The grey cat lies in the long grass, eyes wide, vacant, all unmoving. I twitched his tail to get his attention and eventually he deigned to look at me.

Ah Saffron, Saffron! Look! Listen! Would you love me now, here as I am?

In his paws a lightness, my lightness, in his scent, my own. And in pale pink he sees as I see, even though it is dark, all things, all wonders, in the warm spectrum of infra red. His whiskers twitch with feeling, his and mine – ours! Yes precisely! With ears attuned we hear the silence shifting, know the mole, the vole, the little fledgling; the taste and tear of soft birdskin.

So Saffron, Saffron tell me tell me, would you, could you, let me love you as I am?

………………

I rise but he lies, I walk stiff legged while he stays, surprised but not showing it. For him I pad and yawn and stretch, and leave my mark, my subtle scent, which indicates the ways I’ve been.

Then onto, into, unto, out to, bold Bast’s broad, brilliant moonlight with tail held high magnificently.

Now you’ll see me. Then you won’t. Grey I am and grey shadows I become, grey as the evening with moonlight’s gleam, bright across midnight’s air, sharp with feline guile and precision.

By my fur Saffron! By my whiskers! How do you, what do you, think I am?

There is nothing quite like it I can assure you, nothing at all quite like being a cat.

And we have a tryst you know – you and me, up there where many strangers warm chimneys smoke, where daytime’s bird clamour, now stilled, makes raucous the sunlight. A tryst yes, did you not know it? Did you perhaps think you might find a way of evading me?

………………

Now in leaping I am lighter, soundless, sleekly slimmer, a shadow always aware that nonesuch can exist until moonlight invites, proud, cocky, animated across to the rooftops highest point.

You’d think more I reckon – believe more I’d say, if you just let go, if you’d only shake off, shrug off, your preconceptions. Then you’ll be the Ginger One with the pale stripes and a little white bib. And dear Saffron, my dearest Saffron, how I love the shape and the shimmer of your broadly banded tail.

Let us meet at the chimney’s corner, it is very warm there and out of the wind. You know and I know we’ll always go for comfort and no doubt you’ll appreciate some small foreplay? Perhaps a captured mouse then, for you to play with. No bother dear, I have it ready! And no doubt you think too little of your fragrance? Saffron my sweet. I can scent you five miles away. It shimmers poetically, like warm milk and kippers, like a shady hayloft on a hot summer’s day. Romantic too when through it runs the possibility, the chance at last of blending your erotic ginger with my more sombre, staid grey.

………………

At the parapet I wait, surveying and in a moment find the setting, by my whiskers, most pleasing for the time of night. I scratch and twitch, knowing you are near. I bend to lick and you cannot escape! Let me run a claw along your belly, my rough tongue across your lips. From afar I’ve known already, felt already, your heat, your heart’s beat and the way you’ll crouch and acquiesce.

…………………

Distantly the evening dies as moonlight brightens. It will be colder later maybe.

Shadows shift and warmth rises, shimmering pinkly, a curtain of heat.

At the verge you pause, paws patient, senses enriched. There are other smells and sounds aplenty to savour, other Toms perhaps, perhaps.

You wash one shoulder, then the other, and pause to think about how it might have been. Marmalade was my mate as well as yours, once, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he? Yet look what happened to him in one moment’s distraction. His kits all drowned and he was flattened and that my dear was the end of him. Yes it’s true I knew him well! Yes, on many a night we did carouse, but you know sweet Saffron in the end it all, it all comes down to this. I’ve loved you from afar for nights without number. Dark nights, cold nights and lonely ones. On bare rooftops and in stinking streets. Alone! Until Paws my page who carries my message brought back with him the scent of you.

I know it now, recognise it, it is unmistakable!

So Saffron come lift, present, I know you are ready. Let me bite your scruff tightly! Merroww! By my tail and whiskers I am wanting you, wanting you, wanting you!!

© Aahlu. Lammas 2010.

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