Cat On A Hyacinth Hunt

Chapter 41

Louie Among the Hyacinth-Eaters

Catnip dreams weave in and out. I am a Chinese junk adrift on the Yangtze River.

Hyacinth petals float like soap slivers on the dark water, and death barges pass, skeletons at their oars and corpses for figureheads.

The cat head of the statue of Bastet turns slowly as I drift by, reclining on a petal-strewn deck.

Her eyes are the color of faience beads, both blue and green. Her fangs are capped with beaten gold. Blood drips from the tips. A wide Egyptian collar extends to her human breastbone.

She does not appear at all friendly to dudes who have had a little too much nip through no fault of their own, but then nobody much does.

I lurch upright and wander to the barge's edge. Water lilies, white and purple, float upon the river, and the low, wart-ridden forms of drowsing crocodiles crowd the shoreline bulrushes.

But I am not here and they are not they. The water lilies open to become bloated drowned faces, and the floating crocs are really human bodies that roll over among the reeds to reveal the face of... Effinger.

How would I know this dead dude's face, the astute among you might ask. A good question.

I never encountered him face-to-face. Even at his death, his features were veiled in bandages of gauze. He never assaulted me with his ugly mug.

However, his mug shot was flaunted before me more than once in Miss Temple Barr's and my former apartment. (This is not her former residence, mind you, and it is only not fully mine now, unofficially. Got that? I thought you would not.)

Who could blame me for being haunted by a dead body of Effinger's very sketchy acquaintance only a few days after witnessing its assumption back into the Land of the Living?

Especially after I have inhaled the deadly Panama Purple?

I know I am in a box, and a box devoid of any softening factor. I lie on wood with the smell of paint soaked into its every fiber. I suppose I should be thankful that no funereal upholstery lines my prison. On the other hand, I am not sure that a cat casket would be lined by anything grander than a hand towel.

Of course there are no facilities here. No food. Only darkness and the occasional hiss of voices heard through a keyhole of time. Perhaps I imagine the voices. Certainly I imagine much else, such as softly swirling movement, which would kill any appetite should I have it.

I cannot understand why anyone at the Opium Den would wish to keep me prisoner. Unless I am not a prisoner... but a slave.

Methinks the potent pussycat who goes by the name of Hyacinth is used to having her way with males of all species, a characteristic she no doubt learned from her rapacious mistress.

Am I captured to be a sort of plaything for this sharp-shivved feline femme fatale? Will I be expected to perform at her pounce and yowl? She is of Oriental persuasion, and I have heard of harems in the East. Of course, usually the harems are in the proper proportions: hundreds of lissome lovelies to one virile dude. But it is possible that these renegade ladies from Hong Kong have reversed the proper order of things, such as one finds among a few (thankfully) rare insects, where the female of the species bites the male's head off once the mating ritual is over.

I cannot blame these foreign females for coveting my unique masculine features, especially now that I am both "safe" and salacious, but I must be a free agent in these matters, not subject to some feminine whim. Why, if too much performance pressure is placed upon my delicate masculine psyche, I might even refuse to play ball.

What would they do then? Behead me?

Oops. I do believe that this is an ancient form of execution in the mysterious East and Near East.

Well, I will be ready when they storm my cage, planning to tear me from my refuge for unconsenting sessions of who-knows-what. I will fight tooth, nail and tail. They will get bad cases of whiplash trying to pin me down for their foul purposes.

If only I could get all four on the floor, clear my head and dredge up the energy to unsheath my claws. If only I could determine which side is the floor.

But the effects of the Panama Purple drag me deeper into uneasy dreams. Where is Miss Temple? She would defend me against these unnatural females of her species and mine. Has she found the message I left her? Interpreted it correctly? Come to save me from a horrid fate of forced enslavement to the most debased urges found on the planet?

Will I be forced to wear a metal collar and a nose ring? Fed soporific foods so that I become a passive tool of their warped desires? Kept in a kitty harness? My drugged imagination conjures the worst that might befall an alleycat who has been shanghaied into an alien world via an alien state.

The idea of breaking out of my box passes through my mind, but a strange lassitude has crept over all my limbs. I suddenly know what narcotic has been slipped into my nip: it is the dreaded date-rape drug. These imported females will stop at nothing to have their way with me!

Truly, this is a fate worse than death. Maybe.

On the other hand, it might be interesting.