Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls

CAT OWNER

I invited Eddie over for dinner as a first date. I am bad at dating, which is to say, I am bad at waiting for people to fall in love with me. What is the hold up? Where is the kink in the hose?

Tonight, I’ve prepared mashed sweet potatoes. I’m nervous because they look like the diarrhea of a clown.

When Eddie knocks, Baxter begins to growl. Baxter is my obese cat. His thyroid condition and back paw deformity prevent exercise. Baxter’s growl is low when he initially spies danger, then it gets very high if the offender does not flee. Your cat sounds like a Hank Williams song, an old boyfriend once said, but he said it while quickly leaving so it wasn’t a compliment they way it could’ve been.

Tonight when I open the door, Baxter slowly crawls over to Eddie’s foot and bites.

During dinner, Eddie tells me all about his job as a claims adjuster. I could care less. I don’t even eat because I’m planning on sex, and I don’t want any sloshing in my stomach or for my mouth to taste like food instead of sex. The tricky part about having sex at my apartment is Baxter, who watches on and growls while slowly crawling towards the bed, then slowly climbing up the woolly cat ramp he uses to get onto and off of the bed when I’m not home. Once he gets to the top, he approaches me and my partner and begins with the fangs. I’m so used to the biting that it doesn’t bother me any more, not even in really sensitive areas, but past partners have freaked out at Baxter’s intimidating 27 lb. figure and his sideways tongue combined with the biting and growling. I should note that by the time Baxter has finally reached the top of the bed he’s exhausted and his mouth is foamy. Maybe it has mad cow disease, an old fling once said, a one-night stand from the bowling alley. He’s not a cow, I replied, but the man was adamant, other things get it, goats and people and all kind of creatures, and when Baxter bit him the man sent me a bill for several expensive precautionary vaccinations he requested at the ER after leaving my apartment. Baxter kind of looks like the cat that’s printed on my checks, only much larger. My checks say, “WHAT’S WITH MONDAYS?” and the thin Baxter printed on them is very confused-looking. I sent the man the check for his medical expenses on a Saturday, specifically so he’d get it on a Monday, and maybe like the joke enough to get back with me. He might call one day.

“This gravy is awesome,” says Eddie. That’s good news. Awesome enough to sleep with me? I want to ask, although people who have the haircut I have and wear the beige vest I wear don’t say such things. My haircut looks like the wigs men don when they want to pretend they are living in the era of Shakespeare. The bangs are totally harsh. I have wanted to tell cashiers, Slit your wrists on my bangs, harlot!” when they are rude to me, especially when they give me an amused look as I’m buying prophylactics. I know what they’re thinking: that I have no use for them.

But I do. I’ve even moved Baxter’s on-ramp away from the bed in preparation. He will not bite Eddie again. I might but Baxter won’t.

Except after dinner, Eddie stands and thanks me for a lovely evening, and says how much he’s really enjoying getting to know me. He will not accept drink or dessert. Turns out that Eddie does not imbibe alcohol. That’s okay with me I guess, all the better for his sexual performance. Finally, I come out with it.

“I’d like you to spend the night,” I say. “If you’re afraid the cat will be an issue, don’t worry. I’ve planned around him. He will not be crawling up on the bed and biting you during intercourse.” I feel like showing Eddie my breasts. I want to show them to someone so badly; even lifting up my shirt in front of a stranger who makes an awful face afterwards would be okay, would be better than this covered feeling that I have.

But Eddie itches his neck and says things are moving a little fast for him. He’d like to call it a night. You’re a coward, Eddie, I want to say, but instead I follow him to the door and wrap my arms around his back as he continues walking out until finally he’s moving so fast that I can’t keep up and have to let go.

I put on my pajamas and call a pizza delivery service and ask if they’ll please bring the pizza to me in my bed. Now that I know I probably won’t be having sex, I’m famished. I make up a story for the pizza man about being injured and bed-ridden, and the weary order-taker finally agrees to bring it inside and deliver it right to me.

When the pizza man comes, I flirt but he is not a bait-taker. I craftily lift up the sheets, acting shocked when my breasts ‘accidentally’ expose themselves. But he exits the room before I have a chance to find my wallet. I get the pizza free of charge.

There’s a pulling sound, quiet but slow, and I turn to see Baxter’s ramp moving back towards the bed. He is scooting it using his wide forehead. He stops once to vomit but then starts again. It is the most exercise I have ever seen him get. When he finally reaches the top of the bed, his mouth is a white sea of foam. He appears to be smiling; he lumbers to the outer crust of the pizza and we both eat until we are satisfied.