridge was wide open and beeping in misery as its content hung out of its shelves, while the glass cup that the woman had left on the counter that morning was shattered on the linoleum. Her bedroom door was creaking on its hinges, making her turn her head towards it cautiously, keys jutting out from between her knuckles in a protective grip as she made her way in.
Silvestro peered in her door before pausing, baffled at the ball of matted fur that was kneading at her pillow. Its shoulder blades visibly moved beneath its pelt of mottled orange, a kind of purr rattling in its throat that sounded closer to a rusted engine.
The ex-militant stepped forwards and the wood beneath her feet groaned, making the cat snap around, ears high and its one good eye wide while the other was squinted shut with inflamed lids. She blinked, absently noting the lack of an upright tail, before jolting as a lawnmower's yowl ripped from the feline's throat, teeth exposed.
"Holy shi-" Silvestro stumbled back as the cat bolted from her bed, tearing through the apartment and launching itself out of her open window. She cursed again, this time in mild concern as she chased after it, leaning out over the sill to see if the rusted Somali had indeed just flung itself to its death, but was instead greeted by the visage of the creature bouncing from window awning to branches, landing on the footpath with a kind of blunted grace.
It was then, did she realised that the cat had no tail, the appendage nowhere to be seen as a bald patch of snarled fur hung, still holding the sputtering of dark discolouration.
The woman sighed before pulling her head back in and taking in the mess left behind by the stray. A grumble tumbled from her lips as she shrugged off her coat and began reassembling her home. She scraped as much of the fallen soil back into the lily's pot as she could, the fridge already corrected and the window shut and was just about done as she set the pot back onto the windowsill, urging a lily to stay upright as she packed the mix again to support the shoots.
Silvestro hummed lowly and played with the tip of a healthy, green leaf that tipped toward her. She grasped it between her fingers and stroked the smooth surface with her thumb. A slight smile came to her face at the plant's resilience, knowing she didn't have the world's greatest green thumb and that her attentions sometimes bordered over-watering.
A mewl made her stop, dirt under her nails as she looked to the cracked glass and saw one, practically yellow eye staring back at her, watching her go about her work. Silvestro thinned her lips before turning and going back to cleaning up the mess it had made.
0 0 0
The Somali cat was there the next day, yowling at the window angrily, leaving the glass misted with its warm breath against the cold Winter. Its paws were damp with dew and snow, pelt dotted with flakes and it had puffed itself in attempts to keep warm.
Silvestro rubbed her temples as she stood in front of the window. The damn thing had begun its long-winded lecture at the crack of dawn. It was a Sunday, her only day off. She didn't want to be awake at 4am on a Sunday.
The mountainous woman stared blearily at the cat for a few more moments, listening to the rattling pipes of its throat exclaim its hatred for the outside world, before she groaned and opened the window. A blast of icy air hit her in an instant, and she felt bad for a creature for a moment before it knocked over her Peace Lilies and made her scramble to catch it, a growl bubbling in her throat as she set it right and slammed the pane shut.
"You're a God-damned pain, you know that?" She grumbled, turning to look at the feline who was grooming itself, already settled on her couch. "Made yourself at home, I see."
Silvestro grimaced a bit at the chill which slipped through the crack in the windowpane and pulled the curtains shut to block it out. She paused when the matted cat spun and looked at her faded red shades before giving warning grunt.
"Don't even think about it, you fuzzy bastard."
The cat turned its head and continued to knead her couch, it's one good eye continuing to observe her.
The ex-militant yawned widely before trudging back to her room, intent on getting more sleep, not one to go to church like the majority of her neighbours. Her sheets were invitingly warm as she climbed back into bed, pulling the wrapping around her as she nuzzled blindly into her pillow, quick to drift off-
The screams of a four-legged demon and the sound of a shattering plate made her roll onto her back and curse every gene in her body which dictated she be a socially driven creature.
0 0 0
She had bought him a bed. She had spent money on him. But he preferred to drag an empty cereal box under her bed and not come out for three hours.
Silvestro sighed and rubbed her face as she resignedly nudged the cat bed under the couch, still foolheartedly hoping that the creature would take a shine to it. Then perhaps he'd stop leaving dirt, and whatever else he dragged in, on her couch and in her sheets.
"What am I doing?" she grumbled, sitting down on her couch and getting at least several cat hairs woven into the fabric of her pants, never to be rid of again. "I'm treating this thing like it's mine. It's a stray!" The woman huffed and dropped her chin on her palm, staring off to the side of her radio unseeingly. "I should take it to the shelter..."
Just as she uttered this, the rusty old cat came prowling out of her room and wound around her feet, purring up a storm. The woman looked down at the creature who, just for a moment, seemed cute. Then it started to scream again, in a way she knew meant 'feed me!'.
Silvestro stared at him and his matted fur, a breeding ground for ticks, fleas and all other matter of mini-monsters. She scrunched her nose as the cat paused his circling, rough fur rubbing against her shins, and aggressively scratched at himself all over, kicking off a chunk of dirt onto her floor.
The mountainous woman stood and grabbed her keys and wallet before heading out, intent on visiting the old thornback, Miss Marino, who had seven cats around the corner. She knocked on the door and nodded down at the woman who cooed up at her. Miss Marino's eyesight had faded over the years, and Silvestro had a suspicion that she thought the ex-militant was still just fresh out of her teens.
"'Morning, Miss Marino," Silvestro grunted, rubbing her nape as the short lady squinted up at her happily. "Do you have a flea comb I could borrow? I've got this cat in my house and-"
"Oh, it's little Silvy!" Miss Marino interrupted happily, "You're looking so thin nowadays-" Silvestro was not thin. She was rather bulky. "-you need to eat! Tell your mother to feed you more!"
"...If you say so," she agreed slowly, though she hadn't seen Gessica Russ in… gosh, she really needed to get to sending her monthly letter. "But about that cat comb-"
"Of course I'll give it to you, sweety! I've hoarded those things for years. I keep losing them around the house with these blasted eyes of mine, they must be in the hundreds now," the thornback tutted, waving away the question. "But if you could do something for me? The window on the top floor's jammed somehow and I haven't been able to get it to close for days."
"Yeah, I can do that, no problem."
"Wonderful!"
The large Russ woman was quick to solve the window situation and pulled it shut on its frozen hinges, a kettle employed half-way through. She nodded in thanks as she was handed the cat flea comb and a tupperware container brimming with Carbonara.
"A tip for your new cat, my dear? Use a mild dish soap if you're hard up for a quick soap."
"Oh," Silvestro blinked, readily taking on that information. "Thank you. That's very helpful."
"Come back soon, Silvy! Mr. Kelp misses you!" Miss Marino waved, with said Mr. Kelp chewing on the leg of a table.
"Bye Miss Marino, I'll see you later."
The Russ woman returned home to find Ruggine rubbing himself on her carpet and gnawing on his shoulders. She grunted and thumped into her bathroom, setting the plug into place and spinning the taps on warm. As the water pipes rattled and the water began to rise, Silvestro walked to her kitchen and pulled out a bottle of dish soap.
The cat comb was on the kitchen table and its subject was sniffing it curiously, slapping the metal comb occasionally to see if there would be retaliation.
Silvestro stared. "Bath time."
The hulking cat looked up, single eye wide. He bolted.
"No, you need to take a bath and stop leaving your crusty shit all over the apartment!" she shouted, giving chase. Silvestro grabbed the feral creature out from under the couch and hung him by his nape as he yowled and hissed, hind legs kicking at her arm. "Oh hush, you'll feel better when you're not a little grease ball."
The rusty feline wriggled around until Silvestro squished him to her chest. He paused and just let himself be squashed, face folded up in fat folds.
"See? Not so bad," Silvestro huffed before crossing into the bathroom. She hooked her foot around the door and pulled it shut, so if the tales were true about bathing cats, he wouldn't be able to bolt and soak her apartment. "In you go."
The cat wiggled all the way into the water, and the moment his paws touched the warm, soapy liquid, a screech that could wake the bloody dead ripped through the bathroom.
"Calm down you feral thing," she scolded, before wincing as he sank his claws into her arm. The military woman bit her lip to keep down a hiss of petty pain and rile up the cat any more. She took a breath and mentally prepared herself before she grabbed a small bucket and poured water over the large cat's back.
The ex-militant grunted and grabbed the cat as it made a run for it, slipping around the sides of the bath. She pushed the creature back into the water and dumped a warm wave onto his head, trying to make as much ground as possible before he ran again.
"If I had another bloody arm..." Silvestro scowled, rubbing her hand over the cat's coat, both to steady him and dislodge any of the looser grime. "Stay still."
The creature howled as Silvestro got a lather going with the dish soap, claws and teeth sinking into her hand and arm. She grit her teeth and bore it until he pounced and made to leap.
"Don't you fucking-"
Shampoo bottles and the toothbrush cup fell from the shelf as the cat ran, splatting about the room like an especially soggy pinball.
"Cat please," she urged, bringing him back to the water where he yowled like it was the end of days.
Silvestro winced as the Somali scratched down her arm, soap getting into the shallow wound and stinging. She grumbled and squeezed more detergent onto the cat's fur, scrubbing across his matted hair until knots and tangles started coming undone around her fingers and clumps began to drop to the murky water.
"Calm down, little beast," Silvestro grunted, trying to keep her voice even as the creature whipped around and made to bite her hand, only for her to push his head out of the way and dump a bucket of water over him.
The woman frowned at the bucket's bottom, already seeing first and a disturbing amount of pests sticking to the bottom. She looked down at the cat that hissed and spluttered, likely having got soap in his mouth and shrivelling at the taste.
"Gotta refill," Silvestro warned him, this time not stopping the feline as it pounced out of the bath and violently zoomed around the bathroom, bouncing off the walls.
The ex-militant drained the bath and rinsed down the sides to get the thin layer of grime off the porcelain. She plugged up the drain and turned the taps to refill warm water. She hooked her hand and squished the sopping creature to her chest, soaking her shirt until he stopped struggling.
"Back in we go," she said lowly and laid him down into the water where he writhed free.
Silvestro snorted as the Somali stretched his back to stop his belly from touching the soapy water, face pulled back into his neck in repulsion, not wanting the detergent in his mouth again.
"Fussy bastard," Silvestro huffed, scooping up suds and disposing on them atop his head in a small tower, getting a look of horrified betrayal as the cat spun around. "Just a couple more times, bud, and you'll be free from this hellhole."
The creature hissed and swiped at her, but Silvestro got out of the way and glared, before lathering his hind legs with the detergent. She was careful, however, not to get much, if any at all, on the raw-looking stump that once housed his tail, nor did she nudge it too often.
Silvestro was chewing her lip and working her fingers through an especially stubborn clump of ticks and tar mixed together when the cat lashed out again, using her proximity against her and the power in his hind legs. The ex-militant woman shouted and covered her eye with her hand as he slipped and splatted about the bathroom, soaking her bath mats.
Silvestro grit her teeth when soap got into the cut and took her hand off only to let out a string of curses that would have her aunt Valentina faint onto her couch.
"Head wounds always bleed like fuck," she sneered, getting off her soaking knees and moving to the mirror above the sink, pausing when the cat got underfoot for a moment. She glared at her reflection with one eye, the other shut tight as her eyebrow bled down the right side of her face. "Always the right side. Always the right fucking side."
Silvestro ran the tap on hot and washed her hand until it went red before pressing a warm, damp towellet to her new cut. She frowned thunderously and she pat the wound and wiped the blood off her cheek.
"Doc's going to be so happy," she grumbled sarcastically, eyeing the extent of the problem before letting out a long sigh.
The sound of the drain gurgling made the woman turn and she shouted as the Somali dragged away the bath's plug, chain between his teeth and flung across the room in a show of defiance and revenge. She took a breath and let out a long growl from deep in her throat before turning back to the mirror.
Rifling through her medical kit in the cabinet, the woman pulled out a roll of medical tape and closed the wound on her head, muttering about unnecessary and dramatic bleeding. She frowned at her reflection, all beat up, before shaking her head and returning to the yowling demon who ripped at her toilet paper roll.
"You're nearly done, you bastard," she assured through gritted teeth, before lowering the creature back into the warm water. "Just soak there for a second, okay?"
Silvestro took a long breath, her chest swelling in a calming manner, before she looked about her bathroom. It was like a natural disaster had hit it, and a headache formed in the woman's temple as she thought about how she'd need to clean this up after she was done with the cat and her head.
"You are more trouble than you're worth," she sighed looking down at the rusty coloured creature that had become docile, floating like a wet mat in the water. "Oh, now you're happy to bathe!?"
The cat let out a happy noise, eyes closed in content as it soaked in the warm water, ears flickering now and then.
Silvestro groaned before spluttering and picked a cat hair off her tongue, making a face of discomfort. She eyed the creature that gave motor-esque purrs, the sound rumbling through the room like she had just revved up a Victa lawnmower from Australia.
"Just sit in there," she grumbled and began to pick up the fallen bottles around the place.
Silvestro had fixed the catastrophe if the bathroom and changed her damp shirt out for a dry one. She dabbed the cut splitting her right eyebrow with disinfectant and alcohol and held it shut with two thin strips of medical tape. She grumbled and the sound was joined by the little beastie's purring which she sent a sideways, half-hearted glare.
"Time to get out and dry off, tiny bastard," the woman declared and the cat gave her a withering look. He yowled and hissed as she lifted him out of the bath, but didn't lash out at her beyond a light swipe or pathetic kick. "Oh thank God. You've tired yourself out."
Silvestro lowered the rust coloured Somali onto a towel and wrapped him up the way Ms. Marino had told her to, the woman muttering 'cat burrito, cat burrito, cat burrito' under her breath as she prayed that he wouldn't bolt mid-tuck. The ex-militant let out a breath of relief as a pink nose poked out of the towel, mostly unperturbed by being wrestled into submission and swaddled.
"Good kitty," she praised and a weird, warbled chirping noise came from the bundle, making her snort.
The woman picked up the bundle and walked into the living room, squishing the cat to her chest securely. She hummed lightly as a blast of warm air hit her, the heater working and ready for the Somali to laze in front of as he had done nearly all Winter.
Silvestro sat cross-legged on the floor with the cat and used tissues to wipe at his eyes and ears, pulling rust coloured gunk from his eyes with nearly every swipe and clumps of earwax from his ears. She made a face when some got on her thumb and chucked the tainted tissues into the bin before sliding the cat across the wooden floor and settling him in front of the heater where his shivering finally reduced.
"Better?" she asked, unravelling the burrito and rubbing his coat gently, the Somali's eyes shut against the warm air and head tilted back. "I'll leave you to it then."
Silvestro stood warily, taking a step back and dropped down on the couch with an exhausted sigh. The woman looked at her arms and grimace, red, puffy scratches lining her flesh.
"Bastard boy," she swore, looking to the creature as it groomed itself, becoming increasingly fluffy as time went on, fur all puffed out and silky.
She sank into the couch, a nap seeming so very tempting even if the bath did need dehairing.
Then the doorbell rang, and Silvestro contemplated murder.
"Maybe if I just sit here, they'll leave," she murmured to herself.
The knock came again. Louder, more insistent.
Silvestro groaned and got to her feet again, stomping towards the door with a look of thunderous annoyance. She grunted and wrenched open her door; a short, blond man stood on the other side, dressed in a rather spiffy, pin-striped suit.
"...Can I help you?" Silvestro grit out, trying to keep her irritation to herself as she tilted her head to accommodate the short stature.
She saw his eyes linger on her scars and the medical tape on her brow. A frown settled on her face and she wanted this interaction to be over quickly.
"Um," the man jolted, eyes flickering to the inside of her apartment for a moment. "The… cat. I've come to retrieve the cat."
"Oh, is he yours?" Silvestro blinked, looking over her shoulder to the rusty Somali that was licking his leg, spreadeagle in front of the heater.
"Well, no," he admitted, a door opened down the hall. "He belongs to my employer - Look, can you just give me the cat? I can pay if it's so much trouble."
There was a loud, purposeful cough and they both turned to find the three old men, who gathered to play cards and dominos every afternoon, eyeing their interaction. They were looking at the suited man with an expression of distaste, muttering to one another.
"Everything okay, Silvestro?" one of them asked, arms crossed and intimidating despite barely reaching either of their shoulders.
"There's no problem, sir," the suited man denied, before turning back to the woman, who had begun to shift her body language to fit her rising suspicion.
"Who is your employer?" she asked, a severe frown settling onto her face.
"...I'm not obliged to say," he uttered, and Silvestro's ire rose.
"Then, I'm sorry, but I can't give you the cat," she grunted, "Not with a clear conscience. I'll hold onto him until your 'employer' is a bit more transparent."
Just as she said this, the very same rusty old cat came purring up to Silvestro, maximally fluffy. The cat rubbing his jaw against her shin and threaded through her legs, before snapping around and hissing at the man in the suit.
"...Looks like he's against going with you too," she huffed, cat sitting between her feet.
Four more doors opened around the hall and the man grit his teeth under the intensity for multiple eyes, each one scrutinising him and his expensive clothes.
"Look, lady, I just need the cat. If I don't take it now, someone else will," he seethed, speaking through clenched teeth.
Silvestro was unaffected, expression stern as a drill sergeant until the man huffed and stormed down the hall, the cat between her feet yowling after him as if to say 'good riddance!'
The Russ woman sighed and looked down to the creature, watching how he groomed himself. The Somali yawned before tilting his head back to see her too, and he made a couple slow blinks at the woman, his eye squinted in smug satisfaction.
"I feel like you're going to be more trouble than you're worth," Silvestro sighed, but only lent against her doorway. The Somali prowled the hall and a small group of children gathered to pet him, single mothers and tired fathers singing his praises as they finally got to sit down that day.
Silvestro scoffed and twitched her brow, feeling the tug of medical tape. 'Precious fur baby' indeed.