Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"Leave out the morality, what about disease? She didn't know my background. The risk--"

"--was maybe worth it to her. And from the persnickety house you described, you can bet safe sex would have been practiced. She's not crazy, just lonely. Maybe she hasn't had sex in a year. Or two. Or more. And there you are, looking like the angel Gabriel."

"But, why me? Why not the delivery man, or an old friend?"

"Different social class, or maybe her old male friends are all married. Look at your hands. No rings. Besides, most men your age have developed some line or another, something slightly false to get through. You're absolutely honest. Oh, baby, you are the answer to a maiden's prayer."

Temple tented prayerful fingers. " 'Course they don't know you've got some growing-up to do."

"Is that why you ... showed an interest in me? Max was gone and you were alone, and I was there, this naively honest fool?"

"Partly. I felt guilty about being attracted to you. Yes! Non-Catholics feel guilty sometimes too. I felt disloyal to Max, even though he'd disappeared without a word, which is fairly disloyal behavior in a relationship. But there's that third factor, besides opportunism and personal emptiness. There's Mother Nature's little elixir: hormones, infatuation, inexplicable instant rapport.

"Society says it should operate only under certain conditions for certain available people, but it doesn't.

"And," she went on, "because it's always there, we could all be playing with fire all the time.

People like Darren Cooke get hooked on the built-in excitement of the first time so much that their first times are also always the last times. Then it's always the hunt and the capture and surrender, then the next game. That way everyone is a challenge, everyone strikes sparks, and these people are always in a state of sexual anticipation. It dominates their lives like cocaine.

They need more and more, and end up emptier with every hit. It's a fun fantasy, but a bad trip in real life."

"I don't know if I want to live in real life," Matt said glumly. "The choices are worse than I imagined, even in the confessional back at St. Stan's."

"Worse in what way?"

"Not clear-cut."

"No-no's are always clear-cut. It's saying yes to life that's sticky."

"You and Max . . . have you--?"

"No. I've thought about it. He says he was faithful when he was gone. I believe him about that."

"That's trust."

Temple nodded solemnly. "That's what we had, before."

"And now?"

"Now ... something valuable's lost."

"That's sad."

"Yes, it is. And every relationship is that delicately balanced."

"About my ... encounter. It occurred to me I might be able to get it over with easily, with no second thoughts or stricken conscience until afterward, and that it would be worth it to be on equal footing with him, with you. To not be this . . . freak anymore."

He finally looked up at her, worried.

"You really considered sacrificing yourself to this woman for me?" Temple was rhapsodic.

"That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard. But sex is much too good to ever just 'get it over with.' Or to spend on an uncaring stranger. You're being human, Matt. Insecure and anxious and a little competitive. That's a very good sign."

"If this is progress, I may not survive it."

"Teenagers do."

"Are you and Max surviving it?"

That one she couldn't answer.

Chapter 15

To Yvette, in Prison

Miss Temple may be prepared to mope her days and nights away, but I do not intend to stick around to be her crying pillow. Saltwater has never done a thing for my topcoat.

Also, I am not torn between two felines. There is only one polestar in my cat heaven, one feline in my firmament, one star on my astral plane, one comet on my tail and one meteor in my mind.

I refer, of course, to the Divine Yvette.

These last few days of working together have been sadly lacking. Here we are, the image of onscreen togetherness, yet off-screen we are kept behind convent grilles (okay, it is just a carrier grille, but the effect is the same).

Although we are to emote next week in various "location" shots around town, I am no longer willing to settle for a whisker-rub under six-thousand kilowatts of spotlight. I decide to break my darling out of her unnatural confinement for a night on the town.

This will be one of my hardest assignments.

By keeping my ears open while appearing to doze, I have learned that Yvette and her mistress, Miss Savannah Ashleigh, are sharing a suite at the Goliath, paid for by the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy/Free-to-be-Feline/A La Cat conglomerate. (Can you imagine, one company makes all these different products? Hard to believe that the loathsomely nutritional Free-to-be-Feline and the tasty Yummy Tum-tum-tummy spring from the same corporate culture, so to speak.)

I am most indignant on my mistress's behalf. Simply because she is a Las Vegas resident, she is being bilked out of expensive accommodations during the shoot. I think the cat-glop people owe her at least a good dinner out. But that is her problem.

Mine is more insurmountable, quite literally. I will have to breech the Goliath security system (which I hope consists only of stone knives, in keeping with their ancient-civilization theme), discover which rooms house my petite princess and spring her without anyone being the wiser. And let he who casts the first stone be called Michelangelo's David.

Getting out of the Circle Ritz is the usual snap. Getting over to the Goliath on the Strip is the usual car-, bus- and van-dodging trip. Getting into the Goliath is the usual hanging out by the kitchen service door and darting in under cover of a cart. Just call me cat A La Carte.

Luckily, I am making my moves at night, when my dark topcoat makes me all but invisible.

Unluckily, the lobby is one of those over-lit, open expanses of white marble, saffron carpet, gilded lilies and upholstered furniture so pale that a shaded-silver Persian cat hair would show up on it, not to mention my own svelte dark form.

So I attach myself to various arriving parties, dashing along in the shadow of their duffel bags and rolling valets, wishing for a brief, minor power failure from Hoover Dam to the Valley of Fire.

Besides, such a power outage might inspire some work of cinematic art. If they made such a fuss about the night the lights went out in Dixie and the night the power failed in New York City (resulting in a higher birthrate nine months later), think of what would happen if the lights went out in Vegas, the city that never nods off? Now there is a disaster-flick plot for any bright bulb who wants to take it from me.

Some might say that I am a trifle selfish for wishing a town wide blackout so that I can visit an amour, but whoever they are, they are not here and I do not worry about them.

What I worry about is finding Miss Yvette's room number, particularly since she is not registered under her own name.

As in most Vegas hostelries, the registration desk is a hornet's nest of activity.

However, since this hotel, in particular, wishes to convey an atmosphere of desert luxe, a number of potted palms are sprinkled around the tomblike lobby. The pots actually serve my purposes better than the palms. It is from the shade of just such a gargantuan container that I spot a subspecies on the premises.

This is a terrier known as a Westie, a brighter-than-the-usual-dim-bulb-dog, that is also something of a terror, being from a rather bossy breed. I ankle over to the party, which also consists of a man and a woman who are checking to see if they have any mail. Ah, veterans. Just what I need. I force myself to rub ingratiatingly on the Westie's furry white side.

"Hi, fella. Been staying at this dump long?"