Stray Cat

Chapter Fourteen

As Phil entered the lobby of his apartment building, he heard a woman crying. He was standing by the elevator and he saw her there, sitting on the bottom step of the stairs. He recognized her by the dark curtain of hair that hid her face, but he was completely unfamiliar with the sounds coming out of her as her body shook with unmistakable sobs – Linda had never cried in front of him before.

Phil sat beside her on the stairs. He wanted to reach out to comfort her, but Linda didn't like touching so he held back. "Lin, it's me. What's wrong, sweetheart?"

She jumped, startled by his sudden presence at her side. "Phil! I didn't want you to see me like this."

He waited silently as she gained control of herself and dried her cheeks with her hands. When she was a bit more composed, he asked, "What happened?"

"I went upstairs to drop off your box, and I..." She finally looked up to meet his eyes with hrs. "What is that thing doing in your apartment?"

"Thing?" He tried to think of any offensive objects that he may have left lying around, but there was nothing.

Linda became annoyed as he didn't understand. "The thing! That cat thing. Why have you got one of those in your apartment? Why did it answer the door?"

"Are you talking about Dan?"

"I don't know its name! Why do you have a Neko in your home? How long did you wait after we broke up to buy that thing?"

He was too shocked to be offended, so he answered her simply, "I don't own Dan. He's just staying with me."

Linda stared at him, but then took a calming breath. "Okay, that makes sense. I should have known. You're not some kind of pervert who buys a sex slave the moment he's single. You're trusting and naïve."

Phil shrugged but didn't dispute the allegation – he had been described as both of these things before. "So, now that we've established that I'm not a pervert, was there anything else you wanted to say? Because I've had a long day and I—"

"Yes, there is something I want to say! Phil, you have to get rid of it." As he started to protest, she went on, louder. "You don't understand!"

"Then explain it to me," he said, though he didn't really want to hear it. He knew now that Linda was prejudiced against Dan. Thanks to his homophobic grandfather, Phil had experience talking to prejudiced people and had learned the hard way that there was no reasoning with them.

"I know what they're like. Please Phil, you have to be careful. That thing will ruin you. Just like... like my dad."

He forgot his annoyance at her continued refusal to use Dan's name or pronouns when she mentioned her father. All he knew about Linda's family was that her parents were divorced. Linda had kept him at a distance during their relationship, and he couldn't resist this glimpse of her personal life that she was now offering. "What happened to your dad?"

She swallowed convulsively and had to steady herself before continuing in a hoarse voice. "My parents... they broke up when I was in high school. I told you?" When he nodded she continued in a stronger voice. "What happened was that my dad met a Neko. She was a stripper working at a club, and he started seeing her outside of her work. My mom found out about it. Their friends and neighbors and family – people at my school and everyone found out about it. My mom wasn't just heartbroken. She was mortified. My dad was, too. After the divorce he started drinking and he lost his job, but he was still seeing that Neko slut and he spent the last of his savings on her. And then when the money ran out she left. My family lost everything because of those cat freaks."

Phil shook his head. "I don't know who this stripper was, but Dan had nothing to do with what happened to your family. You can't draw comparisons between the two."