A fingerbang from the Hooved One.

Wow, there goes my "PG-13" rating.

It's been twenty-six days since a writhing four-inch vestigial organ was delicately removed from the reeking morass that is my innard cavity, and I'm slowly but surely on the mend. As of yet, I'm not spry enough to resume my night job of stomping on the throats of those little kids in the mall who wear those ridiculous skate-shoes, but I'm back to my day job, which is only slightly different [making bewildered international students weep in my office after they've ruined their visa statuses]. All told, this past March felt rather like a rough, lubleless ride on Satan's filthy phalanges.

To make matters worse, Balthazar - the proclaimed "meatloaf with ears" himself - has continued displaying a disturbing behavior which Keith and I had prayed fervently was merely symptomatic of his blossoming pubescence. Its continuation serves little purpose other than to illustrate to us that there is, indeed, the seed of evil walking among us on tiny padded feet.

When Balthazar was a kitten/larva, we provided him with all of the toys he could possibly have ever wanted. Other than milk-jug rings, though, he really had no use for any of them - except for a fairly realistically designed squid plush toy I'd procured in Newport, Rhode Island, in college. He snuggled up to the squid and would oft be found nestled into its maroon tentacles, completely unconscious.


Aww, precious, right? Two of God's creatures that would have never had a chance to meet, spooning on my bed.

A year and a half later

[phone rings]

Dom: Hey, what's up?
Keith: Not much. Hey, uh...your cat....
D: Jesus God, what's wrong with him now?
K: Well...
D: Is he OK?
K: Well, he's...fecking his toy squid.
D: No he's not.
K: Yes, he is.

[faint sound of purring and the squid's hard plastic eye rapping rhythmically against the hardwood floor]

D: Wait: didn't I have him neutered?
K: I don't know what to tell you. Oh wait, yes I do: your cat is making passionate love with a stuffed cephalopod.

For quite some time, I was fairly convinced that what Keith had seen was Balthazar playing with the squid in an unorthodox way. The alternative - that my impish baby boy was planting his bifurcated petie in his long-cherished kittenhood best friend - was simply not something I wanted to entertain.

That was, until I beheld it myself.


I'd wondered why Mr. Squid's swimfins had been torn free of the maroon fuzz and why his mantle had been pressed so flat. Turns out that

my cat had been fecking him to death

by savaging his fins to "hold on" while simultaneously kneading his formerly cylindrical mantle into oblivion.

I tell you: I am nearly misty with pride. Not only is my neutered cat punching his little pink one onto/into God only knows what in our home, but he is also deeply entrenched into a fetish that, when invoked even in conversation, rather makes me want to never have sex again.

"Well, at least it's not your leg," a friend quipped recently. This is true. However, coming home to find a stuffed squid splayed out in post-coital disarray and hosed down with what I have to assume is feline Cowper's juice and saliva, his hard plastic eye turned to me in silent accusation and bitter lamentation, I have to wonder: should I take it away from him? I am fully aware that, as a limber felid, he has alternative - yet more orthodox - ways of releasing a little steam. Whither, then, the cephalopod? Do I allow my cat one of the few pleasures a housebound pet can have - a pleasure which, while horrid, doesn't really harm anyone but a six-year-old squid toy? Or, should I respect the squid's wishes to not be banged into shreds by a bored twelve-pound neutered housecat?

Before you judge him - and, by proxy, me - I ask that you behold the mark that lies upon this furry wretch's flank:




Conclusion: Balthazar has no choice but to savage any living thing that comes into his strike range, rendering flesh into shreds of tissue and gore. He has no choice but to awaken his daddies at 6 AM on a Saturday by mowling until, bleary and incensed, they stagger forth to pay attention to him. He has no choice but to produce volutes of stench via his catbox, which has been classified as a Type 4 Biohazardous Waste Site by the UN. And finally, he has no choice but to relentlessly shag a stuffed squid into the ground.

He's got the mark.

He does what he wants.

Until later, I remain,

Domonic (mysonhascomeoutoftheclosetasaplushie) Potorti