Glimpses

Work was slow. It often was in the computer industry- Edie knew quite well how maintenance ended up being either hysterical scrambling in desperation, or utter boredom. She had no priority design work to do, was bored with Quake Eternal (as Maggie trounced her regularly- the tiny Siamese turned into a terrifyingly cunning predator on the virtual playing fields), and was even bored with Auger In, as she'd just spent four hours teaching a delighted Maggie and Arthur how to sideslip violently enough to get into the giant sewer systems, and how to read the direction signs inside it to avoid flying into a dead-end and crashing.

And so, bored out of her restless feline mind, and edgy with the first hints of a wave of estrus to deal with, she began to take Maggie into her confidence, in such a roundabout way that the little Siamese was totally perplexed, at first, over what Edie was trying to reveal.

"Does David keep secrets?" blinked Maggie. "Not that I know of. He's actually quite honest and reliable. I mean, he is a little quiet, but that's just him. If you got to know him, maybe he would open up to you more. Don't worry, he's a yowler not a grunter, you don't have what he wants in a lover..."

Edie headed the smaller catgirl off at the pass. "No, no! I meant, if I confided in him, would he have told everyone, or would he keep it to himself?"

Maggie hardly hesitated. "Hmmm! Well, you can't tease me like that- what did you confide?"

Edie went silent, and the little Siamese waited unperturbed, then coaxed, "I'll keep secrets if they are important. I just don't keep any of my own, dear."

"I'm all right," said Edie. "It's just hard to start talking about this." She glanced around as if to spot secret listening devices, and went on. "You know about how I am EI?"

"Yes, but that's not a secret. Is it that you've finally taken up with Walter? Is that your secret?"

"That's my problem," purred Edie wearily. "I only told this to David. I guess I'll just tell you, because I certainly don't know what to do. Do you know what slumming is?"

Maggie listened, fascinated, as Edie went on, and didn't even try to interrupt as the silver catgirl, sitting pertly and looking utterly proper, told of sneaking off to secretly meet with lovers down by the docks- of playing with wolf-pack biker gangs and 'pulling the train', of the terrible strain of maintaining a double life and the irresistible lure of that wilder side... and by the time Edie was done, the tiny Siamese looked faintly stunned, even though she tried to hide it.

Finally, she spoke. "You've lived some stuff I've only play-acted. What is it like?"

"It's very tiring," answered Edie.

"But I don't understand why you're telling me all this. I don't understand why you hide it like you do. You have to be yourself, after all. Are you ashamed?" inquired Maggie, puzzledly.

"Very much!" admitted Edie. "I'm having a really hard time getting used to this place! My shame made sense where I came from. It protected me, but I'm not there any longer- and I can't let go of it. And I'm coming into heat again, which is going to be torture because I don't have docks to sneak down to this time. I don't know the bad people here, I only know good people, and they scare me."

Maggie's ear flicked, and several conflicting expressions crowded onto her face. "You don't seem scared by me. Does that mean I'm bad people? I don't think I'll buy that."

Edie hastened to explain as best she could. "You're like me! I could see you doing what I've done. You say you've play-acted it. At any rate, you can understand why heat's driven me to do these things. Can you understand that I liked it, even though it was bad?"

Maggie mrowled softly. "Oh, that's not a mystery! Someday you ought to tell me bedtime stories if I am frustrated and want to masturbate- you have some real rousers, honey. I can understand you liking it. I don't understand why that's bad. You did suggest that the world you grew up in was more repressed than the one I grew up in. I guess you believed it? And does all this explain why you won't do the sensible thing and sleep with Walter?"

Edie was taken aback. "I thought you were jealous of me about that."

Maggie smirked merrily. "Maybe I can hold your paw and watch and listen sometime."

"No!" protested Edie, becoming upset, and Maggie seized on the reaction at once. "And why not, silly kitten?"

Edie tried to regain control, with some success. "You know, it's a funny thing," she managed, "but you could fit in both worlds..."

"Exactly! I am a cat, more specifically a totemized person with Siamese cat derivation. As such, I can fit in both worlds, and you know it, and I love it. I can go from being the center of attention in a rousing orgy, to talking over tea with Peter or the most polite people imaginable, without ever feeling out of place. That's my birthright as a cat, damn it, and I'd like to know why you can't?"

Edie shrugged weakly, rather overwhelmed by the passion of the smaller feline. "I don't know how to explain it to you. I can, but they mustn't connect in any way. It's sort of complicated..."

"Well," said Maggie, "I guess I can figure some of that out. In fact, I bet I can tell you some of the things that are bothering you. Walter is one of them. He's about as far from your wolfpacks as you could possibly imagine..."

"That's right," nodded Edie, "and I can't easily picture him accepting that about me."

"Oh, honey, you aren't being fair to him!" protested the little Siamese. "Take it from an old flame of his, okay? I still miss him. I tormented you once with the things I miss about his body, and I'm sorry about that, but I've come to know and like you a lot better since then, and I'd want him to be happy and you to be happy. And I have to tell you, you'll never find a kinder, sweeter, more forgiving and compassionate..."

She broke off, in consternation, staring at Edie. Edie realised she was making a face, and composed herself, but too late. Maggie's eyes narrowed, and she inquired pointedly, "Why are you looking like you just tasted something bad?"

Edie's face twisted, and her eyes filled with tears. She felt as helpless as a tiny kitten, with her last secrets being stripped from her, and simply explained, "Because that's a horrible turnoff. But I still love him. Can you help?"

Maggie was left speechless for a while, and then shook her head in amazement. "Maybe you'd better explain yourself a little more. Don't worry, I won't bite you. Unless you ask very nicely," she teased, and it seemed to bring Edie out of her shell a little bit.

"I'm glad you fit in both worlds," said Edie, wiping a tear away, "maybe you can help somehow. I don't know what to do. I'm in love with him, but I'm in lust with his body, and I can't make the two meet, and he's not helping at all..."

"He wouldn't," added Maggie. "From what I hear, he's being sickeningly virtuous."

Edie nodded fiercely. "And I just can't stand it! He's being all the wrong sort of person to drag off and screw, and I don't know how to do the normal person thing. Dating, introducing him to the parents, arranging a little wedding with me all decked out in white and looking like butter wouldn't melt in my..."

"I get the picture," giggled Maggie. "Wooo! You have more in common with me than I thought! But aren't you a little old for bringing the wuf boyfriend home to Mommy? Surely you're a free agent now? Help me out, I have a hard time understanding this part. I grew up in a polyfamily and my Daddy held my paw while I had my first lover, so I wouldn't be frightened. I learned from watching him and Mom and sometimes Aunt Janine too. I guess that is a little different from what you're used to."

Edie blinked. "You could say that. Actually, what I did was bury myself in computer programming. My parents worried that I wasn't dating, but eventually they said that if I wanted to be a computer nun that was my business. They didn't know about the docks, of course."

"That would have been something to watch." remarked Maggie wickedly.

"Or listen to." answered Edie, with matching playful wickedness.

"So how do we get Walter down by those docks for you?" inquired Maggie, and Edie's face fell.

"I don't think you can. Can you? He's just not right. Oh, he's wonderful," added Edie hastily, seeing Maggie getting cantankerous again, "but how can I explain it? Maybe I'm too old to change. All those years, I slummed, and I don't know if I can be with a good person now. They just don't connect, I can't accept that from somebody I'm being friends with. My lovers have to be scary people... It's like I'm addicted to that primal edge, the risk and danger of it. How can you understand if you haven't been there? Your big troublemaker here is Rick, and all he does is screw around like mad. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be seized, scruffed, taken like an animal when you're in heat and feeling like one anyhow? Feeling dozens of hungry eyes devouring the sight of you as you writhe in orgasm? Do you know what it's like to be fought over, wolves with switchblades fighting for rights to your body? I knew I'd be losing that when I signed up for Aquarius, but I was ready for the change. I saw what happened to some of the others... do you know what a 'mama' is? That's what I would be when my looks faded and I wasn't worth fighting over anymore- I'd be just following those rough boys around begging for more rough treatment, and they'd be less and less excited about it, and eventually I'd be nothing and it would all be over. Well, I had the computer side of things, and I just jumped- I left my biker boys behind while they still longed for me and fought over me, and I came here, so I could at least earn money and be socially acceptable."

Edie's face twisted, as she was utterly caught up in what she was saying. "And now, you expect me to be turned on by a nice wolf Boy Scout? Oh, hell... I'm too damn outlaw at heart to go for that! His body makes me weak in the knees, every now and then I get a spark of fire out of him, but is there anybody here who compares to what I used to have? It's either Boy Scout niceness, or totally empty group-sex where nobody really cares who does what or who! Do you know how unimpressive that can seem after you've been a prize in a duel to the death, and a snarling ragged wolf has killed his rival to win you- and then claimed his prize right then and there?"

Maggie had bristled at this diatribe, but as it went on the Siamese looked more and more stunned at the revelations- yet she did not flinch or condemn. She held Edie's gaze, unwaveringly, and eventually it was Edie who looked down and sagged a little. Maggie continued to stare with frank feline curiosity at the silver catgirl, who, after her outburst, looked shamefaced and surprisingly adolescent.

Finally, Maggie spoke, with a quiet certainty in her voice. "Edie, you have left that behind now. You said that if you'd stayed, you'd have lost the glamour of it, and I believe that. Here, things are more civilised, and the civilised part of you can find a home. If you can't be turned on by civilised things, that's just too bad and you're going to have to grow up. I think, what with the EI and all, you're going to have to settle for a nice guy for a lover, because, my dear, Peter doesn't hire violent punks, and the oppies aren't like that either."

"If it helps," added Maggie more gently, "I can sympathise. I know a lot of people, and so does Rick, who like play-acting all that sort of thing. It must seem awfully tame, but at least there are people to understand you here."

"You'll just have to settle for the more civilised pleasures. It's really not so bad. What choice do you have?"

Several thousand miles away, a man turned down a path in well-sculpted artifical woods, and followed patches of green spray paint rudely emblazoned on the finely cultivated tree trunks. He stepped carefully, wary of twisting his ankle, because the imitation forest floor was torn and rutted by tire tracks. He arrived at a sculpted hillside, and banged on a section of artificial rock which served as a door- and the rock opened, revealing a cavernous space, cold, smelling of industrial steel- and also of grease, exhaust fumes, sweat, beer, and vomit. There was a fire built in the middle of the bare floor, and the man approached it, catching the attention of a wolf wearing an unrecognizable scrap of denim vest and urinating into the fire.

"Hey, you got any more of that crank I got from you the other day?"

The wolf yawned, revealing an impressive set of sharp but rotting teeth. "You got the money? Good shit, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was really good. Makes up for how this cruise sucks."

"Your problem, Robert, is that you're a goddamn whiner." proclaimed the wolf. "Have a beer, and shut the fuck up about your whining. What, did some girl spit in your face again?" He guffawed crudely and grabbed another beer from an untidy pile by the fire.

"Oh, man, you should have seen her. A cat, okay? Pure cat, right down to the body and legs..."

"No tits?" asked the wolf. "All covered with mange, a kink in the tail? That's your type." He guffawed again.

"No, man, you should have seen her. Little, like less than five feet tall, and this shimmering silver color, and she moved like liquid magic... I bet she's a complete animal in bed..."

The wolf considered this, with a hiccup. "Well, now, drunk as I am and will be, I must say that your story sounds appealing. In fact, I had one like that once, and your pansy ass would never be able to handle a little fireball like this one I had. She'd pinch your floppy dick off, Robert." He guffawed coarsely again and whacked the man on the back. "What'd she do, scratch your nose? Wuss."

The man laughed weakly, knowing he dared not be offended with the other wolves around. "I mistook her sash, thought she was red sash to play with."

"What fuckin' difference does that make?"

The man shrugged. "Well, next time, maybe I can point her out to you, how's that? She had some pretty tough-looking friends."

"I," proclaimed the wolf drunkenly, "have some tough friends too, and we'll take anybody down, you know that. Hell, if she's anything like the one I had, I'll take her myself, and you can get in the damn line!" He guffawed.

The man was growing tired of being laughed at, and dared to ask, "If she was so great why'd you lose her?"

The wolf took a long pull at his beer. "Just disappeared one day. Damndest thing. And goddamnit, it was just after the most amazing performance she put on for me. I had that lil' pussy shrieking like an alleycat taking a Clydesdale, man, she kept fainting, and I never felt such clampings in all my damn life. I was in love, man, just blown away, and she just ups and disappears. What can you do? There's always others. But I tell you, Rob my man, if you get the chance at one like that, you take it, understand what I'm sayin'? Now, we gotta get you your crank, if you got the money."

"Yeah, I hear you. And you know I got the money, you guys have the best shit. I don't know what I'd do without ya, Chuck."

"Same as you do with me. Talk a lot, and get no action!"

Chuck guffawed again, and headed off towards his ratty old tent, followed by his customer.