Disclaimer: This is a prequel or backstory for an upcoming book. The character name(s) or other details may change from this short as the details of the novel solidify.
The soft mewling of a cat in distress caught Susan’s ear, and she stood, leaving her freshly poured coffee on the counter, unsipped.
She went to her back door and pushed it open. She listened, hoping to hear the meow again. Susan was about to give up when the tiny plaintive cry came from her left, drawing her eye. There in the shadows sat a small black cat.
Susan stepped out onto her porch, fully expecting the cat—or was it a kitten it was so small?—to bolt. When it didn’t, she slowly inched her way toward it. Kneeling a few feet away, she clucked her tongue and said, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
The cat took a tentative step closer before backing away.
Susan tried again. And again.
Eventually, the cat came close enough for Susan to rub it under the chin. The cat immediately burst into a loud purring and twined itself around Susan’s legs. Susan rubbed it’s back, and the cat stopped to put its paws on Susan’s thighs. “You’re such a pretty thing,” Susan said, her praise just one of the many inane things she’d voiced since finding the cat in her yard. “You want to come in?”
The cat meowed and moved to the back door.
Standing, Susan’s lips quirked in a wry smile. It would seem Susan had been adopted.
Susan followed after the cat and let it into her house. “If you plan to stay,” she told the cat. “We’ll need to take you to the vet. Get you spayed or neutered.”
A meow acknowledged her statement.
“Good. Glad, we are in agreement.” After a pause, where Susan returned to her now cold cup of coffee, Susan said, “But what do I do with you while I’m at work?” She didn’t have a litter box and no cat food. She glanced at the clock and slammed her cup down. If she didn’t leave now, she’d be late!
Susan glanced at the cat and the clock again. She could put the cat in the bathroom. If it made a mess in there, it would be easy to clean up, and while on her lunch break, she could pop into the closest pet shop to buy a few things for her new fuzzy friend.
Stooping, Susan scooped up the cat and hustled to the bathroom. “Sorry, baby,” she murmured to it soothingly. “You have to stay here while I’m gone.” She set it down. “Don’t make a mess, okay?”
The cat meowed in response.
Nodding to herself, Susan backed from the small room and closed the door. She hoped the cat would be okay. It hadn’t felt starved when she’d pet it, so she hoped that meant it could last a few hours more before it ate.
Susan hustled down the hall, grabbed her keys and purse and left the house for work.
***
Kicking her front door close, Susan yelled, “I’m home!”
A soft mewl greeted her pronouncement and Susan smiled. The cat still lived!
“I got you a vet appointment,” she told the cat as she dropped her purse and keys in the bucket next to the door. “Ready to have your balls cut off or your uterus removed?”
Another meow.
“Good!” Susan said, deciding to take the noise as assent.
She shifted the plastic bag in her hand and went down the hall to the bathroom. “I got you a box and some food. You hungry?”
The cat meowed and pawed at the door in reply.
Opening the door, Susan took stock of the room and felt a moment of dismay. The toilet paper was unrolled, chewed into bits, and strewn across the room. Right in the middle of the pile was a cat turd and yellow paper. Susan shrugged. What had she expected? The poor thing to make it all day? At least the cat had defecated on toilet paper and not on the rug. It did only do it there, right? she thought and did a second cursory glance in the room. She didn’t see any other spots of waste. Good!
The cat purred and rubbed against her leg. Susan set down her bags and patted the cat on the head. After a few moments of love, Susan cleaned up the mess and set up the box for the cat. Finished with that task, she led the cat to the kitchen, where she filled a new bowl with food and another with water. While the cat ate, she fished out the cat carrier she also bought. When the cat stopped eating, Susan scooped it up and cuddled it a moment before putting it in the carrier. Once secure, the duo headed to Susan’s car for the cat’s first checkup.
***
“Susan?” Karry the vet technician called. “This way.”
Susan nodded and picked the carrier up so she could follow Karry.
“So what’s your kittie’s name?”
“Doesn’t have one yet,” Susan replied. She’d held off naming the thing until she knew for sure if it was a boy or girl.
“I see,” Karry said. “You just get it?”
“Yes. This morning. It’s a stray.”
“Ah,” Karry responded as she pushed open an exam room door. “I guess you’re planning on keeping it?”
“Sure. Seems friendly enough, so why not? I always wanted a cat.”
Karry smiled. “Well let’s get ‘lucky to have a forever home’ cat out of that carrier and take a look.”
Susan nodded and set the carrier on the table. She popped the door open and the little cat stuck its nose out the door. Karry reached in and pulled the cat from the carrier’s confines.
“Uh oh,” Karry murmured as she rubbed its belly.
The hair on Susan’s neck lifted at the tone and her heart took an extra beat. “What?”
“Just a moment,” Karry said as she began rubbing all around the cat’s midsection.
Thoughts of worms or twisted bowels came to mind and Susan’s heart felt heavy. Would she pay to save the cat if Karry said whatever was wrong was life threatening? The little black cat looked at her and meowed plaintively. Yep, Susan thought. She would. She was already too attached.
After a few more moments and several awkward appearing tasks later, Karry looked at her and said, “Wait here while I get Dr. Diedrich.”
“Okay,” Susan said nodding. Her shoulders relaxed. If Karry hadn’t said anything else besides the initial “uh oh” didn’t that mean the kitty was okay?
After an eternity of waiting, which probably was only ten minutes or so, she hadn’t checked the clock on her cell phone, Dr. Diedrich came in. The short, heavyset man hoisted himself up on a chair and took a quick look at the cat. “Karry says the cat is a stray?”
“Yes,” Susan agreed, nodding. “I found it this morning in my yard.”
Dr. Diedrich glanced at her with a frown. “You should know, there are several options going forward—”
“—Wait, what’s wrong with it?”
Dr. Diedrich’s eyes widened. “I thought Karry told you. The cat is pregnant….”
Her mind latched onto the word “pregnant” and she hadn’t heard the rest of what Dr. Diedrich had said. Susan shook her head. “I’m sorry. Repeat that?”
“She is pregnant and by our palpitations, she is probably halfway in the process. You have a few options. You can have her spayed now, which would abort her kittens, let her deliver and spay her afterward. You could also take her to a shelter and let them handle it, or release her back where you found her.”
Susan was already shaking her head. It was a no-brainer. She replied instantly. “I’ll keep her. Let her have the kittens and spay immediately after.”
Dr. Diedrich nodded. “I hoped you’d say that. I don’t like aborting kittens if I can help it.” He cleared his throat. “You have a few options from here. I’d like to do an ultrasound to see how many young she carries and if they are healthy, but it is an unnecessary procedure.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred.”
Susan swallowed hard. She had the cash but hadn’t planned on spending that much today. “And doing this procedure would be beneficial?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“If nothing else, it lets you know how many kits to expect.”
Susan thought about it for a moment. It would be nice to know. She could work on getting homes for them ahead of time. She rubbed the cat’s head and chucked it under the chin. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Dr. Diedrich nodded again and pushed himself to his feet. “Give us a few minutes to get ready and we’ll get your cat right in.”
“All right.”
***
Fifteen days after Bast’s vet appointment, Susan woke to frantic panting and licking noises. Susan followed the sounds to her tub where she found Bast lying on a towel she’d dragged off the rack and placed in the tub.
“Oh,” Susan exclaimed realizing Bast was in labor. She ran to her cell phone and called in sick at work. Hanging in up, she hit the browser icon and looked up the instructions Dr. Diedrich had directed her to download. Finding them in her online documents, Susan then spent the next several hours tending to Bast as she gave birth.
“Good job, Bast,” Susan praised. Bast mewled and panted, and Susan rubbed Bast under the chin. Bast purred, but after a few pets, she forewent more love from Susan and instead began licking and nudging her brood closer to her nipples so they could feed. Susan sat back on her heels and watched as Bast proved herself a capable mom. Susan was about to leave the small family when she notices Bast panting and squealing more.
Susan lifted an eyebrow. Dr. Diedrich had said there were only six kittens, but here Bast was acting like she was about to deliver another kit.
Settling back down, Susan decided to wait. Maybe Bast was about to expel more afterbirth and not another kitten, but just in case, Susan didn’t want to go anywhere. As the minutes passed, it became clear, Bast had something wrong. Susan knelt and took a look. “Sorry, Bast,” she said as she lifted the cat’s leg. Sure enough, Bast’s back end pulsed as if she were pushing out another kitten.
Time slowed to an agonizing pace, but finally, a soft pink toe pad made itself visible. Leaning back over the edge of the tub, Susan spoke encouraging words to Bast and massaged the kitten’s foot from Bast’s body.
Something wasn’t right. The paw didn’t look anything like a paw. It looked like…
“A foot!” Susan yelled, startling Bast and her kittens. Susan took a moment to pet them all before returning to the tiny humanoid shaped foot attached to a small leg. Susan slid her fingers along the leg and found the second foot. She eased it out. “What the…” she murmured. This couldn’t be real. She had to be seeing things!
The creature being birthed had two legs. Two human shaped legs!
She gave the feet a tug, careful not to pull hard or too fast. Both of which could hurt the “kitten” or Bast. As the legs pulled free, Susan saw knees. Human knees. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” The legs ended at the creature’s hips, where it was evident Susan held a female. The vagina looked exactly like what you would expect from a human infant.
Susan pulled some more and a belly emerged, then a chest, and finally, a neck. Susan braced her fingers around the creature to support it as Bast gave a mighty push and expelled the thing from her body once and for all.
She set the creature down and Bast immediately went to work on the sack coating the creature’s hair and limbs revealing soft brown hair with black splotches as if the creature’s scalp were a tortoise shell pelt.
Bast’s tongue cleaned ears that looked like a cross between a cat and a human. The tops were pointy.
“Reminds me of an elf,” Susan muttered, thinking of all the fantasy movies she’d seen. She shook her head. Now her life was a fantasy movie.
The creature whimpered, and Bast licked its cheeks and eyelids.
When Bast reached the umbilical cord, Susan stopped her. “What is that thing?” she wondered aloud. That was when the creature let loose with a very human sounding cry. Bast had given birth to a tiny, fully formed human.
Susan crossed herself.
“Now what?”
Author Notes:
I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting my new protagonist and her two mothers.
The novel where she makes an appearance as an adult is set in the world and story line of Nadine, an erotic novella you can find on Amazon. You will probably get to meet her fathers who have a direct connection to Angel the main male character in Nadine. And if you’ve read Nadine, you’ve already met her future boyfriends.
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