One Expensive Cat

I aim to write these so that you can enjoy them as stand alone stories, or one after the other. If you'd like to do the latter (they're all very short):

1. A Cock About to Cro-

2. Cat and Mouse

3. Just Desserts

4. A Pound of Soul

5. How Much Cake is one Soul Worth?

6. Hungry Like a Wolf

7. Hunt For a New Toy

8. The Dreamscape

9. Of Bone-crushing Hugs and Healing Purrs

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The cat cost me a bloody fortune! She was gorgeous, though, even to me, and I'm not a cat person. The softest cream fur, and beautiful blue eyes. I chose her with care. She needed to be accustomed to children, and well-trained to use a dirt box. I didn't want the girl to feel rejected, nor give her mother any reason to insist the cat couldn't stay. Of course, that last could still happen. But surely the little girl would be so delighted that the friend from her dreams had indeed turned up, as promised. Surely her mother would be unable to break her heart.

In the dreamscape, the child pouted.

"But when!" she wanted to know.

I'm coming, I told her, pouring as much soothe into my purr as I knew how. I'm travelling a long way.

"Okay," she relented, picking me up round the middle and gripping me tight.

Be gentle, I reminded her. In the real world, that might hurt my tummy.

She loosed her hold and I relaxed, breathing easier.

What's your name?

To think, all this time I hadn't known it!

"Hannah," she said.

People call me Princess, I said. Her face darkened.

"I don't like it."

OK, I soothed, What name do you like?

She thought a while, nose scrunched up and brow knotted.

"Tilly," she said.

You sure? I asked her, knowing how changeable little ones can sometimes be. She nodded. I'll try hard to remember it. I forget, when I'm not here.

Her hand ran from my head, all down my back and flowed to the end of my tail, the way I'd taught her. Tilly liked that. I focused, altering the fur under her hand so the markings around my face and feet closely matched the real Tilly in my flat. Hannah squealed, delighted.

"How did you do that?"

It's what I really look like. It's easy to change here.

I touched my nose to hers in farewell and faded from her dream. I'd got things to do, another's dreams to tread. I'd found him, at last! The man who hurt her, whose name I'd bought with an expensive cat. And I was so very, very hungry.

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Word count (excluding notes): 366

Submitted on 23rd March at 13.04

*Quick Author's Note*

First, and most importantly: thank you for reading!

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A Year of Stories: I'm writing a story every day this year. This one makes an 83 day streak. I'm also putting them in my Index post.

Thank you

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