Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

She bent to lift the sofa skirt. Three dust bunnies, a lipstick and a TV schedule from . . . four months ago. Uh-oh, hadn't been cleaning like a whirling dervish lately.

Temple huffed back to her feet. "Where are they?"

"Try the patio," a deep voice suggested in a silky purr.

Temple glanced suspiciously at Louie. He could talk now? Boy, was she in trouble!

No, Louie could not talk now, or ever.

Temple realized that the sun had passed behind a cloud; the bright day beating at her open French doors had suddenly dimmed.

She looked up.

A silhouette filled the door frame, from bottom almost to the top.

''Do you mean these?" the same voice asked, not Louie's at all, but not unfamiliar at all either, now that it was at close range.

Midnight Louie wasn't the only one who had deigned to come back.

Into the living room, wearing aviator-style mirror shades and a Hawaiian shirt, walked Max Kinsella, holding out Temple's misplaced sunglasses.

Tailpiece:

Midnight Louie Washes His Paws

Ordinarily, I have the last word. (Or the next-to-last word. My I overeager "editor" insists on exerting her "topping" privileges.)

For the first time, however, I have virtually nothing to communicate.

I am naturally, dear readers, as shocked and startled as you by the terminal turn of events to this latest adventure of mine.

I have no idea why this Max character has chosen to reappear, or why he should be allowed to do it when I am the Hero of the Hour and having a nice private pet with my devoted roommate. Miss Temple Barr.

As for Mr. Max KInsella's chosen attire, I can only say that I am shocked to my soul by the tackiness of his ensemble. I had hoped that Miss Temple had better taste than that. Hawaiian shirts belong on Hawaiians, and that is all, unless they suit for cleaning rags.

I have always found an elegant, understated look sufficient in my own attire, to the point where I am accused of wearing a "uniform." You will not catch me bounding about in day-glo collars (an odious invention to begin with).

As for the impact on this sudden return on the lives and times of those around me, I cannot bear to speculate.

It has been brought home to me (excuse the expression) during my ramblings recently that relationships are less easy to sever than one might think. I find myself now caught in the common Yuppie trap. In my middle years, when I should be enjoying the fruits of my labor by resting as much as I can, I am pincered between the needs and wants of two generations that of my forebear father and my apparent sprightly offspring. As for my vaunted sire, I do not consider Three O'Clock Louie too obnoxious a parent, as long as he keeps his distance and his nose and mitts out of my territory, which is Greater Las Vegas. I will cede him the environs of Temple Bar. But Temple Barr (note the double "r") and surroundings are my exclusive territory and that goes for trespassing dudes of the human species as well.

Then there is the matter of the personage now going by the moniker of "Midnight Louise." I am not amused.

I cannot single-handedly stop the deluded and doting individuals at the Crystal Phoenix from abasing themselves at the paws of this more than somewhat pushy pussycat. Nor can I prevent her from claiming, and others from conferring, the too-close-for-comfort name of Midnight Louise.

But I do not have to like this blatant upstart's greedy ways with my former territory and even my identity.

Now a trespasser of another sort is offending the atmosphere of my own home with a shirt that looks like it was cut-from one of Electra Lark's muumuus. I had intended to enlighten my many fans on the fine points of the preceding adventure, to impart the inside tidbit and share the intricate deductions of my convoluted mind that led to another Midnight rescue.

However, I am too distraught at the present time to dissect the deductive process.

The deduction I am mulling at the moment is that Miss Temple Barr is about to get a good taste of what it is like to have voices, faces and inquiring minds from the past sticking their long-gone noses into her current affairs and associations.

I doubt that she will be any happier at the prospect than I am, but it is only fitting that roommates share even this cross to bear.

MNL

P.S. Midnight Louie has moved into Cyberspace! His Internet address is http://www.catwriter.com/cdouglas (no period). Readers can subscribe to his newsletter, Midnight Louie's Scratching Post-Intelligencer via the web or by writing Carole Nelson Douglas c/o Tor/Forge Books, 175 Fifth Ave., 14th floor, New York, NY 10010-7848.

Carole Nelson Douglas Wipes

Her Hands of the Whole Affair

As annoyed as Midnight Louie is by certain last-minute developments, I suppose it could be worse. I could, for instance, be responding to his usual end-of-the-tail venom. I am confident that he will recover from his shock in due time and will have much more to say about the Mystifying Max et al, in a later volume.

I also refuse to be drawn again into a pointless exchange of rhetoric with Louie. Sometimes in their careers writers find themselves collaborating with colorful but unlettered individuals who try to run away with most of the credit.

All too often my brief opportunity to share professional concerns and techniques with readers has been short-circuited by Louie's caustic comments. So I'd like to take this opportunity to answer a common question: "How much in your books is real?''

Aside from the inescapable contributions of Midnight Louie, I too draw upon my own history. For many years, for instance, I contributed satirical skits to the Gridiron shows in my former state.

When I first wrote for the local Gridiron, I was fresh out of college and a lowly merchandiser at the daily newspaper. I accepted a company-wide invitation to submit Gridiron skits, not realizing that non^reporters (and women) weren't expected to respond. My innocent temerity in crashing what amounted to a closed shop in those dear, dead days beyond recall so astounded the Gridiron committee that I was invited to attend the post-show dinner for all contributors, even though they hadn't used my skit. They wanted to look me over.

I was the only woman present, aside from a spouse or two, and happened to sit next to my newspaper's managing editor. When I told him I wanted to become a reporter, he suggested I take the ''reporter's test" in Personnel.

I duly did, finding it to consist solely of hard science sections and the rules of every sport known to man, including such everyday amusements as lacrosse. Even the ''arts" section focused on what I considered masculine bailiwicks: architecture and music, to the exclusion of literature and the visual arts. Naturally, I did not get a dazzling score. However, I had gone off the chart on the "persuasion" rating. Within months, thanks to the editor's support, I was a full-fledged reporter despite lacking a journalism degree.

I still was ineligible to attend a Gridiron show. Women simply weren't allowed in then.

Women were not allowed into many places and events in the ancient sixties (even women politicians who were rudely satirized in Gridiron skits weren't allowed to attend). Since I had written satirical skits throughout high school and college, I wasn't about to stop simply because I wasn't allowed to see the shows I was writing for. So I continued to lampoon local and national events, and continued to get my Gridiron skits returned with the editorial injunction: "dirtier."

Just what kind of show were they running here? Within two years, I became the first woman to officially attend a Gridiron show along with hundreds of male political, business and media leaders, and I found out.