SEBASTIAN

by Nan Dibble

(From Phoenix Six)

As usual on these nightly excursions, Vincent went first through the alley. If he moved like a shadow, Diana moved like a ghost, her soft-soled shoes made no sound, and she had a natural gift for avoiding the broken glass, heaps of sagging cartons, garbage cans, discarded ubrellas, and less savory debris cast aside in these between-places that were neither building, street, nor sidewalk. And only after the first hour or so, that burned off the worst of the pent-up restlessness, did they generally talk, though it was a companionable silence of shared motion. It was good to get away from words for a time and simply be and do.

Hearing Diana mutter something, he began to turn. Then she crooned, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty."

Vincent's head whipped around. The breathless shock he felt would have been no greater had she struck him across the face. It was another shock, just as instantaneous, when he realized she was hunkered down, hand and arm outstretched, trying to peer between two battered trash cans, paying no attention to him at all.

Glancing around, she explained, "It's a cat."

"Of course," he said, profoundly grateful she hadn't noticced his reaction. Absurd. He felt his face heating. He mentioned, "Many of them haunt the city."

Leaning and peering again, she commented, "He was practically under my feet. Don't think I kicked him, but ... Hey, cat, there's nothing to be scared of. Come on out, we won't hurt you."

Vincent folded his hands. "Perhaps you should leave it. Many such cats turn feral. They can be dangerous. It might even be diseased ..."

She looked up for a second - an incredulous, are you kidding? look. "Thanks, Father, for your advice."

"Well, it's true," Vincent responded stiffly.

She stood abruptly and came to him, putting both hands on his chest, looking back over her shoulder. "Stay here. Tell me if he moves, I'll be right back."

"Diana ...?"

But she was already jogging away up the alley.

Vincent dutifully kept watch over the tilted jumble of cans in the dark, empty alley, feeling it was a penance for his inordinate, absurd sensitivity.

Of course Diana would never remark on his feline attributes, obvious though they were. Despite her blunt-spokenness on every other topic, her tact regarding his differences was absolute. He shouldn't have doubted it, even for an instant. He was lucky she hadn't noticed his misinterpretation. His face was still hot with embarrassment.

A small shadow moved. Vincent glanced the way Diana had gone, at a loss what to do. Not entirely sure he should do anything. Cats belonged in alleys, scavenging garbage. That's what they did. What they were. Better if this one were gone before Diana came back. But Diana wanted him to watch it, keep it here until she returned from wherever she'd gone ...

He told the shadow firmly, "Stay," and two round eyes caught the glow from the distant streetlight - almost a derisive glance, like Diana's when she'd accurately charged him with sounding just like Father.

He thought, I can intimidate dogs. But I know nothing whatever of cats. We've shared the same alleys, but I suppose they've always avoided me.

He'd never thought about it before. There'd been no reason.

He settled on his heels, as Diana had done - as he would have done with a child, to minimize the intimidation of size. He told the shining eyes, "Diana wants to make peace with you and assure herself she didn't injure you. Please wait for her."

When, a few minutes later, Diana came jogging back, the cat was rubbing its head against Vincent's rigid knee. It immediately transferred its interest to Diana as she ripped open a foil pouch and spilled the contents on the ground. With the cat otherwise occupied, Vincent cautiously straightened from his strained crouch.

The cat ate so eagerly that its sides shook. Diana stood with her arms folded. Perhaps she was ready for them to resume their excursion.

"Look at those ribs," she commented, frowning. "I bet I could count them. Looks ... about seven, eight months old. Teenager, in cat years. And not easy years, either."

"I'm sure it appreciates the food."

"Yeah," she responded absently. "Look, he's not standing on that left fore at all. He is  hurt. Maybe I did kick him ..."

"It's an old injury."

"How could you know?"

"It's infected. I ..." Vincent made himself finish. "I can smell it."

"That's it, then," Diana declared, and for a second he thought that meant she'd realized that, having done no harm to this urban scavenger, she'd more than discharged any responsibility she might feel toward it. Instead, she scooped it up and unzipped her jacket, clearly intending to pop it inside.

"Diana! It's ill. It's injured. It will scratch, bite ...!"

She gave him an odd, level look, then zipped the jacket shut with the cat inside. She waited while the jacket wiggled and bulged, then reported, "So far, so good. No damage yet. But you're right - I shouldn't push my luck. Better get him home fast."

"Diana ..."

But she was off down the alley at a determined walk, one arm tucked against her side like someone cradling broken ribs.

There was nothing for Vincent to do but shake his head and follow, his mind filled with disquieting imaginings of fleas.

*****

Back at her loft, Diana spilled the contents of another foil packet onto a paper plate and knelt contentedly watching the cat resume its meal. Vincent looked on from the far side of the couch. When she scratched at her arm, he felt his worst suspicions comfirmed.

"It probably has fleas," he mentioned, though it would already be too late.

'Yeah, I suppose." Then she looked around at him, smiling, as though he'd said something witty that it'd taken her a second to catch. "Hey, it's no big deal. You don't have to look like that."

"Like what?"

"Like ... like Father inspecting a dead rat."

It was him she found amusing. Well, he supposed he didn't mind. "Diana, fleas can carry disease."

She rocked back, sitting on her heels, the smile fading to an amiable attention. "Being a crack detective, I deduce you never had a cat."

"Pets aren't permitted Below. They eat and require care and give nothing in return. Without doors, they're impossible to keep restrained, and they ... make messes," Vincent concluded delicately.

"Yeah, right," Diana said, as though he'd sensibly reminded her of something. "Guess I gotta go out again, get some litter."

"Litter?"

"Litter, cat sand, whatever you want to call it. And a box to put it in. So there won't be any ... messes." Rising, she collected her jacket from the chair where she'd hung it and checked that her wallet was still in the pocket. "Really? No pets?"

"Only Arthur," Vincent admitted.

"So, who's Arthur?"

"A raccoon. Mouse is responsible for Arthur."

"A raccoon? God, they get into everything, and that's how you know about messes, and how come Mouse gets to have a pet when nobody else is allowed?"

"It's a long story."

Diana nodded. "For another time, because I gotta get the guest accommodations ready."

Vincent couldn't help asking, "Diana, you don't mean to keep that animal? More than overnight?"

She gave him another of those odd, level looks. "Haven't made up my mind yet. At least I'll get him fed and healed, then see how things go. I'm not set on it. What's the matter - scared of the competition?"

Grinning, she shoved back the elevator's accordion gate. With a flash of swinging, tied-back auburn hair, she vanished behind the sliding steel door before Vincent could think of any appropriate response.

He didn't understand her attitude. Didn't understand it at all. Everybody knew that keeping animals was a sentimental indulgence - unless, of course, they were raised for food, or for guarding property, or to bear burdens, or some other suitable use. Diana had never struck him as a sentimental woman - quite the opposite, in fact. She'd never expressed an interest in having a pet not mentioned any pet she'd had before. Yet not even the likelihood of being scratched by highly unsanitary claws nor the danger of disease seemed to be risks she took at all seriously.

Diana evidently found his reservations ridiculous and even mildly amusing. Perhaps they are, he thought. We come from such different worlds. Different experiences, expectations. I still know so little of her life ...

Having eaten everything on the plate, the scrawny cat began exploring. First it circled the kitchen island, limping on the wounded leg as though resigned to the pain. Wandering toward Diana's computer stand, the cat caught sight of Vincent. It glared at him, ears flattening, lifting on hostile tiptoe, its back bowed and fur stiffening. Vincent felt his own spinal fur rise in automatic response, which embarrassed and annoyed him. Absurd; the creature was so much smaller, and injured, besides. Defenseless. And the sense that, simply by being, he'd frightened any creature distressed him. Which wasn't rational, any more than the response of his fur.

Laying his cloak aside on the couch's back, Vincent stooped, balancing on his boot heels. "I fear you may do Diana harm. But no harm is meant to you, young cat. She has taken you under her protection. I would not hurt or even frighten you for the world."

The cat's stiff pose settled. Sore paw raised, the cat mewed. The sound was plaintive, but there was no knowing what it meant. Vincent concentrated, but all he could sense from the cat was timidity, uncertainty, and an unspecific discomfort. His gift apparently did not extend to interpreting the emotions of cats.

Stooped, Vincent ceased to be frightening. The cat limped toward him and begna whetting itself against his knee, one side and then the other, purring. Vicnent willed himself still, out of courtesy for Diana's guest. The higher must adapt to the lower because the lower couldn't adapt. That was the foundation of all civility and good manners.

It was tiring to hold himself in stooped balance for fear of frightening the little beast again. Vincent sat on the floor, his back against the couch. Immediately the cat climbed onto his leg. Gazing entreatingly into his face, it dug both sets of foreclaws in and began rhythmically pushing. Vincent was on his feet, and the cat unceremoniously dumped and scrambling away, as the elevator door opened and Diana returned carrying two heavy paper sacks.

"You boys okay?" she called cheerfully, setting down one sack.

Vincent wouldn't, couldn't  rub the injured place. He grabbed his cloak and slung it over his shoulders. "It's late. I must go. Good night, Diana."

In addition to the horrible prospect of having to ask Father to check him for fleas, he now had to worry about blood poisoning.

Diana's sober voice caught him with his hand on the roof door. "Vincent. Please. Let me get Sebastian settled ..."

"Sebastian?"

She shrugged. "I was thinking about names on the way back. Somehow, he strikes me as a Sebastian. Don't ask why."

If she'd named the creature, she'd claimed it; there was no hope now. Vincent hung his head and pulled the door open.

"Look," she persisted, "just let me get him settled, Okay?"

"It's late."

"Five minutes, tops. Then we will talk about it ..."

She was standing near the elevator, still holding the second heavy bag. She looked awkward, burdened, and a bit forlorn. He should go help her with the bag. He should be reasonable, sensible.

He said, "I have no wish to talk about it. Good night."

She called after him, but he was moving too fast to catch the words.

*****

The necessary preliminary, a bath with that  soap, he could manage on his own. Afterward, he felt just as itchy, wounded, and indignant all over. He'd smell that chemical scent for days. Worse, the bath wouldn't be enough - there were places he couldn't reach.

Having dried himself and put on a robe, he faced the inevitable because waiting would only make it worse.

"Father, I'm afraid ... I may have come in contact with fleas."

Father set down his book, looking surprised. "Isn't it a little late in the season? That's generally an August complaint."

"Nevertheless," Vincent replied in a tight voice Father would understand meant that Vincent didn't want to explain. Therefore, as usual, Father didn't ask.

They understood one another very well.

Surveying Vincent, Father deduced, "You've already used the soap, of course. Well then, go on back to your chamber. I'll be along in a moment."

Vincent appreciated that Father always tried to be tactful about such things, dealing with them with as little humiliating discussion as possible. Only Father's brisk, clinical detachment made the mortification endurable at all. Stretched prone on his bed, head pillowed on folded arms, Vincent braced rigidly while Father's hand stroked lotion into the ridge of longer hair down Vincent's spine. To work it in, down to the skin, Father rubbed against the lay of the fur. From experience Vincent knew that in drying, the lotion would hold the fur in uncomfortable spikes. But he would never suggest Father smooth it down afterward so that the fur could dry flat. Never. He never acknowledged the fur, and Father never commented on it. Whenever possible, they pretended it didn't exist.

Most of Vincent's differences, he'd insisted on managing himself since adolescence. With the few he couldn't, he endured Father's help because there was no alternative. He was grateful to Father. But he resented the necessity. He hated forcing Father to acknowledge yet again the particularly personal ways Vincent was not like other men. He hated having to acknowledge it himself.

Patting Vincent's shoulder to indicate the nasty job was done, Father commented, "I'll check in a day or two, but I think we've taken precautions in time."

Face still buried in his arms, Vincent surprised himself by announcing, "Diana found a cat."

"Mmmmmm?"

"Took it home with her. If it had been a child, I'd understand. But to risk injury from a mere animal ..."

"What kind of cat?" Father inquired with a more lively interest than Vincent had expected.

Vincent shrugged. As though released by the motion, he sat up abruptly, pulling the robe around him. "An alley stray, half-starved."

Father was at the basin, washing his hands. That was Father's unvarying routine; but Vincent was uncomfortably aware that the lotion had a pungent scent of its own, that he himself didn't have the option of washing away. Like the scent of the soap, it would be with him for days.

Reaching for the hand towel, Father said, "No, I mean, what breed of cat? What color? What markings?"

"Thin. Dark, I think. I don't recall. What can it matter?"

Considerately, Father dropped the question. "Did it, in fact, injure Diana?"

Vincent absently rubbed his upper thigh. Though the claws had stung and startled him badly at the time, he'd found that his denim pants had been some protection. The claws had barely broken the skin. He didn't have to call the marks to Father's attention. He certainly didn't want to.

"Not yet," he replied. "Unless it's carrying some disease people are susceptible to. It's ill. Injured. A wound has infected and abscessed."

Returning to the table, Father replaced the lotion in his medical bag. "That should be seen to. And it should be inoculated against pneumonitis, distemper, feline leukemia - the usual range. For the cat's own sake. Has Diana made plans to have that done?"

"I don't know." Vincent was surprised to hear Father reel off 'the usual range' with such facility. He looked up. "Father ..."

"Mmmmmm?'

"Am I immune to those diseases?"

"Probably. You're immune to most things, thank heavens. And that's most fortunate, given that you're very allergic to most of the standard preventative treatments."

"Was I ever innoculated against them?"

It was a charged question. Father went still a moment, clearly deciding how to reply.

"Once," Father admitted evenly, deliberately matter-of-fact. "I wouldn't care to repeat the experience. You ran a temperature of a hundred and ten and couldn't keep anything down for a week."

"I don't remember. How old was I?"

"Very young. Under a year."

"Oh."

The conclusion was obvious. Father's first judgment had been to try to immunize Vincent, as an infant, against diseases people couldn't get but which were highly contageous among cats.

Shutting his bag and clicking the latch, Father added, "You must forgive my ignorance, Vincent. Most of the things I know about your physiology, I've had to learn from experience. Trial and error. And sometimes the errors have been considerable, and my only wisdom is in not repeating them. Such innoculations need to be renewed every seven years or so. Whatever good or harm that lone injection did you, has long since passed off. I hope you'll tell Diana to have the cat's shots attended to, as a matter of simple prudence."

"It's not my place to 'tell' Diana to do anything."

"Encourage her, then," Father responded, reducing the issue of Diana's fierce independence to a quibble over semantics. "For the cat's own sake, if nothing else." At the entrance, Father turned to add, "Are you going to look in on my namesake before retiring?"

That would mean waking his son, and his own unsettled mood would affect the child. "No need to disturb him," Vincent decided. "He'll be fine with Mary."

"Well then, goodnight, Vincent."

"Good night, Father. Thank you."

*****

Someone was in his chamber.

From deep sleep, Vincent came instantly awake and alert.

Diana was sitting in his chair. She smiled at him. "Wondered how long it would take," she commented comfortably.

Vincent hiked himself higher against the pillows, drawing the quilts up to his chin. He was surprised but not displeased. As an acknowledged helper, Diana was free to come and go, passed through and guided as needed by the sentries. She often visited, though never so late before. And sometimes, when he went to visit her after his check on the sentries, he found her already asleep - sometimes out of sight in her bedroom, but occasionally stretched on the couch with stacks of printout around her, where she'd succumbed to sleep while working. Not a few times, he'd lingered and watched until nearly dawn, taking a strange comfort from the sense of guarding over her peaceful rest.

Now, she'd been watching him sleep. Turnabout, he supposed, was fair play.

Not an angel standing guard over his bedside - perhaps Titania, he thought. Queen of Fairies. large-eyed, of an exotic and less sanctified benevolence, her face surrounded by floating wisps of bright coppery hair. Copper, the Fairies' metal, not cruel cold iron. A visitor familiar and yet not, under these circumstances.

Nobody but Father ever intruded on Vincent's chamber without express permission or this late. Yet Vincent found he was as happy and at ease in her company as though it had been a usual thing between them. Slept right through her entering and settling, which suggested a deep unguardedness he'd have thought reserved solely for Father.

His own responses taught him things he wasn't altogether sure he wanted to know.

"How long did it take?" He asked in reply.

Diana pushed up a sweatshirt sleeve to squint at her watch. '' 'Bout a minute. Nowhere close to the record."

"You've been keeping records?" Vincent inquired gravely, teasing.

"Let's say, I notice. When you conk out with the headphones going, for instance, or I turn around and there's nothing left on the TV but static and you're still watching. I like watching you get fogged out, I guess. Means you feel comfortable in my place."

"I do." Shifting higher against the piled pillows made Vincent aware of his lotion-stiffened back hair; remembering, he looked aside. "And how is ... Sebastian?"

"At the vet's. I found an all-night place in the Yellow Pages and took him over in a cab. That leg needs seeing to."

Vincent felt a wash of shameful relief. "And there are innoculations it should have. Father tells me."

"Yeah, the vet said the same. I'll spring for that, too." She crossed her wrists over each other, gazing at him soberly. "That's what I wanted to tell you about. Check with you. You were real spooked tonight, and I can't leave it at that."

"I'm sorry, Diana. I'm not accustomed to cats.”

"Yeah, I guess."

"Except," Vincent found himself continuing, feeling he must be perfectly accurate, "the great cats I've seen caged at the zoo. Forever pacing and numbed with captivity. That terrible, pointless pacing ..."

She continued to look at him with a sharper attention, as though aware of how that image haunted him. She was almost as quick at such things as Father, without the benefit of Father's lifelong familiarity. That was one of the things he valued in Diana, that she often understood, even when he wouldn't or couldn't explain.

His empathic sense still was intermittent and unreliable, unlike her shrewd insights, her fey hunches. He often wished he were as perceptive about her as she was about him.

"People," he added softly, "are afraid of the different. To me, cats are different. Perhaps I could have handled it better."

"You want a chance to try?" she asked. "This once, I'll ask you. If it really, really bothers you having Sebastian around, tomorrow I'll start looking for somebody to take him. A lot of the 210 are cat people. I'll ..."

"Cat people?"

"As opposed to dog people. People who like having cats around. People like me. We're a weird bunch, up there, as you already know. So, lots of cat people. I expect I could find somebody in a couple days, and he can board at the vet's that long. He won't like it, but I don't expect he much liked the alley, either. At this stage, things are still optional. And it's your call. So, do I find somebody, or do I bring him home?"

Vincent thought for awhile about the honor she did him by asking, granting him authority about so private a matter. her consideration and concern for him. And he thought about what reply courtesy therefore demanded of him.

Eventually he said, "Why do people keep pets, Diana?"

"Different reasons, I guess. You want the long version or the short version?"

"Whatever you care to tell me. I have no experience, no context. I want to understand."

She slouched deeper in her chair, considering. He liked watching her think. The momentary frowns, nods, and head tilts, lip bitten or reflectively pursed, eyes lifted in speculation or decisively lowered - slight changes of expression like images flickering off a stirred pool. Effervescent. Sparkling.

"Well," she said eventually, "it's complicated, like any other relationship. But lots of times, it comes down to ..." She paused again, head tilted back, gazing at the dark ceiling, seeking the right words. "It comes down to wanting to have what you can't be. Have it second-hand, at least. Beauty. Status. Strength. Simplicity. Exoticism. Something that passes for wildness ... Nature, but tame, familiar; the edge taken off ... And ... company, too, I guess. Somebody who'd glad to see me when I get home, somebody to do things for, so they're happy and I'm happy." She looked at him as though she were remembering being happy. "And cats are fun to watch. Not just how they look or move - how they think; a different way than I do, then people do."

"Cats think?"

"Sure," Diana said in a tone that forgave his ignorance. "Cats are individuals, no two alike, though there are similarities, too. You can learn the patterns. A different way of thinking - frees up your thinking. A fresh perspective. Keeps you from taking things for granted. Keeps you from getting stale. It's like having a friend that's real easy to get along with, doesn't talk much or ask much of you except a little care and attention, at least most of the time. Not like people, that eat up all your time and you're dead tired trying to understand all their problems you can't do anything about anyway. Cats," she concluded, finally finding a formulation that suited her, "are like people, only easier."

Vincent thought about that. "Yet you haven't had a cat in the time we've known one another. Why?"

She gave him a direct, evaluating look. "Mark was allergic. My boyfriend," she added, to be sure she'd stated the uncomfortable fact completely and clearly.

"Oh. That was thoughtful of you, then."

"Sometimes you have to make choices," she responded with a slight shrug that tried to pass the matter off lightly.

He didn't like thinking about Mark, the man whose scent was still detectable to him on certain of her oversized shirts, though he'd never remarked on the fact because to normal, limited senses, there would have been no connection, and anyway he had no right to comment on such things. Yet Diana still knew it was, for him, an awkward topic; his silence had been enough.

"I'm not allergic," he offered.

"There's different kinds of allergic. The cat bothered you. Want to tell me why?"

"I bothered it. Merely standing, merely by being, I frightened it. That isn't ... a pleasant awareness, Diana."

"I guess I wouldn't like it much, either," Diana admitted, rubbing her nose thoughtfully. "But he was also trying to be friendly, nudged himself up against you, and like that."

"Appeasement," Vincent said sternly.

"Yeah, maybe. Maybe. In a strange place, and all, and you're so big, the way a little cat like that would look at it ... Maybe. But cats like to cuddle. Real unselfconscious about it. Just come and cuddle, if they feel like it. Insist on it, sometimes, even. With people, that's more ... complicated."

Vincent had the insane impulse to ask if Diana would comb out his stiff back fur. Smooth it down, the right way. Ease the discomfort. Of course he didn't. But the thought came to him, which startled him a good deal. It also came to him that Diana was implicitly telling him she sometimes liked to cuddle, and had no way but a cat's affectionate company to express those impulses.

It had never occurred to him to think about such things.

He knew she was solitary, despite Mark in the past. Mark had clearly been an interlude. He'd thought about her resulting deprivation of the deepest, most primal needs, the ultimate needs, that choosing his own companionship meant leaving unfulfilled. He was always aware of that; the price and the limits that closeness with him inevitably imposed. A woman must seek such things elsewhere or do without. That was the price. Always the price.

But it hadn't occurred to him that lesser needs also were starved. Needs for simple touch and bodily warmth, that for others could be separated from the whole spectrum of contact, but for him had to be sternly denied with all the rest, because he couldn't enforce the divisions on his own awareness. For him, they were all part of the one thing, the thing he must not want, or his life would become a daily hell of need.

In a low voice, he said, "I understand."

She cocked her head. "If you say so."

Not only could he not give her what a man would; he couldn't even give her what a cat could. It would be selfish to demand that she deny herself even the small, simple affection of a pet because of his limitations.

"Bring the cat back, Diana. Bring it home."

Leaning, Diana set her hand on the edge of the quilt where it hung over the side of the mattress. Not touching him. Not quite. But the impulse was clearly there, and restrained. He wasn't sure if he was pleased or regretful about that restraint.

She said earnestly, "Not if it's gonna bother you. Not if it means I'll never get to watch you anymore, all logged out with the headphones on."

She smiled a little, and he essayed a smile back.

"Most of the problems is strangeness," he said, "on both sides. That will pass. I'll try to learn whatever Sebastian may teach me about other ways of being. I, too, enjoy that."

"Yeah, you're like that. I've noticed that about you. Curiosity. How you watch me ..."

"You live," Vincent said, "a way I've never known. Strange. Magical. You are very generous in sharing that with me."

Both their voices had gone very quiet. Almost whispering. Vincent suddenly wondered what Father would have made of the scene, were he to look in, as he often did during the night, especially when Vincent had been out too late for them to say their goodnights to one another.

Certainly there was nothing improper in it. Only friends, talking. Yet the thought of other eyes, and perhaps unsympathetic judgment, threw Vincent's unexamined sense of rightness and ease into confusion. All was permitted only as long as he didn't begin thinking about it, hypothesizing questions where none had been before and where there could be no answers.

If you resist pacing, you could almost forget that the bars were there at all.

Vincent felt suddenly, sharply, that he had to have someplace other then this he could go. There were the Maze, the streets. But he was alone there. But now, there was Diana, who also enjoyed nightime excursions and running for the sheer bodily joy of motion, leaving thoughts, words, and explanations behind ...

And there was Diana's loft, with its inexhaustible treasures of music and living images, that she took so for granted, but he never failed to find wondrous, that she took such satisfaction in giving him, freely, without question. Where he was free of all expectations and could simply be, without having to justify himself to anyone, even himself. The nearest to freedom he had ever known. The nearest to joy he'd ever come.

He wouldn't give that up. But neither would he force this smallest deprivation on her as the price. Somehow he'd learn to tolerate the cat.

"Thank you," he said, "for giving me this choice, Diana. But I'm certain; bring the cat home, if that's your wish. It won't be a problem. I won't let it be."

"Right." Withdrawing her hand, she stood up. "Then that's settled. G'night, then, babe."

"Goodnight, Diana."

At the entryway, she paused and looked around. "Tonight?"

"Yes. After my sentry rounds."

"Great."

*****

On following visits to Diana's loft, Vicnent set himself to observe the cat closely, watching Sebastian and Diana become friendly and then openly affectionate toward one another.

Sebastian was a grey-striped cat (the commonest coloring, Diana said) with symetrical black bars across his face, fore and hind legs, and tail, the latter being quite expressive in its motion, once Vincent bothered to notice. A lighter shade of grey, almost fawn, outlined the cat's eyes and defined the lower muzzle and chin. There was no white anywhere. Sebastian's coat had the distinction of having, along the sides, below the pure black spinal ridge, unusual markings. The barring there was broken and looked like spots. Diana admired that distinction, commenting on it often and patting the cat's sides firmly whenever it settled down beside her.

Vincent agreed that the markings were, indeed, handsome. He did not offer to pet the cat, and it didn't offer to be petted. After a few visits, in which neither did anything the other found frightening or hurtful, the cat maintained an aloof distance. That was fine with Vincent.

The abscess soon healed. With enough to eat and good care, the cat quickly lost its bedraggled gauntness and became sleek and self-assured.

Sebastian came and went a good deal, Vincent noticed - napping near the radiator, then bounding up, twirling and crying, if Diana was standing, or jumping confidently into her lap if she was sitting, insisting on her notice.

"Cats like to go off," Diana explained, while Sebastian balanced on her knees, head held high and eyes estatically shut as she rubbed under the cat's chin, "so that they can come back and be greeted all over again. Freshen their welcome. Never let you take them for granted."

Sometimes while being petted, Sebastian would convulse into a grabbing, kicking ball. Whenever that happened, Diana would go quiet until, on his own, he settled down again. Vincent found these incidents puzzling on a number of accounts. Diana wasn't at all alarmed; nor was the cat angry. The emotions of neither seemed appropriate.

"Overstimulated," Diana commented carelessly, and turned a page of printout left-handed because a sleeping Sebastian continued to hold the side of her right hand in his jaws.

Vincent allowed himself to be reassured and put the headphones back on, but looked around at the couch every few minutes. Diana continued reading, holding the stack of printout on her knees and placidly allowing her hand to be held in that interrupted bite for at least half an hour, until she casually got up to make more coffee. It was perfectly plain that neither she nor the cat found anything at all odd in the interlude; but Vincent found it profoundly strange and unsettling. For days afterward, the memory would suddenly flash on his inner eye at some inappropriate time - during a meal, or a class, or a council session - with the enigmatic power of a vision; more than once, it intruded on his dreams as a dangerous peacefulness he would have found even more unsettling had he not immediately forgotten those dreams upon waking.

Dubious and tentatively, he categorized Sebastian as safe and resolved to stop reacting as though Diana had brought a cougar or a tiger into her loft.

That resolution lasted two days.

Coming down from the roof, Vincent immediately noticed, among the rich melange of smells the cat's advent had brought to Diana's loft, the unmistakable scent of flea soap. It wouldn't have been kind to smile. While he turned to hang his rain-heavy cloak on the coat tree by the elevator, Diana rose from her computer and came to him, reporting wryly that a highly, disgruntled, damp Sebastian was sulking in a closet to express his entire indignation. Vincent tried harder to contain a smile. Then Diana lifted an arm to push back her forever-straying auburn hair and he saw that her forearm was criss-crossed with deep scratches.

"Diana!"

She looked where he was looking and self-consciously shoved her sleeve over the marks. "It's no big deal.'

"But the cat has attacked you! Let me ..."

She turned away, going into the kitchen area. "It's not an attack," she commented in a weary tone. "More of a hissy fit. He didn't know he was going to be popped into the tub. He objected, I insisted. We're still working things out, learning how to get along. The next time, I expect it will go better. I don't hold it against him. I'd have done the same in his place."

"But how can you ..."

She swung around and looked at him. "Vincent, you are not going to protect me against my cat! This kind of thing," (she gestured at her arm)" ... it happens, Okay? It's part of the package. Cats scratch; it's the only way they have of defending themselves. They also bite, if sufficiently provoked. And that may happen, too. It won't be the first time. If I'm not all bent outta shape about it, you oughta be able to live with it - don't you think?"

Vincent stood with arms folded, unpersuaded. He felt his worst suspicions had been confirmed. "You should send the cat away. It's injured you. It's not safe."

She brushed in deflected annoyance at a strand of copper hair straying across her cheek.

"Vincent, it's a living thing, not some damn stuffed toy. Live things don't come with a guarantee of safe - don't you know that yet? And even if you don't, you're just gonna have to put up with it, is all, because it isn't up to you anymore. Your option's run out. Mine, too. We're stuck with each other now, for good. And a few scratches aren't gonna change that, whether you like it or not."

She was right; he'd overstepped. He had no right to interfere. Or offer an opinion, much less what had been all but a command. He acknowledged his fault by looking away, declining the challenge of her eyes.

"Hey," she said, determindedly busying herself with her coffee-maker, "I found a great travel tape today, on Polynesia. You up for semi-naked women, sand, sun, and palm trees?"

Vincent couldn't respond appropriately to the peace offering. The cat had behaved badly. Unacceptably. Yet Diana refused to send it away. Vincent wasn't disappointed. Instead, an inexplicable elation struck him like a gust of wind. Visiting exotic places in imagination, second-hand, wouldn't be enough tonight. Would have been unendurable. The wind pushed at him, through him; he couldn't be still.

He found himself scraping his forefinger across a place on the couch back where the faded plaid fabric was worn thin. The rough tatters attracted him like a scab. He knew he'd soon poke a hole but couldn't resist picking at it.

Annoyed at himself, Vincent clasped his hands together tightly behind his back.

He asked, "If it isn't ... Would you mind ... Are you too busy tonight ... to go out? It's only raining a little. And not very cold ..."

Diana looked around over her shoulder and slowly smiled - a strengthening, sunrise smile of affection and easy warmth. A wonderful smile that saw through all his evasions and pretenses, and yet contrived to find them endearing.

"Yeah, sure, Okay. Just let me get a little coffee into me for reinforcement, do a few stretches, then I'm game. Been scrunched up to the computer all day - be good to loosen up, get things moving. Yeah. Race you up to Washington Square, then snag a pizza on the way back, how about it?"

As Diana phoned to make arrangements about the pizza, Vincent paced before the dark, slanted windows opaqued by rain. It actually was a nasty night; he'd had no thought of dragging Diana out into it. But now he wanted very much to escape into motion, and Diana knew it, and probably knew why, and fell in with his change of mood, just as though there was nothing remarkable about it. Precisely as she accepted Sebastian's ill temper. Sebastian - who was not to be prudently sent away for its lack of restraint. Sebastian - who was not safe.

Diana wasn't careful enough. But nearly careful enough of herself. Worked 'till all hours. Forgot to eat, as often as not. Stalked killers, not merely in her mind and imagination, but sometimes in person if she could see no other way. Not careless, but heedless. Knowing the risks and taking them away. And although he worried about that, he wouldn't truly have wished her otherwise because her unconcern was a kind of strength, too. A largeness of spirit with no fear of scars.

Valiant,  he thought, watching her bend into her warm-up stretches in between gulps of coffee. She is so valiant ...

Then, finally, they were outside and running, and the bad weather meant the night streets were nearly deserted so there was little need to dodge through alleys, and the broad, streaky puddles were vividly rainbow-hued under the bright streetlamps, and the joy of it built until it was almost past bearing, and still grew beyond that, luminous, sparkling. And the streets were dangerous as they always were, and that was part of why it was so wonderful to race through them anyway, boldly crossing intersections in the middle of the street, not huddled into the shadows, and Diana's shadow flying ahead, beside his, wheneer they passed under a streetlight. Wonderful and exhilarating not because it was safe but because it wasn't, and there seemed no limits and no bars anywhere while they ran.

*****

When they'd run themselves breathless and contented and were returning with the drifting rain at their backs, strolling between the lines of parked cars to the left and shut security gates, darkened storefronts, and projecting front steps of brownstones to the right, all seemed still and peaceful. Vincent's restless excitement had settled, cooled. He could face it, touch it, speak of it now.

He announced diffidently, "I'm glad you've chosen as you have. Concerning Sebastian."

"Even though you disapprove," she rejoined, amused by his turnabout.

"As you pointed out, it's no longer my choice to make. Which is as it should be."

"So you're free to give good advice, and then be glad when I don't follow it, huh?"

Vincent bent his head, smiling. "Something of the kind."

"Well, I'm glad you got it all sorted out, then," she commented, and slipped her arm through his.

As the rain hit the chill pavement, it rose again in thickening layers of fog that closed off distances, protecting them with its dimness, haloing each streetlight.

Presently Diana reflected, "He's probably still royally pissed off at me. Cats can hold grudges like you wouldn't believe ... I'll try bribing him with pizza. He likes pepperoni, too."

"Too?" Vincent inquired innocently.

Diana made a face at him. They both knew who'd discovered a taste for pepperoni.

"He likes ice cream, too," Diana added pointedly, deliberately. "I don't see why cats oughta get left out of the finer things of life."

"Cats are carnivores. Their needs are different. A steady diet of what you call 'people food' would make him ill."

Diana licked a finger to chalk a large imaginary score in the air.

At Vincent's inquiring look, she explained, "Score one for you. That's the first time you ever admitted out loud, that I recall, that he's a he." Then she looked at him harder. "What?"

Vincent shook his head. "Nothing. Only ghosts."

What had come into his mind was being all but blind, chained to a steam pipe, taunted and beaten for a street gang's idle amusement, and a woman's nasal voice commenting, "That's not an it - that's a him."

"What flavor of ghosts, babe?"

An animal. They'd taken him for an animal, that might be abused with impunity because it was merely an animal, only an animal. Less, even, than such as they, justly arrogant in their full and unquestioned humanity and unjustly cruel with it, as well. Even an animal deserved more civility than that ...

Vincent gazed vaguely at the foggy storefronts, so like those he'd fled thorugh trying to get home. "It was a long time ago. It doesn't matter. The issue at hand is your determination to consider Sebastian as a person, in ways that may be inappropriate. That may, in fact, be detrimental to his well-being."

"We are feeling contentious tonight, aren't we? So how did we suddenly get so knowledgeable about feline nutritional requirements?"

"I've been reading."

"Father's library?"

He shook his head. "The library. There's basement access."

"As in THE library? Main branch, up on Fifth? The one with the lions? Well, if you're gonna research, might as well go whole hog. I guess Father ..." She looked at him speculatively, having deduced his fruitless search of Father's shelves.

"Perhaps," he reflected aloud, "he keeps them somewhere else."

"Or maybe he just doesn't have any," Diana countered.

"It's possible. He may have found the available information of little help. In many ways ... I don't conform to that pattern, either. To a far greater extent than I'd imagined."

"No kidding."

"No kidding. Of course no cat walks upright, has a grasping thumb, or teaches classes on the Renaissance." They traded a wry smile. "But even leaving all that aside, there are discrepancies. Divergences even I hadn't realized."

''For instance?" she prompted.

Half of Vincent was astonished at having initiated such a conversation. The rest felt calm and objective, as though the topic were as neutral as the best route to Battery Park. Somehow speaking of such things was no longer a humiliation.

The daring was both exhilarating and frightening; he never spoke of such things! He wanted to flee. He wanted to continue. Speak the unspeakable.

He lifted his hands. "These," he said, flexing the fingers, displaying the claws, "are not retractable. As I'm sure you'd noticed."

Diana refused to be diverted into a discussion of what she had or hadn't noticed. She was too interested in finding out just how personal he was willing to get.

"Okay, that's one. What else?"

"Cheetahs' aren't, either," Vincent added, trying to be scrupulously accurate. "But all other cats' are. Retractable. Sometimes I wished ... " Vincent left that thought - how much easier life would be if the claws could be peaceably sheathed unfinished and unexplored - continuing instead, "Unlike Sebastian, I am an omnivore (eats food of plant and animal origin).

"Yeah. You like melon."

"Very much," he agreed, remembering the impromptu nighttime rooftop picnic the previous summer, sharing thin wedges of watermelon in the shimmer of lingering heat. Diana had spit the seeds over the parapet; he'd been more discreet. He remembered the hot tar smell, and the cool sweetness, liquid in his mouth. She'd brought up washcloths to clean themselves with, afterward, and it hadn't been embarrassing because she'd been as frankly sticky as he.

"Also honey," she noted. "That you like in your tea. Cats got no sweet tooth, huh?"

"Their teeth ... are made for other things." Determindedly, he shut away the menory that flashed upon him then. "And there are other differences, as well."

"Okay, what's another?"

He bent his head, casting around for a way to put it. Before he'd found one, she said it for him. "Jacob."

He just nodded.

"That's the most important difference," she agreed, and they walked most of a block contemplating that immense and miraculous fact that had utterly changed his life and the ways he could categorize himself. Crossing the next empty street against the light, she gave him a look. "Yeah, that's an important difference, all right. But so far, you've left out the most obvious one."

Reaching the curb, he gave her a look in return, waiting for her to name whatever separation between him and utter alienness was, to her, the most obvious, while dreading, more than a little, finding out what it might be. He still couldn't believe his daring in opening such a discussion. With anyone. He couldn't imagine why he'd wanted to. He began to very much wish he hadn't. What awful thing ...?

She strung out the moment, watching his face. Then she said, "No tail, babe."

After a minute, Vincent thought to shut his jaw. His face felt incandescent. Then he started laughing. He weaved over to a lamp post and leaned against it, then hung onto it while a firecracker string of detonations within him was set off by why she'd single that out, and how she knew, and of course she knew, and imagining himself with a proportional tail half as expressive as Sebastian's, and her choosing something so silly to set against all the rest. As though taillessness alone could overrule so much profound strangeness and decree him acceptably human; each explosion more ridiculous, frightening, and funnier than the last. Somehow the idea had caught him completely off-guard and hit deeply home, like an unlooked-for reprieve from death. His reaction was as reflective and uncontrolled as a sneezing fit. He couldn't stop laughing.

Diana came and hugged him and the lamp post, wet strands of hair curling against her cheeks from under the sweatshirt hood, laughing too and butting her forehead against his shoulder. He held onto the lamp post. Then he held onto her, swaying with his eyes shut, trying to choke down to wheezing chuckles and helplessly exploding again, having to lean harder, bent almost double.

"It's okay," she insisted against his ear, holding on hard. "It's okay, babe. If it wants to get out, just let it. It's okay."

He was dizzy and quite astonished at himself. It seemed like forever before he could pull in a breath and hold it without losing it, and himself, into a new string of seizures. For several minutes, merely breathing and not falling down was as much as he could manage. Then he tipped his shoulder against the post, finally still. Diana patted his arm, then stepped away, warily scanning the intersection for dangerous observers. But there was only fog and the faint wet tire-hiss of a car passing somewhere.

"You do that a lot when I'm not around?"

"Never," he gasped. "Never in my life."

A silence.

"Overstimulated," she proposed wisely.

He thought about that and contrived not to let it set him off again.

"You still game for pizza?" she suggested.

He made the effort of straightening and going up the post's support. Pushing away to wander after Diana, he was still dizzy, but his breath was coming more normally. He could stay on his feet and move.

Never, he thought. Surely he'd lost himself often enough before. But never like that. Never into laughter as all-encompassing as rage. His ribs hurt. His throat hurt. He wondered what he'd sounded like - those uncontrollable shouts, roars of laughter as intense as pain or grief.

Ahead of him, Diana remarked, "Well, you've convinced me, babe; you're not a cat." She glanced around to see how he'd taken that. He was too blankly bemused to take it any way at all. Deciding it was safe, she explained, "Cats don't laugh. Though it's a well-known fact that they grin."

Vincent, reflecting on how really remarkably glad he was that Diana wasn't going to discard Sebastian for hurting her (although, of course, she should), didn't say anything to that either. She announced she was going to jog on ahead and collect the pizza, and asked if she could depend on him not to get lost in the fog.

Cats always found their way home. It was another well-known fact. Books were full of remarkable accounts of such returns. He promised not to get lost, and Diana sprinted off down the irregular lane of puddles.

Vincent had never known what he was. And now he felt he knew even less.

If not a cat, then what?''

And his daring had stretched only far enough to list the divergences. He doubted he'd ever have the courage to acknowledge the similarities.

*****

The elevator door slid back. Vincent pushed the gate and stood aside to let Diana squelch past with the balanced pizza in it shiny protective HotSak.

"Before food," she announced, setting the pizza on the kitchen island, ''dry! I don't know about you, but I'm soaked through. I'm gonna get changed, and if ..."

Turning toward the inner rooms, she became entangled in a lurching dance to avoid stepping on an enthusiastic Sebastian, dashing out to greet her, underfoot no matter in which direction she tried to step.

Meanwhile, Vincent had unwisely draped his sodden, heavy cloak on the bentwood coat tree, which promptly tipped over, frightening the cat and missing Diana by inches as she lunged to escape it. While Vincent tried, simultaneously, to collect the offending puddle of cloak, right the bentwood tree on its wobbly triad of legs, keep from stepping on the cat himself as it ricocheted around the loft, and apologize.

Diana did the prudent thing; disappeared into her bathroom and shut the door, Sebastian immediately diverted his mad race to stand before, demanding to be let in (or out, as the case might be; one of Diana's sage observations was that cats considered themselves, by definition, on the wrong side of any shut door).

With two of the participants safely out of the way, Vincent was free to stand the bentwood tree upright again, replace the jacket and two sweaters that generally lived there, and stand holding his dripping cloak, scanning the loft for the least damaging place to put it. It wouldn't fit in the kitchen sink; the bathroom was occupied. Nothing else vertical looked sturdy enough to support such a weight of leather, laces, and wet wool. Diana resolved his quandry by sweeping back in an oversized shirt and bluejeans disinterred from the hamper (Vincent could tell), scooping the bundle of cloak out of his arms, and unceremoniously pitching it across the back of the couch.

She stopped his protest with the comment, "That's the least of what that couch has gone through. Don't give it a thought. Your turn in the bathroom, if you want." Sebastian at her heels, she went on into the kitchen area, vigorously toweling her hair.

Vincent absolutely refused to imagine what Diana had casually proposed; undressing in someone else's home, under any circumstances, was entirely out of the question. Anyway, he wasn't very wet; the thick cloak was enough to shield him from anything short of a steady downpour.

Since the couch had been pronounced beyond further harm, he cautiously lowered himself to the side nearest the damp blotch spreading from his draped cloak, leaving the drier side for Diana.

"Tea goes lousy with pizza," Diana commented, halfway into the refrigerator. "Soda okay? Lemon or cola?"

"Lemon. Please."

Sebastian, prepared to forgive and forget when the delicious aroma of hot pepperoni was in the air, cried and lifted on his hind legs to dance spiral cat dances by the kitchen island.

Diana delivered two cans of sode for Vincent to open, then slid the pizza box from its protective envelope and brought it to the low table near the couch. Brandishing the pizza-cutting wheel, she asked, "Cut or choose?"

Vincent had told her about that custom Below. If children got into a dispute about food, one child was allowed to divide the spoils, but the other child was allowed first choice of the pieces.

Vincent volunteered to cut, and when Diana had duly chosen her first slice, collected for himself a triangle of greasy, delicious-smelling, still nearly-hot pizza, curling it into a neat flute, as Diana had told him all civilized people did. Only tourists and other such barbarians would desecrate a lovely string of mozzarella with a knife and fork. Plates were optional   not encouraged, but not forbidden, especially to novices. And paper towels did perfectly well as napkins.

Vincent always liked to understand the proper way to do things. And claws were better than fingers for the permitted pleasure of selecting a single slice of pepperoni, that might otherwise have gotten lost in the complex, blended taste, to be popped into one's mouth and savored separately. As with tea, observing the proper ceremonies was a substantial part of the pleasure.

Watching Sebastian gobble a similar delicacy-snatched from Diana's offering fingers, Vincent commented idly, "I don't begrudge it to him. But it's a waste."

"Why?" she shot back. "Because he's a cat? What makes you think he doesn't enjoy it just as much as you do?"

Vincent hadn't intended to return to that perilous ground of conversation. But he'd ceded it to Diana. Opened it to her. And she wanted him to know she meant to lay firm claim to this new territory stretching, still largely unexplored, between them. He'd given her that right.

An apt passage from Blake came to him as counterpoint. "How do you know but every bird that cuts the airy way is a world of immense delight, closed by your senses five?"

"No quoting. Quoting's not fair," Diana decreed, expertly catching up an escaping string of cheese before it could sag beyond recovery. "Come on; what's your philosophical basis here? Cats are champion enjoyers. They know what they want, what they like, and whether they got it or not. They're in no doubt whatever about it. What's aesthetically inferior about that?"

"They have no ... contest," Vincent formulated. "A moment's pleasures are over in a moment. It all passes - experienced, but unexamined. Uncomprehended. Cats may observe rituals - their preferred places, their chosen ways. This chair, that rug, that bookcase nearest the window," he said, glancing around at the locations in the loft he'd noticed that Sabastian favored. "But they aren't ceremonious. They don't enjoy the combinations of things, the overlayering of present, past, and expectation, as ... a more complex intelligence is capable of doing."

"And ceremonious is better, right? Says who, Father?"

Vincent chose another slice of pizza, one with appealing brown blotches. "I happen to agree with him. The highest civilization have been the most formalized. Take the Chinese. Or the Egyptians, at least of the Dynastic eras. Or consider ..."

"Yeah, don't bother. I know the drill. Inferiors have rituals. We evolved folks have customs  and ceremonies. Animals have instincts. Only we possess the capacity for rational thought, which makes us not just different, but better. Morally better. All-around better in the grand scheme of the universe, whatever that may be - right?"

"Something like that."

He was used to Diana's contentious style of discussion, and comfortable with it. It was the natural, opposite face of the coin of her consideration and tact about things that really mattered. In debate, however, she was as intent, ferocious, and unrelenting as Father, at chess.

"And right now," she went on, "you've decided you're not a cat, at least not in some of the ways that matter, and you're pleased about that, aren't you?"

Unhesitatingly, she'd moved from the abstract to the particular - and onto the new ground. Well, he supposed he should have expected it.

"So," she continued, "you feel like patronizing the lesser orders; that you've decided no longer have any important connection to you. Right?"

Vincent selected a piece of pepperoni, removed it from its cheesy encrustations, and held it at knee level. After a moment's wary consideration, Sebastian came and snatched it, then retreated to finish devouring it.

"He seems to enjoy my patronage well enough," Vincent observed mildly, collecting a square of paper toweling to wipe his hands. "And yours. The choice that he live here was yours, not his. His food is what you provide for him. His safety is in your protection and care. You enjoy his company, and he enjoys those comforts you provide for him. But they are not equal enjoyments."

"Ahuh. Which is a polite way of saying I've allowed myself to be parasitized. By something that's not substantially different from a furry tapeworm, a larger flea. Because animals, by definition, are inferior."

"You don't acknowledge that?"

"Damn right I don't!"

"Then you haven't seen the zoos I've seen. Or the packs of mongrels that range through the park, attacking whatever they find undefended. Or the birds that starve or freeze in the coldest months and fall from the branches, frozen in a thin cairn of leaves. Were animals wiser, they would live better than they do, Diana. Their lives are hard, brutish, and short, and full of fear to a degree I doubt you can imagine. Few animals are pets, Diana. And I think you know little of them, or of their lives, when they are beyond human view or sentimental concern."

She braced her hands on her knees. "You got just two boxes to put things in; human, and animal. And animal,  to you, is something shameful. Damn near contemptible. Humans, the surperior beings, at the top of creation's totem pole, only just a little below the angels, right? And animals down with the garbage, not even worthy of a devil's attention. Like rocks and pond slime. Who drummed this incredible species bigotry into you, babe - Father?"

"It's not bigotry. It's fact."

"Sure, that's what all the bigots say. Give me one scrap of evidence to support it, except blind prejudice worthy of a flat earther or the folks who contend the holocaust was a collective delusion."

As the pizza disappeared, that developed into a lively discussion of 19th century self-congratulatory chauvinism - cultural, technological, racial, and religious; C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy; Diana's heated contention that dolphins and probably whales should be properly classified as 'people,' and Vincent's pointing out that no cat had ever made a symphony, a poem, or a cathedral - all things he firmly believed had intrinsic value. Insufficiently noticed, the cat jumped onto Diana and circled, actually brushing his tail across her face. Diana pushed him off to make a point about science fiction and the ready acceptance of aliens, creatures which fit neither category of animal or human, in that genre. They were off on the topic of whether cats had souls, or anybody did, when Vincent noticed an intense, acrid smell as strong as a shout. He lifted his head. Diana looked instantly chagrined and scrambled off the couch to investigate.

"Oh, God." She clapped both hands over her mouth.

When Vincent circled the couch to join her, he found a fresh, spreading puddle, the source of the stench, dripping to the floor. From his cloak. The cat had wet on it.

"Oh God, Vincent, I'm so sorry. I'll see to it. I'll wash it out------Jesus, I hope it will wash out -"

When she made to gather up the dripping cloak, Vincent firmly removed it from her hands and carried it to the kitchen sink. A few minutes' soaking and rubbing with liquid dish soap convinced him that though the mark might be removed, nothing was going to exorcize the smell.

Diana hovered in the middle distance, on the far side of the kitchen island, her initial dismay being overtaken by her earthy sense of humor. "Do you think he knows you were dissing him? Should we count this as a debating point?"

Vincent turned, grimly wringing out the offending patch. From a strategic spot in the short hallway leading to Diana's bedroom and bathroom, where there'd be lots of places a cat could hide, Sebastian stared at him defiantly.

"It's all right, Diana. Don't concern yourself. An accident."

Privately, Vincent was in no doubt; it had been no accident. Sebastian's unrepentant glare said that it was insult, cool and deliberate.

An animal insult. And Vincent had no idea how to answer it, for he couldn't, wouldn't, answer it in kind.

*****

As Vincent had expected, the incident with the cloak was merely the slap of the gauntlet -- the opening of hostilities. What followed was a campaign nicely balanced between boldness and caution. Sebastian obviously had a perfectly clear sense of their relative sizes; he never was so foolish as to risk direct confrontation. He used guerilla tactics; stealth, indirection, sabotage, theft, lightning ambush. Suitable for the determined assault of a small aggressor upon a much larger and stronger adversary.

Anything Vincent laid aside was subject to defacement or, if of a suitable size, being carried away and hidden. The large-handled blue mug Diana reserved for his use was unaccountably misplaced several times before Vincent spotted Sebastian trotting away with its handle in his jaws. By tracing the cord, the headphones were discovered under a rucked-up throw rug and, on another occasion, retrieved from the back of a bookcase. The video controller went missing for a full week before Diana reported finding it stuffed between the couch cushions during a rare bout of cleaning. Any paper towel Vincent used was likely to end up as shredded confetti strewn everywhere. Anywhere he sat was sure to be layered with cat hair the next time he came. Only Vincent's prudently hanging his cloak on a projecting bolt in the stair well prevented its being anointed again.

Such indirect annoyances, which Diana regarded with exasperated amusement, weren't Sebastian's whole repertoire, however. His favorite tactic was the blitzing rebound - flinging himself, full-speed, from the couch or chair arm, to Vincent's back, and instantly off again before Vincent could retaliate with an annihilating swat.

Not that Vincent would have awaited him, of course; Sebastian was Diana's. Striking out at the cat would have been almost the same as striking at her. Which of course was unthinkable.

After all, the blitzing did him no physical hurt. Through the layers of quilted vest and shirt, there wasn't even a scratch. It merely startled him; that is, sent him instantly and involuntarily into full fight mode. Heart racing, skin chilling and then heating on a blaze of adrenaline, breath coming tight and quick - his whole system going into emergency alert to defend himself ... against a cat which was already on the other side of the room; nonchalantly grooming a striped shoulder.

His reaction was disproportionate. Ridiculous. Humiliating. And completely uncontrollable. It took the better part of an hour for his back hair to lie flat. It took longer for the readiness to explode into action - any action - to snarl unsatisfied back into latency, finding no appropriate victim on which to vent itself.

Some nights, returning home, he was still so tense that he couldn't sleep at all. Or if he did, his dreams were indescribable. Red dreams of hunting and slaughter, that he'd thought himself free of. The cause was trivial; the consequences and the aftermath were not.

When Father remarked solicitously that Vincent looked tired, Vincent's response was to growl and stalk off. Father thereafter refrained from comment, which Vincent appreciated.

He was trying his best to behave normally. Not to let the cat's campaign affect him, or at least not to show that it did. Though the prospect became increasingly harrowing, he continued to visit Diana's loft on a regular basis; not to do so would mean that the cat had won.

While there, though, he fidgeted, keeping the cat under continued surveillance. It never did anything while he was watching. As a result, he couldn't carry on a connected conversation, or pay steady attention to anything but his striped, spotted nemesis.

Looking where he was looking, Diana would ask, "What's the matter? What's he doing?"

"I beg your pardon?" Vincent would respond, if he hadn't been listening."Nothing," he'd say, if he had. "Nothing at all."

"Then why are you watching him like that?"

"It's nothing, Diana. I'm simply ... observing him."

"Yeah, okay," Diana would respond dubiously, unwilling to dispute the matter as long as he refused to admit anything was seriously amiss.

Sebastian timed his blitzes judiciously, launching himself not merely when Vincent was distracted, but when Diana wasn't likely to catch him at it; scanning her printouts, or staring, back turned, at her computer screen, or off in one of the inner rooms. Preoccupied with her work, she seldom saw the actual attack - only Vincent slamming to his feet for no apparent cause. But Sebastian's various harassments left enough evidence behind that she couldn't help knowing the fact of them, if not the more harrowing details. One evening, finding Sebastian attempting to shred a book Vincent had been reading, Diana scooped the cat up, scolded him severely, and shut him in the bathroom. Sebastian howled, a furious, high-pitched keening, the entire time Vincent was there. The noise was awful; unremitting, unnerving. Like listening to a child being tortured. By unspoken mutual consent, Diana never repeated the experiment.

She didn't again offer to give the cat away. Vincent didn't expect her to. She'd make it clear that Sebastian was no longer on probation. Whether well or badly-behaved, the cat was a rightful member of her household; it was Vincent who was the visitor, the guest. Vincent accepted that and set himself to endure the skirmishing and his involuntaryn reactions to it.

The reaction that troubled him most was that his threat-heightened awareness didn't confine itself to the cat. Everything was sharper, more intense. Vision, touch, smell all became almost painfully acute. And he was aware of Diana like that. Viscerally. Every lift of her hand, turn of her head, or shift of her balance was as if there was no distance between them. When she crossed the room to make fresh coffee. or hammer at her keyboard, from her clothes, her hair, her body, wafted to him smells as pungent as tastes, a thousand flavors of her near presence. And sometimes her outline was haloed by a stormy, sullen red haze and became the only thing he could see.

Whenever that happened, he left abruptly and stalked the streets, or sought the stony companionship of rooftop gargoyles, until dawn and the day's duties drove him Below.

One night, partway through his sentry rounds, he completely lost track of where he was, what he was doing. He was tired. He wanted to rest. He curled up on the sandy floor in a curve of the passage, wrapped his cloak about him, pillowed his head on a bent arm, and fell asleep.

Waking with a start that had become all too familiar, he found Jamie standing a yard or so away, holding up a lantern by whose light she regarded him with concern.

Before she could ask him what was wrong, he immediately stood up and started brushing the patches of sand off his clothes. Then he stopped, realizing his sense of having been caught doing something absurd was itself absurd, and moreover unfair to Jamie, who had every right to be concerned.

"We don't have to talk about it," Jamie commented gently, making him recollect how much, at times, she reminded him of Diana. "Just tell me what I can do to help."

Vincent sighed. "How late is it?"

"How late are you, you mean. About two hours. When Cullen got to the end of the shift and you hadn't come by, he signaled. Vincent, how about if I take over the sentry rounds for awhile? I'm a big girl; I'm allowed to stay up past midnight." She smiled, comfortable enough now in her adulthood to make such a joke, and such an offer.

Accepting, in that moment, that Jamie's apprenticeship was over, Vincent said, "Thak you, Jamie. I'd appeciate it. Should there be anything amiss, you know where to find me."

"In bed, I hope."

"No. I'm going to Diana's."

Through the loft's high, slanted windows, he saw Diana sitting on the couch, hands hanging between her knees, head morosely bowed. Sebastian was stretched full-length beside her, sprawled with as much abandon as if sleeping the sleep of the just.

Suddenly, Diana's head lifted, and her gaze sprang to the windows. Bounding up on stocking feet, she vanished toward the roof door. As she and Vincent met on the stair, there was a moment's awkwardness - a forward-back dance figure of cross-purposes. She wanted to herd him up, back to the neutral roof, trying to slide past and draw him along. He refused, blocking the narrow stair with his body and proceeding down, so that she ended up retreating before him, saying, "I'd just about given up on you for tonight. Come on, let's take a run, we can ..."

Vincent just kept moving, until he'd backed her into the loft. He turned to shed his cloak, then shut the door behind him. "Not tonight. I'm sorry to have come so late, Diana. The sentry rounds ..." He paused, thinking how to phrase it without actually lying. "... took longer than I expected."

"Trouble?"

"Only delays."

They both glanced at the couch. Sebastian wasn't there anymore.

"I was hoping," Diana persisted with a brittle, unconvincing cheerfulness, "we could take a run, it's clear and windy, just the kind of weather you like ..."

Having located the cat crouching under a table, Vincent was satisfied. He looked at her. "I know what the weather is, Diana. I've just been out in it."

Her shoulders slumped. "Yeah, right ... Here, this is stupid," she exclaimed, and turned abruptly to the low table near the couch. When she swung back to Vincent, she was holding a gun.

"Defend yourself, Dammit!" she blurted, extending the gun to him, and Vincent then realized it was a toy; a plastic water pistol. "He's a great cat, but he's gotta learn some manners. If he acts up, cut loose." When Vincent put his hands behind him, Diana argued, "It's just diluted ammonia. Won't hurt him. But he won't like the smell."

"I don't either."

"Oh," said Diana, deflated, and flung herself onto the couch, an arm flopped along the back and her cheek laid against it, giving him her strained profile. Even her fiery hair looked dull, subdued. "I don't want this to be happening," she muttered. "I really don't. This is very no fun whatever. There's gotta be  way to stop it."

Sebastian was no longer under the table. Vincent waited until he'd spotted the cat huddled almost invisibly in the shadow of one of the far bookcases before seating himself cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch.

"I refuse," he said to Diana, "to be at war with your cat. One must keep some sense of proportion; Sebastian has done me not the slightest physical harm. Not a scratch, much less a bite. What he is attacking is not my person but my peace. My enjoyment in visiting you. In being here, in your place. He wants this place, and you, exclusively for himself. I understand that. I would do the same, were I he. But I ..."

"You would?" Diana interrupted, glancing around wide-eyed.

"Yes," admitted Vincent, returning her look. "But I ..." He changed what he'd been about to say. "I know I haven't the right."

Diana thumped the toy pistol onto the table, within his reach. "You got my permission to shoot my cat the second he puts a whisker out of line."

Vincent thought a moment about just how frank he should be and decided to say it anyway. "It's not the cat I would evict."

"Huh?"

"That's one of Mark's shirts you're wearing."

Diana's expression turned guarded. His remark had surprised her, made her self-conscious. Making a show of scanning herself, she tweaked at a pinch of fabric. "Sure enough, buttonholes on the left. I don't know - I just grab the first thing my hand comes to. Maybe just your basic Goodwill special."

"I'm sure you've washed it many times since. Nevertheless. I know it was his." Evenly, factually, he added, "The owner's scent can never be entirely removed from clothing. Not for me."

The implicit admission of difference hung in the air between them. It was Diana who first looked away.

"Yeah, I guess you'd be an expert in hand-me-downs. Okay, so I got some old shirts that button the wrong way; what of it?"

"Nothing, Diana. Merely that I can understand such possessiveness as Sebastian's. Very well, at times ..."

Now it was he who flinched away from the shining of Diana's eyes, returning to his. She mustn't hope. He mustn't allow that. It would be cruel, unfair. He forced himself to even greater bluntness.

"No matter what you say or believe, Sebastian is not deceived. He knows I'm not a man. That's evident in his tactics. He's trying to intimidate what he perceives as another feline, however large and strange, and taking appropriate precautions against my expected retaliation. I refuse to retaliate."

Diana leaned down on an elbow. Brushing aside his hair, her hand settled on his neck, rubbing. Though he held still, it made him shiver. She said, "The longer you don't, babe, the more he's gonna pester you. He's like a kid. He's gotta learn what the limits are."

"No, he's not a child. He's an adult male cat who considers you his exclusive property and is attempting, quite naturally, to drive off what he considers a rival. I refuse to answer him on those terms. I refuse to be provoked into acting as the cat Sebastian believes me to be. I dare not. Were I to turn on him as one feline against another, there would be very little left of Sebastian. That would be unconscionable. And ... it wouldn't end there."

Diana's hand continued steadily rubbing. "Explain."

Vincent bowed his head. The sensation of her fingers stroking his neck, under his hair, was mesmerizing. Pleasant with a pleasure he scarcely dared feel or acknowledge. It became difficult to link thoughts, find words to express them, when all he wanted to do was drift on the awareness. But Diana had asked an explanation of him, he tried his best to shut away the powerful distraction to give her one.

"There are differences," he said at last. "But there are also profound similarities. I dare not give in to them. For the cat that I also am, in part, is a very large cat, and very dangerous, and very ... impulsive in what it does. In what he does. He is in no way safe, Diana. Heedless of consequences or of harm. There have been times you've seen that ... aspect of me. It frightened you. Even you."

"Yeah," Diana admitted, on a breathy sigh. "Yeah. I got a door, some furniture that remembers. But it's different now."

"It's the same. Because I am the same. In that respect, at least. That does not change. Believing otherwise is a dangerous delusion neither of us can allow ourselves. Or hoping you could somehow make him tame. A pet." He shut his eyes, involuntarily luxuriating in her touch. "I cannot be that. I will not be that. Not even for you."

Very softly, Diana asked, "Do you ever want to?"

"Continually. It's a terrible temptation. It has always been. It's ... the other alternative. And I can accept neither. If I cannot be to you what a man would be, what Mark was, neither will I be relegated to ... being your pet." Bitterness suddenly surged. "Though I, too, accept your hospitality, eat your food, and enjoy your company, and give nothing ..."

He stopped because her hand had moved to softly cover his mouth.

"I get the picture. You don't have to say any more. It's not that, you know. Not for me, it isn't."

He couldn't even think of speaking until her fingers lifted. It had taken all his determination not to lick them, taste them. He'd wanted to so badly. And she didn't know.

It was precisely her inaccurate assumptions about him that contributed to this present dilemma. She believed herself safe, and him a man. She wasn't. Because he wasn't.

Terrified of the answer, unable to resist asking, he said, "Do you ever think of me ... as a cat?"

Diana had gotten as far as "I ..." when four paws struck Vincent from behind. Taken, again, utterly by surprise, he sprang up just in time to see a jet of dilute ammonia intersect Sebastian's retreating leap. In mid-air, the cat twisted in a startlement evidently as great as Vincent's, flopping virtually on his face and then skidding on his side, mouth writhing back from fangs in an expression of utter disgust and chagrin. Scrambling to his feet, the cat raced away, yowling his displeasure.

The loft stank of ammonia. To Vincent, it smelled very much like urine. It almost certainly smelled like that to Sebastian, too.

Still leaning with her elbows on the back of the couch, watching Sebastian's demoralized retreat, Diana lowered the pistol, remarking composedly, "Gotta catch 'em in the act. Otherwise, they won't make the connection. He seems to be a pretty bright cat; think he'll catch on?"

Vincent stared at her. When, eventually, she looked around at him, he said, "You shouldn't have done that."

"It wouldn't have been right for you, I guess. So I had to," Diana contradicted evenly. "He's my cat. I'm real attached to him. But he's gotta learn to treat my company with respect. Hey, you don't have to look like that."

Vincent only shook his head.

"Look," said Diana, "It's no big deal. I squirted my cat with a water pistol, for Christ's sake! Maybe after this, he'll behave."

"Perhaps."

"Want to watch a video? Something?"

It was less a question than an appeal; having failed to impose a different beginning on their evening together, Diana now wanted a different, reconciled end. So Vincent agreed, though it was now very late indeed and the ammonia was pungent and unpleasant.

Sitting on the floor with one shoulder against Diana's knee, he made it about ten minutes into The Three Musketeers before falling asleep. He was dreaming of leopards with glowing eyes, pacing their cages and plotting savage revenge, when Diana woke him because it was nearly dawn and time for him to go home.

*****

"See?" Said Diana triumphantly, when a whole evening had passed without a single blitz from Sebastian. "I told you he was a smart cat. Once was enough." With one stocking foot she patted the large toy pistol, still a prominent feature of the table nearest the couch.

"It would seem so," Vincent agreed dubiously, checking that Sebastian was still asleep in a favorite place by the radiator.

And for several days, it did seem that the campaign was over. Sebastian stalked and then had a wild battle with the video controller, but didn't try to remove or hide it. He chased a foil ball with equal enthusiasm when Diana tossed it, and likewise wandered away when he lost interest in it. He went back to behaving as though Vincent wasn't there, which Vincent found a vast improvement.

Afterward, reconstructing things, they realized Sebastian had merely dropped one set of tactics for another until, by trial and error, he hit one one that would 'get a rise' out of his adversary.

It was very subtle. And very effective.

Sebastian began watching him as only a cat could; crouching behind him or off to one side and staring at him with implacable intentness. Never launching from the crouch into an attack. Only steadily staring.

It took awhile for Vincent to notice. He'd relaxed his guard enough to risk putting on the headphones again - at risk because he always became completely caught up in music, oblivious to all else. A sitting target for a blitz.

He particularly loved classical music. Solo recitals and small chamber ensembles, he could listen to on practically a weekly basis, Below, not counting the repetitious and much less-polished rehearsals, classes, and practice sessions, that he couldn't help overhearing during the course of his daily activities. But the complex and powerful sonorities of a full orchestra were lost to him when the park concerts stopped in early fall. He missed them immensely. The instant availability of such music, at the touch of a few buttons or the careful insertion of a cassette or disk, was among the things that had contributed to make Diana's loft seem to him such a magical haven.

Since the siege seemed to have been lifted, he binged. Characteristically, he began with Beethoven; the vast symphonies; the familiar. Then he ventured into the newly discovered late Romantics that, until recently, he'd only read about; Bruckner. Mahler. Unfamiliar and even vaster works - immoderate, sweeping, capable to including cowbells and celestas, hammers and harps, heaven and hell, in compositions that lasted over an hour. An hour gladly lost in being carried along in the largest music he'd ever experienced, played full volume through the headphones, so that it was doubtful he'd have noticed a bomb gong off in the basement.

But gradually, he did notice ... something. A subliminal uneasiness. His hair beginning to prickle and rise. Then a sudden start as he was shaken out of the music's enchantment by a sharp but formless awareness of threat. He'd yank off the headphones and gaze wildly around the loft. And find no cause. Nothing.

That was while Sebastian was still experimenting to determine the ideal range.

When Sebastian found that a distance of about four feet got the maximum reaction, the target was locked in. And for Vincent, the phantom uneasiness condensed into instantaneous, visceral certainty; PRESENCE! DANGER! Full fight mode. All the symptoms - the chill, the heat, the breath that seemed locked in his throat, the adrenaline surge, the hammering of his heart. And then the aftermath; the hair-trigger tension, the insomnia, the wet red dreams, the hyperacute awareness - all back in full force as though they'd never stopped.

For no cause. He was afraid he was losing his sanity.

The third night it happened, he lunged to his feet and was out the roof door before Diana's alarmed cry reached him. Snatching up his cloak, he kept going; down her fire escape in incautious bounds, then through her long, featureless alley, fast, growling under his breath. Hoping, not quite consciously, to come upon a mugger, a gang fight, anything on which he might discharge the awakened violence. If not harmlessly, then without consequences he'd have to face. Fever hot. Rage hot. And frozen inside with terror that he hadn't escaped it, it was all happening again.

Emerging from one alley, racing into another, he heard running footsteps echo faintly behind him. He was being pursued. Almost beyond thought, he ducked behind a dumpster, then burst out to confront his pursuer. His spread, taloned hand had already begun its swing when the red haze cleared and revealed her face - flushed, wide-eyed, open-mouthed; Diana.

He'd nearly done the unthinkable. Their eyes met for an instant. There could be no excuses, no apology that would be enough. He instantly whirled and ran on. After a moment, he heard her running steps resume, stubbornly pounding along in his wake. He couldn't bear the prospect of facing her again. He jumped to yank down the next fire escape he came to and started climbing. Several tiers up, he bounded onto a ledge, then down to a balcony, then up on another ledge, from which he leaped to a decorative cornice barely a yard wide and about ten yards long, angled around a corner. Its outer parapet was studded with concrete gargoyles. Breathing hard, he took a place among them. Frigid winds whipped his hair.

"Vincent?"

Her voice, safely distant. He ignored it.

"Vincent, I got myself in a sort of situation, here ... Babe, if you don't give me a hand, they're gonna be scraping me off the pavement."

That, he couldn't ignore. Stalking back to the edge of the cornice, he discovered two hands frantically locked on the parapet that was too wide for them to grasp. Diana's sneakers dangled over vacancy. There was nothing against which to brace a knee or a foot. Her pale oval of face lifted to him, nervously smiling.

There was no alternative.

Grasping her wrists, he hauled her up and over the parapet. He had to back a pace to give her room to stand. When her feet hit, she staggered and sagged against the building's bricks, remarking breathlessly.

"It looked closer than it was. I thought I could take it."

Saying nothing, Vincent returned to the projecting corner and resumed his place among the gargoyles. The returning jump would be even worse; no handholds, and a sheer drop. He'd have to go first, then catch her. So he couldn't just escape, as he very much wanted to. He couldn't leave her stranded here.

As she'd said, it was a clear night. The stars pulsed a blurred rhythm in the black sky.

He felt her come up behind him. She said, "I had to tell you. It's Sebastian. He's doing it."

"He's done nothing."

"This time, I was watching. He's been doing it. It's not you. He's just goddamn watching you. That's all. But ... It's enough, I guess. Damn it. Damn it all to hell. It's all going wrong. I never meant for it to be like this ..."

Without turning, he knew she was crying. It was in her voice. It tore at him. He swung around on the parapet and gathered her against him. At the contact, her furious sadness swept into him like a grieving wind.

"I thought," she sobbed, "you'd see that cat was okay, that I really, really do like cats, any way they come. I thought, back in that alley, the first time ... all I could think about was you, hurt, abandoned, a kid, stuck in some alley, like Father told me about, and I couldn't not take him, don't you see? Any more than I could've left you in that graveyard. It was the same to me, you see? All tangled up, but it seemed so simple, such a great idea, I thought you'd finally see ..."

"Hush. Hush."

"... nd it's goddamn sibling rivalry, but I can't say it or you'll take it wrong, even though it's true, can't even have the goddamn cat fixed, for Christ's sake. It might settle him down a little - generally I would have it done right away, but don't you see, I couldn't, God knows how you'd have taken that!" She laughed, as though laughter were an affliction that had come over her suddenly.

"Fixed?"

"Jesus, you don't even know the proper euphemisms! All right, neutered. Gelded. Castrated. What you do with a tomcat you don't want breeding a new generation of tomcats to starve in alleys, hurt, with nobody to belong to them. Goddamn it! And it wasn't supposed to be like this, I set up the connections and now I'm stuck with them but I never meant ...!"

"Hush. I understand." And he thought that finally he did.

Pounding a fist on his shoulder, she exclaimed, "And the worst of it is, I DO love that cat! He's smart, funny, great company, and there all the time."

"As I am not."

She jerked a nod against his chest. "And I won't give him up. I can't, or you'll figure I'd throw you away too, the first time you got outta line, or I just got tired of putting up with you or whatever.

“You know you would, because the connection's there for you, too, and don't try to tell me it isn't because I know better. Hell, the wild running, the places you like to sit, how you smell any new food before you'll taste it, how your head tips back when you're enjoying yourself, the coming and going all the time, the way you get so still and then move, even the way you goddamn stretch, back first, then the arms, then the rest, it makes me shiver, and it's all so goddamn cat it shouts, and all the while, you bad-mouthing animals when you're one, which is nothing special because I'm one,  too, if it comes to that, we all are, but you won't see it, admit to it even for a second, it all has to be head, head, head, and no gut at all, except for the music and like that, and I can't do that with you ..."

Vincent stroked her wind-tangled hair. "I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me."

"No quoting!" Then she chuckled. Then she began, unabashedly, to bawl.

Setting his back against a gargoyle's bat-webbed wing, Vincent tucked one side of his cloak around her and simply held her. Calm now because she was so upset, as she'd been calm for him these past weeks, in the sliding balance and compensation that had become part of their relationship, unquestioned and automatic.

He'd never seen her cry before. Or held her to comfort her sorrow, rather than seeking solace for his own. Not that he stood apart from this. He still felt whatever she did, although his sense of her was fading. It never stayed long ... He remembered the laughter, and the lamp post, and the wonderful rainbowed puddles as beautiful as music.

He didn't try to tell her that nothing was wrong. Nothing worth her crying over. He didn't reproach her tears any more than she'd reproached his laughter.

"Yeah," she said finally - an announcement that she was done. He let her step back so they could trade a shy glance. She scrubbed at her eyes. "Sorry. I don't do that much."

"I know."

"Yeah. I guess you do." Bleak-faced, she made a sharp open-handed gesture of frustration. So here we are. My cat's been putting you through hell, and I haven't got clue one what to do about it. I don't want you to stop coming. I don't want that a lot. Do you know that?"

"I don't want to stop coming. But Diana ... it cannot continue like this."

"Yeah. But what are we gonna do about it?"

"You never answered me," Vincent replied. "About whether you ever think of me as a cat."

She shot him a look. "Do you really need an answer? After all this? All right, if you want it said, Yes, I do. Sometimes. A lot. And I don't figure there's anything wrong with it, Okay? With your reminding me, or my liking it."

"And you thought Sebastian could reconcile me to that."

She bobbed her head.

Vincent continued, "But you forget to take Sebastian, himself, into account. You forgot he's not an it, but a he;  with his own agenda in the matter. An agenda he's been pursuing so successfully that he's driven me more than halfway out of my senses. Quite deliberately and with malice aforethought. You and Sebastian have convinced me, Diana; cats are people. Not human people. But people, all the same. In the broadest definition of the word."

"I'm all for broad definitions. And that's what I wanted to show you - that the fact there's a good chunk of cat in you, any way you slice it, doesn't make you less people. Not to me, anyway. So if you're willing to admit that now, my idea wasn't a complete flop. I guess."

"But here we are," Vincent said for her.

"Yeah. And where the hell do we go from here?"

"Home," Vincent replied, and began steering her to the edge of the cornice that overlooked the ledge. "I'll go first. When I call, jump to me."

"Anytime." She gave him a wan grin. "I thought you'd never ask."

*****

As they wandered slowly back along the alleys, it was almost like returning from an ordinary run. But not quite. Dashing after him, Diana hadn't bothered to grab a jacket. Her steps dragged, and she was visibly clenched against the cold. She protested only mildly when Vincent swung his cape off and draped it over her shoulders.

"My fur," Vincent remarked, feeling both daring and comfortable, "keeps me reasonably warm."

"Yeah," Diana agreed, after she managed to shut her mouth. "Hadn't thought about it, but I guess it would." She stuck her arms into the sleeves, then had to fold them back to fasten the ties in front. Bent, working with the ties, she added cautiously, "I noticed. When you were sick. At the beginning."

"I thought you probably had. It was three days, after all. Or so you said. I remember very little. Except your kindness ... And the wreckage I made of your bedroom. I don't recall doing it, though."

She shrugged. "Nothing much. Just furniture, babe."

"But ... I frightened you."

She looked up at him sharply. "That once, yes. But never since."

He was certain of that, as they swept on ahead. Further along the alley stood a dumpster.

"I frighten myself, sometimes," Vincent commented, and Diana looked pleased and relieved that the brief, oblique reference seemed to be all he intended to say on the subject.

They passed the dumpster without a glance.

"Poor Sebastian," Vincent remarked presently.

"Poor Sebastian?"

Vincent nodded meditatively. "Regarded as a symbol. A catalyst. A proxy. Not as himself. Any person deserves better."

Diana scuffed along silently for a few paces. Then she said, "Okay, feel sorry for him if you want to. It won't last. Or just until he comes up with some new way to bug you."

"The way he's found is quite enough ... Sibling rivalry, you said."

Diana looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, well, I did say that. From his point of view. The way he'd look at it, there are these two cats, and I'm hanging around one of them and not paying the other one the attention he thinks he should have the absolute lock on. Or like a kid who's four, five, when a new baby comes along. Jealous as hell. Furious. Wants more than anything to get rid of this new smelly, noisy lump his parents are making so much fuss over. It's a wonder so few of them do anything permanent about it. Complete, undiluted hatred ... They get over it, though. Mostly."

"Devin did," Vincent mentioned, remembering, "Mostly."

"Oh. Yeah. Your foster brother."

"My brother," Vincent corrected. "As Father is my father. As Jacob is my son. There's no distinction that has any meaning."

Crossing the street and entering the alley at the side of Diana's building, Vincent continued to think about Devin and about the very apt analogy Diana had proposed. Sibling rivalry. Now if he were dealing with Devin (who'd had his spells of spiteful bullying) instead of a cat ... Or if, conversely, Sebastian were truly contending with another cat for dominance ...

Having circled the front of the partly-converted warehouse to the narrower alley on the other side, he pulled down the lower tier of the fire escape and accepted the cloak Diana handed back to him, so she could climb unimpeded. Absorbed in his meditations, only when he reached the roof did he stop and consider the oddity of her having preceded him up the ladder, five whole floors.

"You could have taken the elevator."

She leaned back against one of the roof's many chimneys, hands thrust into her pockets, shoulders tight. "Yeah, well. Not tonight."

"You thought ... I might not come," Vincent realized.

"Look, I'm not gonna rest easy until we figure out what to do here. No rain checks. This has gotta be now. Because if you duck out this time ..."

"Perhaps." Vincent gazed across the roof at the upper door, thinking about the loft that lay beyond it, at the foot of the stairs. "The prospect won't be any pleasanter for waiting ... I've been thinking."

"Yeah?"

"About the first incident. Its context. I recall Sebastian was alredy in an uncertain temper, having been summarily bathed against his will. Then, later, we were having a discussion. Rather a heated one, at times."

"Yeah, about the place of animals in the grand scheme of the universe, and like that."

"I've been thinking ..." Vincent said again.

"Go ahead; shoot. I'm not heavily into politeness, tonight."

She's accurately deduced that the source of his hesitation was something that might be interpreted as critical of her. Vincent accepted her willingness to waive such considerations.

"You have ... a very forceful style of debate. And that was a particularly blunt, personal discussion ... regarding matters we'd rarely, if ever, spoken of before. Even a cat would have noticed an unusual ... intensity. He knows little or nothing of the words, the content. All he would have to go by is the tone, the manner. And I was wondering if he might have concluded ... hat you were extremely displeased with me. In fact, didn't like me. Just going by your tone. Your manner."

"I yelled at you," Diana said in a strained, embarrassed voice.

"Several times. I keep such things in context. I know better. He could not."

"I did yell at you, didn't I? And waved the pizza cutter around some, too. And stuck my finger in your face."

"Several times."

"Yeah." Diana scuffed her foot on the gravel. "I guess I did."

"I don't mind at all," Vincent assured her.

She pushed at strands of hair the wind blew across her face. "It's just my style. I don't mean anything by it."

"I know you don't.”

“But Sebastian doesn't. And you think he figured that how I was behaving meant it would be okay with me, took out on your how peeved he was about the bath and about being ignored. So he wet on your cloak."

"That's when it began. And then escalated from there. He was terribly shocked when you shot him. He felt betrayed. He thought he had your sanction, you see. And then you shot him."

"Got him good. Yeah. Maybe." She glanced up. "How come you understand my cat better than I do? Or is that a dumb question? Or a bad one?"

Vincent shook his head. "I'm willing to waive politeness if you are. My prejudices, toward which you were so eloquently scornful that night, kept me from even trying to imagine his viewpoint. Or conceiving he could have one. It's become quite evident that he does. And ... perhaps I'm a little wiser now. Less of a 'thundering species bigot. I believe that was the phrase ..."

"One of 'em. Yeah, okay. Suppose it's true. Where does that leave us? I already showed him I don't tolerate his behaving like that. So what else can I do?"

"The water gun has only made him choose a more indirect approach. But one that's no less devastating. You may take my word on it."

Recalling that dreadful eruption of malevolent Presence, Vincent shuddered. "If the cause was no more than what you tell me it was, I don't see there's anything that can be done, Diana. A cat cannot be prevented from simply looking. 'A cat may look at a king'."

"You're quoting," accused Diana idly.

"I am."

Noticing how she'd clasped her arms before her against the cold, Vincent again offered the cloak, still draped over his arm. She took it with a nod of thanks. Neither of them was ready to face what waited for them in the loft just yet.

Vincent went on, "It's merely my bad luck, or his good fortune, that he's hit on what, in this instance, is one of my particular vulnerabilities. An awareness of presence. I feel his attention, Diana. A man might merely be made uneasy. But to me, the sensation ... is indescribable. I can't not feel it; it's part ... of who I am. And I cannot endure it. There's no choice. I can't."

"And I can't give Sebastian away. I can't. Not now. You know that. You probably wouldn't mind, at first. It probably would be a goddamn relief, in fact. Right? But you'd remember that when he got to be a problem, I pitched him out. And that would matter, Vincent. To you. To us."

Reluctantly, Vincent nodded. "It would. And we must not forget a second time that Sebastian is a person; he has his own rights in the matter. Diana, tell me ... I know almost nothing of these things. But I gather that people often have more than one pet. Similar jealousies must arise between them, particularly for the established one against the newcomer. How are they resolved? They must be, somehow. Or the household would become a continual battlefield."

"I don't know." Diana frowned, spreading her hands. Only her fingertips showed within the cape's ample sleeves. "I never had more than the one cat at a time. I could ask around, down at the 210. Likely somebody there's had something like this happen. Between two cats. It stands to reason. Maybe ..."

"Cats," Vincent interrupted, following another thought, "aren't social, as a species. Only the lions form stable communities. Dogs rove in packs. Cats don't. Except barn cats ..."

He fell silent, reviewing what his varied and voluminous reading offered on this point.

"Thrust into close quarters," he went on slowly, "domestic cats have been known to form households. Kittens are mothered communally by any available female. The male cats settle dominance almost at once; true fighting is reserved for intruders, not members of the group." Vincent regarded Diana with a sharper attention again. "I am not your pet. I never can be. Do you accept that?"

She smiled a peculiar smile. "I have a pet; Sebastian. And he's already more than I can handle. That never was what I had in mind, in case you were in any doubt about it. For you and me."

"Very well," said Vincent, refraining from inquiring precisely what she did have in mind. "Suppose, though, we were to pretend. That I were not some visiting anomaly which he categorizes, and with some reason, as a rival feline, whom his ... his person ..."

"Owner," put in Diana steadily. "That's the word, and it's true. You might as well say it."

"... his owner, then, inexplicably continues to tolerate, though she clearly doesn't like him very well. Ignores him, a good part of the time, while staring at sheets of paper or an upright square of bright glass. Often speaks sharply to him, in an angry tone of voice. Never does with him, or to him, anything a cat would interpret as affectionate ..."

Diana turned away. After a second she yanked the hood up to further conceal her face. In a small voice she inquired, "is that what I do?"

"As a cat might well see it. Yes."

"I don't mean it like that. And ... you don't ... I mean, you pretty much keep your distance. I don't want ... I thought if I came on too strong, it might scare you off. It's not what I want. I just don't want you ... to go away. That ... would be real hard." The cloak reflected her jabbing around in its inner pockets. Her fingers emerged with a handkerchief she unfolded and made abrupt, noisy use of.

"Anyway," she continued, more briskly, "I do have work to do. With the hours I keep, these days, if I get up much before noon, I'm no use to anybody for the rest of the day. Dead on my feet. I'm a night-owl by inclination, sure, but ... not nearly every night. All night. Like we been doing. The work has to fit in someplace, or else I gotta learn to quit eating. And ... it's not just the money, either. It's the job. It's what I do. A use ... for what I am." She chanced glancing around at him again, to see if he understood.

He nodded, then pointed out quietly. "We were discussing Sebastian."

"Yeah. I guess we were. But I've lost track of what we were supposed to be supposing."

"Suppose I were to become ... less distant. And suppose we were, at least for the time, to avoid discussing subjects that might become heated."

"You mean, suppose I quit shouting at you. Okay, I'm with you so far. And I can try to clear off the paperwork before sundown, not have my face stuck into printouts or in front of the monitor all the time. Then what?"

"We attempt to convince Sebastian that the intruder cat is equally in your favor and therefore not to be further harassed."

She tilted her head, skeptical. "Let's be sure I got this absolutely straight; I get to treat you like a cat."

"Yes."

"Right. So I guess I got that. What do you have in mind - I toss foil balls, and you two take turns chasing them?"

Vincent suppressed a wince at the image. "I imagine we'll think of something. To persuade Sebastian that this cat, too, has rights he must respect."

"Just pretending."

"Just pretending."

"But I don't get to be a cat too?"

"You're the person," Vincent said firmly. "The valiant rescuer of cats from alleys ... and other places. Goddess-protector of all wild things. Circe. Titania. 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'."

Diana gave the door an apprehensive glance. "Now?"

"Now."

*****

Finding the lower door ajar, Diana muttered a word that definitely wasn't 'drat.' Vincent hurried the last few steps after her to close the door; she'd impressed on him how quickly a cat could slide by and be shut in, or out, if one wasn't extremely vigilant. Even in his own storm of leaving, he'd remembered to close both doors securely, evidently Diana hadn't.

But there was no problem. Turning, Vincent found Diana stooped and fondly knuckling the head of the cat which had come to greet her. Then the cat looked up and saw Vincent. They traded quite similar evaluating stares. Then Sebastian stalked off, giving them a fine view of his most intimate anatomy and his high-held, irritably twitching tail.

"If he could talk," Diana said, rising, "I know what that remark would be." She glanced to see if he wanted translation of the rude invitation.

"I think I understand the general idea," replied Vincent moderately. Just because he didn't use such language himself didn't mean he didn't know it; one overheard all sorts of things on the nighttime streets.

"Here," said Diana, passing the cloak to him, "you better put this away. No point asking for trouble."

Checking that the cat was safely distant, Vincent followed her suggestion as Diana went on to the kitchen and put on water for tea, a welcome prospect.

Undecided what to do next, Vincent stood surveying the loft; the discarded earphones, an overturned stack of printout, and Sebastian pacing, similarly undecided, around the back of the couch, and then around the large earthenware container of a broad-leafed rubber plant.

"I'm still freezing," Diana commented, and scuttled by to the bedroom. She returned pulling over her head one of her oversized sweaters - ivory, with a pattern of knots and cable weave. As her head emerged, even more tousled than before, she added, "Just the same, even counting everything, it was fun, you know?"

"Fun?"

"Yeah. Steeplechase, instead of a boring old flat race. Let's do that again, sometime."

"Diana, you could easily have fallen."

She set her hands on her hips. "But I didn't, did I? Okay, so I'm not in training for something like that. So I'm not an Olympic class, freestyle broad-jumper, like some other people around here. So I had to drag over a garbage can to stand on, to pull down the fire escape. I still got there. Almost."

She grinned at him, and he couldn't help smiling back, remembering her dangling from that parapet, a dozen floors up.

"Almost," he conceded softly.

She returned to the stove, absently pushing at her wildly disordered hair. "And the view's incredible from up there. And those gargoyles. It was fun."

Partially concealing a yawn behind a wrist, she opened an upper cabinet. Reaching inside, she glanced around. "Mug? Or saucer?"

She was teasing. At least he hoped she was. "We needn't take this too literally."

"Does that mean mug?"

"Yes, please."

Diana made what Vincent thought of as 'hasty tea'; boiling water dumped over a teabag rather than being brewed properly in a pot. It was never strong enough for Vincent's tastes. As he dipped his bag a few more times in his favorite blue mug, Diana carried her mug to the couch and curled against the stacked side pillows, legs bent and tucked tight, sneakers already levered off. Stirring in a teaspoon of honey, Vincent wandered past the kitchen island and sat cross-legged on the floor. He was blowing on the tea when Diana's eye caught his. Then she looked pointedly at the empty section of couch, reminding him of his promise to not put so much distance between them.

"Why do you do that?" Diana asked, when he dutifully rose and then settled, with his usual caution, in the middle section of the couch. "I don't see you hanging out on floors Below."

With two thirds of the room behind him, Vincent couldn't see Sebastian. Not knowing where the cat was or what it was plotting made him uneasy. He tried to ignore the feeling.

"Below," he said, "the floors are considerably harder.''

"You're ducking. You got cushions, bolsters, stuff like that strewn all around. You could still do it if you wanted to. This is a topside habit. How come?"

"Not entirely topside. It began Below. When I began growing. In my early teens. I'd been rather a small child ... And then, without warning, I began to grow very quickly. Did you ever have growing pains?"

"No, but I've heard the phrase. Are they real?"

"Very real. Bones, muscles, and ligaments don't necessarily develop at the same rate. And any mismatch causes strain. The whole range; aches, cramps, sudden shooting pains ... Does dreadful things to one's coordination, as well. Bumping into walls, furniture. Tripping. Stumbling on steps I'd been up and down ten thousand times without mishap. Dropping objects. Or knocking them over."

"I can't imagine you clumsy."

"I assure you, I was. I'd always loved climbing. In those years, Father utterly forbade me to climb. That was hard. But I had to admit his misgivings were justified."

"But if you're already on the floor," Diana hypothesized, "you can't fall. Or knock anything over. Or break anything."

He bobbed his head.

"Sounds wretched." Diana's hand settled on his shoulder. Then it slid to the joint of shoulder and neck and began rubbing at the tension as she added, "But I don't know anybody who really enjoyed being a teenager. If it's not that, it's something else."

"Diana ..."

"I grew fast, too. I was the beanpole, in the back. Not even counting the braces ..."

"Diana ..."

"What?"

"I can't think when you do that."

Her hand lifted, but only while she slid off the couch, set down the tea, and circled behind him. He felt her there; close, a warmth of presence. Both hands settled firmly and began rubbing.

"This spooks you. Too personal. But my cat Vincent likes it. Doesn't he?"

"Yes ..."

"Pet," she declared, momentarily leaning to brush his cheek with hers, "is also a verb. So we're just having a pet here, that's all. Just pretending."

"Mmmmmmm." It was difficult to think of a more intelligent response when a broad and spreading collar of muscles had relaxed into flowing comfort. His eyes didn't want to stay open. And the word 'pretending,' the word of their pact, disarmed all his usual defenses; it was, in fact, his duty to surrender to this delicious sensation that seemed to be dissolving his bones.

Pet is a verb,  he noted, very seriously. Only pretending. So warm. Mustn't drop the tea.

He summoned the concentration to set the mug aside, next to the water pistol.

I hope Sebastian is finding this properly edifying ...

That thought roused him slightly. He started to turn to check where the cat was now. Diana's hands stopped the motion.

"It's okay. He's doing his basilisk but but we don't care about that, do we? If it's presence that sets it off, I'm a whole lot closer than he is. I'm the only presence that counts. And I'm not gonna hurt my good cat Vincent. No way."

And he subsided, incoherently reassured, her hand slid inside his shirt collar, following the spinal ridge down from the nape of his neck. She tugged at the resilient strands. "This is nice. How far does it go?"

"All the way," he replied drowsily, and bent to let her reach more of it. She immediately accepted the invitation, stroking down to the bottom of his shoulder blades. It was wonderful. He'd never felt anything like it before. His whole back seemed to have gone into ecstatic shock from the ridge being brushed erect on the upstroke and then smoothed flat again as her hand came down. In the contact were wonder, happiness, and an exquisite peacefulness. Not at all what he would have expected.

He thought, Never in my life. Since I was a child. Or never. Father never. No one. Never. Except now.

He didn't remember ever feeling so sheltered. So safe. The sensation was diffuse and maternal. Her presence and the stroking, cherishing contact became virtually his whole awareness, requiring nothing of him, demanding no response. It was appropriate to remain perfectly passive and drift.

He felt her breath at his ear, and then her voice. "Yeah, that must be good; your head tipped back. You're easy, you know that? Doesn't take much, and you're gone. Surprising ourselves, aren't we? Thought it would be scary, all or nothing, and it isn't. Just a plain old pet, and the cat knows more than we thought he'd know. And mean old Sebastian is peeved at not getting a rise out of us. It's okay," her soft hypnotic voice assured, as Vincent felt the cat leap to the couch back and try to insert itself between them. The cat was puzzled, annoyed, anxious, demanding, jealous. And Vincent felt, within himself, a similar and horribly familiar awareness stirring from its enchanted placidity. It knew nothing of pretense. What it knew were the extremes of existence. The absolute passion.

Don't let it change. Please don't let it be too much, and change. Don't let it stop.

And, blessedly, it didn't stop. While Diana's hands continued their magic, her elbow nudged Sebastian off the couch. Vincent heard the thud as the cat hit the floor. His sense of its presence diminished, then evaporated altogether. With no further provocation, the feral thing within him that had been gathering itself lost interest, focus. Like a yellow fog it turned twice around, curled up, and went to sleep.

"I think," Diana whispered against his ear, "we just won round one."

The seemingly disconnected counterpoint in Vincent's mind was, There will be time for visions and revisions, decisions and indecisions. Time to murder and create.

But not now.

He leaned aside to blink slowly at her; hanging across the couch back, her lovely fiery hair loose and tumbled past her shoulders. "I was only pretending."

"Sure you were. But he wasn't." She vaulted lightly over, bounced on the cushion, and was demurely propped on the side pillows again, almost as though she'd never moved. "Tea's getting cold," she announced, reaching for hers, and Vincent did the same, wondering precisely which he she's meant – Sebastian, or the Other.

Perhaps both, he reflected and found it a novel thought.

The tea hadn't cooled much. It was precisely right to drink. So not much time could have passed, after all. He swallowed and found the tea and its aftertaste delicious. Gazing around the loft, he found its surfaces and shadows cast in pleasant crayon colors. Simple. Placid.

Sipping tea, he said, "There are moments out of time. When everything is calmness and peace. When nothing at all is wrong. It's magical."

She smiled at him - such a slow, warm smile that he wondered what she was thinking. What she said was, "The floor thing. I understand about the growing pains, but that's a long time ago. How come you do it now? And how come just Above, not Below?"

Vincent turned to face her more fully, his arm bent along the couch back. "When I was a bit older and began ranging Above, after many ... discussions, Father surrendered to the inevitable and gave me the charge of visiting the helpers. Especially those who were old, or ill, who seldom visited us Below anymore. I could take them food, or medicine, or assist them in small ways."

Diana's nod encouraged him to continue.

"I'm never - well, rarely - at ease, Above. The mere fact of it is dangerous, and therefore exciting. And a bit frightening. So not clumsy, perhaps ... but sometimes awkward. Uncertain. Objects are not sturdily made. I must take great care. And there's the fact that I'm a good deal heavier than I appear. A helper, Mildred, invited me to sit and talk ..."

Diana was already laughing. "And the chair went down, and you with it."

Vincent nodded sheepishly. "I've never quite trusted any since. There's never any problem with floors. I'm less ill at ease. And so are they; I don't loom over people, that way. They're less likely to be frightened of me. Even Sebastian....." He regarded her a long minute.

"What?"

"Diana, cats do have one social custom; grooming."

Immediately she grabbed her hair, one side and then the other, shoving the long tresses out of sight. "I know I'm a fright, I'll go tie it back ..."

His hand on her elbow halted her attempt to rise and bolt for the inner rooms, as he knew she'd been about to do. She was extremely self-conscious about her hair, whose color she believed ugly by definition, though it was not. By day, she confined its abundance to complex braids that kept it tight to her head but which, by evening, were generally coming undone. By the time he'd arrive, endearing wisps had escaped, floating around her face. She was continually batting or tugging at them in annoyance. She claimed pencils got lost in there for days.

"Pretend," Vincent directed, and she stopped pulling against his hand at the word invoking their pact. "Pretend you're Queen of the Fairies, with devoted servents to attend you. You cannot ever be anything but glorious in their sight ..."

"Fine. Then they leave my hair alone."

"They do not. They weave it intricately with jewels and precious metals as befits your beauty and your high station."

"But it's goddamn red!" she protested.

"It's the color of copper, the Fairies' particular metal, that will combine with nearly everything but in itself is flowing and sunbright. From it, the Elven smiths made torques and circlets much prized because their color emulates that of the Lady's hair. But never equals it, for it's alive and therefore beyond all the smith's art. Pretend with me," he said, and took her sagging back against the cushions as capitulation.

As he stood, she directed, "Only if you do it with your tongue."

"You are not to speak to me that way," Vincent reproved her calmly, gong to fetch the brush he knew was kept on a bathroom shelf. "Sebastian would not understand."

Detouring to her bedroom, he collected hairpins and certain other items he stuffed in his pocket before returning. Diana sat on the couch as stiffly as though prepared to resist torture. Standing behind her, he freed the hair trapped between her back and the couch, then methodically began brushing out the tangles - first from the ends, then working back toward the roots.

"You find any pens yet?" she asked presently.

"Not yet. I'll have the spatula and the spiderwebs worked out in no time."

"Sure. Great. I haven't come across the catnip mouse in a week or so - let me know if you find it, okay?"

Her nervous joking told him how uneasy and uncomfortable she still was.

To ease her reasonable misgivings, he remarked, "I'm actually quite good at this. Though there are exceptions, women Below generally wear their hair long ..."

"And you been playing hairdresser for Mary and Rebecca? That's a side of you I never would have guessed." Vincent tapped the brush on her shoulder. "Okay, okay. I know; we got an audience."

"A very interested audience," Vincent agreed. Having followed him suspiciously to each of the inner rooms, Sebastian was sitting in the mouth of the little hallway, watching them with what perhaps was catly astonishment. "No, what I was about to say was that children emulate their elders, and I'm much sought after as a braider of children's hair, after their baths, when I'm settling Jacob for the night. Some, I braid with ribbons or yarn. It's a peaceful time. The children enjoy the attention, and that it is I who do this service for them. It helps us grow closer. So it truly is a social ceremony, as well as a matter of appearance."

"I don't see you practice much on yourself."

After only a slight hesitation, Vincent said, "My hair is of an heavier consistency. And grows differently. As only a few minutes ago, you yourself were remarking. For me, a braid is impractical. It would pull. When working, I sometimes tie it back or use a headband to keep it out of my face. Even that is unconfortable."

Diana twisted around to look at him. "Do it sometime, when I can see you."

"If you like."

When he waited, Diana obediently faced front again, and he resumed brushing.

All the tangles were gone. He brushed now with long, slow strokes, silently counting toward the customary five hundred. Having one's hair brushed could be extremely soothing. He wanted it to be so for Diana - as relaxing as her hands on his shoulders had been. But either he couldn't conjure a similar magic, or she was more resolute than he in resisting it.

More likely, the latter - for magic, there was. He felt it, if she did not. The fiery hair spilled vividly over his hands, slid through his fingers. Hair was a primary source of one's personal scents, particularly the nourishing oils he was stroking out to the tips. This close, it was almost more a taste than a smell. And it tasted like something savory to eat.

He'd never had that perception while tending the children's hair, and hadn't expected it now.

And when he brushed her hair all to one side, the bared nape of her neck looked fragile and undefended. He was certain her skin would taste like music and burn like fire. Other stirrings he hadn't expected tried to confuse the count.

He reminded himself firmly that he was pretending to be a servent attending the Queen of Faerie, and servents wouldn't feel such things. Or if they did, they'd keep them decently to themselves.

He decided two hundred strokes should be enough. Laying the brush aside, he began the braiding, which had to be very precise and required concentration. Using the nail of his forefinger, he drew a part diagonally from each of her ears to the crown of her head, then began a series of thread-thin braids along the part, leaving the hair below hanging loose.

"What's that? That tickles."

"Hush. You can see when I'm done."

Although he hadn't found any ribbon, he had found several lengths of silver elastic cord in a sewing kit. The scissors he'd found there were, predictably, too small to insert his fingers, just as most cups' handles were. But he managed to use them anyway, cutting the cords' ends after he'd woven then through the forming braid and used them to tie it off.

"What are you snipping at, back there? Am I gonna end up with bald patches?"

"Diana," he sighed, "have you no faith in me at all? Besides, what will Sebastian think?"

"Somebody snipping around behind your head is a lot to take in faith, babe. I want to see."

With a leash of braid, he pulled her back. "Grant me another few minutes, my lady."

"Five," she said, lifting the wrist with the watch on it. "Five minutes, and that's it. There's a limit to what I can put up with, even for a cat."

As she'd done before, he leaned across the back of the couch. They looked into each other's faces from a distance of inches. Diana looked aggrieved (which he'd felt in her) and, surprisingly, frightened.

He asked softly, "Is it really so unpleasant?"

"It's the silk purse syndrome. Fussing with the sow's ear just makes it worse. Oh, go ahead if you want to. Get it over with."

Although braiding couldn't be hurried, he completed the row as quickly as he could, then gathered the small braids into a rosette high on her head, letting the remainder cascade to different lengths. He'd found some pearl-colored beads from a broken necklace; larger pearls, teardrop-shaped, were provided by a pair of earrings - obviously a never-worn gift from someone who didn't know her well, since Diana's ears weren't pierced, and he'd never known her to wear earrings in any case. He threaded some of the beads up into the rosette and tipped braids of the cascade with the rest. The two teardrops, he fastened symmetrically to the rosette with the only hairpins he'd needed.

"There. You can look now."

Sebastian prudently skittered out of her way as she bolted for the bathroom. Minutes passed, and she hadn't returned. Vincent began to be apprehensive. On the one hand, he didn't want to intrude; on the other, he very much wanted to know what was delaying her.

He compromised, called, "Diana?'' from outside the hallway.

"Yeah. In a minute."

The bathroom door, he saw, wasn't shut. The light, inside, was on. So he wouldn't exactly be intruding ...

He found her with her back against the sink, a small mirror dangling from one hand. Tears ran down her face.

When she saw him, she whipped around and bent over the sink. She shook her head; the beaded cascade danced gracefully with the motion.

"I'm sorry, babe. I guess I'm on a real hair-trigger tonight. No pun intended. Everything, nothing, setting me off, I'm real sorry ..."

"Overtired," he suggested, but that didn't penetrate her unhappiness. "I didn't snip you bald."

Another head-shake, and a shakier chuckle. "Absolutely."

"Then ... don't you like how it looks?"

"How it looks ..." she straightened, and their faces were paired and reflected in the larger mirror over the sink. Hers was strained and, again, inexplicably frightened. He paid no attention to his own. He'd never liked mirrors. "It looks," she said, "like somebody took a whole lot of trouble trying to make a silk purse ..."

Coming up behind, he put his arms around her, his cheek against hers. "It is like silk. It's wonderful. It deserves diamonds, emeralds, rubies ..."

"Instead of a busted twin set I got for graduation and some silver string. I'm not complaining. You did your level best to make something out of nothing ..."

"Not nothing."

"... that's your stock in trade, but its' no use kidding myself, it's still only me. And the hair's still just goddamn red."

"I see that I must somehow find a setter, the large dog with the glorious silky, sorrel coat, and bring it for you to keep, to serve as an example ..."

Clasping her arms over his, she couldn't help laughing. "Sebastian would have a royal fit!"

"That's what must I do, to make you see the great Lady that I see?"

Their twinned, reflected faces looked back at them.

LIfting fingers to his furred cheek, she said wistfully, "When you see the Lord that I do."

"Could you not," Vincent suggested, "at least pretend sometimes?"

"I guess I forgot we were only pretending. When I saw it looked ..." She squinted her eyes tight shut. "It's beautiful, Vincent. It really is. And it's hard ... not to take it personally."

"You may take it as personally as you wish. For I, too, forgot we were pretending. And you will never be less lovely, or wondrous to me than asleep in your chair, with your wrist crooked just so, and your beautiful hair haloing your face, and the very soft, warm quilt you had laid over me, and I sprawled at your feet like a dog for a Viking funeral ..."

"Is that quoting?"

"Almost. Do you mind?"

"Not really. There's different ways of looming, babe, besides tall. And you forget I start from the floor."

"Then we must go back there," Vincent said, choosing to take her literally, and slowly sank to the bathroom rug, drawing her with him. Perhaps to the mirror it looked awkward, but it didn't feel so, and he'd ceased to care what the mirror might think.

He murmured against her hair, "And I remember the daylight gathering, lighting everything alike, the glass block glowing with it. I knew I must be Above and therefore in terrible danger in this strange place I couldn't conceive how I'd come to. Then I looked at you, trustingly asleep although the wreckage of your room was all about us and although surely you must have seen me, to lay the quilt about me ... and I knew I was in no danger at all. I was filled with astonishment. And peace. And I slept again. That's what I remember best. And that's what I see when I look at you, however you may appear. And there can be nothing more lovely than that."

She tucked tighter against his chest. "You got it so knotted up back there, with the heads and everything, I'll never get it loose by myself except with scissors. And I got a meeting tomorrow. I mean today." As Vincent regretfully prepared to offer to undo all he'd done, Diana muttered, "The hell with them. I'll tell 'em I got an invitation to a coronation or something. This is my party hair, 'cause I'm going undercover at a mob wedding. Something. Nobody better say word one."

Vincent was touched. And when a prickle ran up his back, he was startled only momentarily, realizing the cause, imagining the cat behind him, visualizing the baleful eyes. Diana was closer, and her influence banished all smaller magics. With a certain sympathy, he imagined Sebastian's frustration when the cat had to admit that tactic wasn't working anymore.

He commented softly, "I believe we've concluded round two, and are ahead on points ... Diana, I cannot be your pet. But will you consent to be my person? I cannot ask you to belong to me, since I have nothing to offer. But may I belong to you?"

He waited for her reply for several breaths - hopeful, then anxious - before realizing she'd fallen asleep in his arms.

He gathered her closer with a melancholy sense of reprieve. It was always such a temptation - to accept the alternative. To be accepted ... at any price, on any terms. Probably it was best she hadn't heard him surrender to the temptation. Probably.

She barely stirred, and didn't wake, as he carried her to the adjoining room and laid her on the bed. With great tenderness, he covered her over with the feather comforter he remembered so well.

The lighted dial of the bedside clock told him that less than an hour remained until dawn. He couldn't tell what time the alarm was set for, but a small pulsing dot of light confirmed that it was set. Whatever time she rose, she'd still be tired, he knew. And it was his fault.

Stalking past, Sebastian jumped to the foot of the bed and continued his march to its head, where he claimed a place at Diana's shoulder. For a moment, Vincent and the cat gazed at each other.

"Of that, I cannot depossess you, Sebastian. Watch over her."

*****

It became a nightly ritual, a ceremony almost as delightful in the anticipation as in the doing. Vincent looked forward to it all day, and often dreamed about it afterward, so that it became a constant part of his consciousness, waking or sleeping.

First, he took great care in brushing and then braiding Diana's hair. Despite her grousing and wisecracks, she always had it clean and unbound, ready for his attentions. Without being asked, he fashioned designs less fanciful and adorned than the first, since she'd have no need for self-consciousness or explanations in meeting her daytime people. She'd always know it to be becomingly arranged and herself deserving of such care. No matter where she was or who she was with.

Her hair felt wonderful in his hands. It smelled wonderful. he was always regretful when the final wisp was tucked and secured ... but only a little regretful. Because next came the pet. And that was even more wonderful.

It still frightened him a little to have anyone's hands on him that weren't impersonal, like Father's. And he was always in suspense, waiting for the Beast to seize any moment's contented inattention to erupt with its primal demands. But to his constant amazement, it failed to do so.

"It's a cat," Diana explained to him comfortably, perched on the edge of the couch he was sprawled on, face-down, while her hands rubbed the day's work out of his shoulders, under the shirt she hadn't yet been able to cajole him into removing. "It's got speeds besides on and off, if you give it half a chance. It also knows cruise and idle. It knows a good pet when it finds one. It enjoys the moment. That's pure cat, babe. Quit trying to second-guess it, and it'll be fine."

"Mmmmmm," said Vincent, after due consideration.

Presently she said, "Ask you something personal?"

At her cautious tone, he became marginally more alert. "You may ask ..."

"Don't I even get a purr here? Even a little one?"

"I can't."

"I bet you could if you tried," she encouraged.

He shook his head, drowsy and content. "Only domestic cats purr."

"And you're not domestic enough?"

He rolled over to look at her. "The large felines don't purr. They roar. A matter of the construction of the throat. Felines purr, or they roar. Not both."

Diana nodded regretful understanding. "And you're a roarer?"

"At times," Vincent admitted.

"I know; I've heard you. I wonder ..." A secret amusement made her eyes mysterious. "Maybe I'll find out sometime," she commented casually.

"Find out what?"

"Never mind," His turning had left her hand on his ribs, her fingers stirred. "How are you for ticklish?"

Instantly his hand clamped around her wrist. "No."

Head cocked, she waited for him to release her. When he didn't, she shrugged. "All right. No tickling."

"Promise me."

"I don't see why ..."

"Promise me."

"Tickling would be too much?"

"Yes. Can't we enjoy what we have? It's only pretending, after all."

"Yeah. Pretending. Right you are."

Her other hand came and pried his fingers, one by one, off her wrist. He didn't resist very hard. Really, not at all. He knew that she understood - she simply didn't like it. And he, in turn, understood that.

She wasn't resigned. He's always known that about her. But she was patient. For the moment, he was quite prepared to accept patient. And if left no alternative, so was Diana.

Shaking her hand to restore the circulation, Diana agreed carelessly, "Okay, I promise." Stroking his bangs aside, she gazed into his eyes. He gazed back a bit warily. "Won't upset my good cat Vincent," she assured him, smiling.

Accepting her word as he'd have accepted it about anything - immediately and without reservations - he consented to roll onto his face and let the pet resume.

It was so luxurious to stretch out and be mindlessly petted. Sometimes he actually fell asleep, which Diana teased him about afterward, although he could tell she wasn't really displeased.

"Nothing worse than a guy who goes to sleep on you just when things are getting interesting," she'd complain with one of her wickeder grins.

"Cats do," Vincent pointed out, maintaining the distinction she kept trying to ignore or sidestep, often in subtle ways. "Sebastian does. Almost invariably. I've seen him."

"Yeah," Diana admitted, looking pensively across the loft to the chair Sebastian was currently sulking under.

The cat was not taking defeat well. When his first attempts at distraction for intimidations went unnoticed during hair braiding or petting, he shouted at them; a series of curt, demanding meows of the sort that usually gave notice that his food dish was empty. But it wasn't. Further vocalizations of that sort were therefore ignored. So he tried actually inserting himself into the ceremony. Once. Diana scooped the cat off Vincent's back just as Vincent startled all three of them by growling with entirely unexpected fierceness and sincerity. Tossed onto the floor, Sebastian retreated hastily with every hair bristling.

When Vincent began to apologize, Diana waved him silent. "You scare yourself, sometimes. I know you really didn't mean it, but he doesn't. And maybe that's just as well. Maybe he'll take the point."

And it seemed that Sebastian did. For the next few days, there were no more stares, no catly shouting, no flying leaps. Vincent might notice him curled up and apparently asleep in some corner. More often, Sebastian would vanish into one of the inner rooms and remain there until after Vincent had left. The surrender seemed unconditional.

Finding food uneaten, at a time the bowl would normally be empty, Diana tried to tempt Sebastian's appetite with ground beef mixed with rice and raw egg, a combination Vincent found singularly unappealing, but Diana declared a prime delicacy for a cat that had gone 'off his feed.' The prime delicacy caked in the bowl and had to be thrown out.

"A hunger strike?" Diana wondered aloud. "Or is he sickening for something?"

"Brooding," was Vincent's opinion. "Or plotting."

Concerned about the cat's listlessness, Diana began considering a trip to the vet's, a plan postponed because she'd never bought a cat carrier -  vidently a necessary preliminary. "He's a big boy now," she explained wryly. "Too big to carry loose in a cab. And too big to hang onto if he decided he wanted down, right now, maybe in the middle of traffic. I'll try to remember to pick one up tomorrow."

So heading for Diana's the following night, Vincent was prepared to find the cat absent, visiting the veternarian. He rather regretted the prospect, since it would remove the flimsy pretext for their pretending Vincent was a cat - or only a cat.

He knew the pretense was fragile and ultimately too dangerous to continue much longer. But the prospect of no pet tonight made him tighten his shoulders and glumly hang his head as he passed through the threshold nearest Diana's loft.

What he wasn't prepared for was finding the loft turned upside down - furniture upended, all the cabinet doors gaping open and their contents strewn in haphazard piles on the floor - or Diana sitting like a madwoman in the middle of the mess, hair wildly disarrayed and eyes red and puffed with weeping.

Before Vincent could open his mouth, Diana threw up both arms. "He's gone. I don't know how. I swear I haven't been out the roof door today, and he sure didn't go down in the elevator with me, I would have noticed, but I've looked everywhere, everywhere ..." Her arms fell. She buried her face in her hands.

Down on his knees beside her, Vincent took her into his arms, frantically thinking back to the night before. Could he have been careless in leaving? He remembered that the visit had concluded in a wandering conversation that had continued up the stairs and onto the roof. Where had the cat been then? Had both doors been secure? Could he be certain?

He asked, "When did you last see him?"

"I've been trying my damndest to remember, and I can't. Did I dish him food this morning, or was that yesterday? I didn't miss him till I got home, a couple hours ago. Maybe he saw the carrier and got scarce, but how would he goddamn know a carrier, is he a mind reader or something? And how could he get that scarce in a place this size? He's gotta be here, but he isn't, I've pulled apart every goddamn thing remotely cat-sized, even checked the freezer, and he's just not here!"

"He could be moving ahead of you from one hiding place to another," Vincent theorized. "Or returning to somewhere you'd already searched. Come." He drew her to her feet. "You watch. I'll search."

After an hour's methodical turning over of wastebaskets, removing and emptying drawers, and checking every shelf and projection, high or low, where a cat might conceal itself, Vincent was quite certain Sebastian wasn't in the loft. Absently righting the couch, he sat on it, staring straight ahead, thinking.

Diana thumped down beside him and leaned against his shoulder. "Don't figure it's your fault, if that's what you're doing, even if it's you he got past, not me. It isn't. You put up with everything that cat threw at you and your never once asked me to get rid of him, when you could have dropped him off the roof just as easy, accidentally-on-purpose, and I never would have known the difference. And I bet you wanted to, a couple times, too. But you didn't. It just happens like this, sometimes. This is a loft, not a cage. Can't keep 'em if they don't want to be kept. They come and then they go. Vincent. Hey; anybody there?" she nudged him.

"He's run away from home."

"Say twice?"

Vincent stood. "When you have eliminated the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth. He isn't here. Therefore he's somewhere else."

Looking up at him, Diana commented dryly. "I'd already figured that much out for myself."

The loft's high windows were immovable, except at the top - fifteen feet up. Unlikely, in frigid weather, that Diana would have left one standing open. And anyway he'd determined that all were securely latched. Nor could the cat have gotten through to the vacant floor beneath; Vincent had particularly checked for spaces around pipes or at the meetings of wall and floor. Nothing he could slide his fingers into. Therefore nothing large enough for a cat to have escaped through.

Sebastian wasn't here. He hadn't gone down. Therefore ...

From one of the piles surrounding the kitchen island, Vincent scooped up a can of cat food - one of the small, square kind that served as its own saucer. Directing, "Stay here. Watch the door," he strode to the lower door and propped it open with the coat tree. At the top of the stairs, he propped the upper door with a chunk of cinderblock Diana sometimes used for that purpose in hot weather.

As proclaimed in dim paint on an outer rear wall, the building had once been a warehouse. Before that, it had been a factory, as evidenced by the roof's irregularly-shaped projections and its array of chimneys. Most were no more than projecting pipes, no bigger around than the mouth of a cup. But a few were larger, newer. Projections of brick or metal to discharge smoke or fumes, or to admit air. Their tops were sprayed several times to impose a defiant scent-marking, claiming this new territory. The smell was intense, but hours old.

Starting with the one farthest from the door, Vincent listened carefully at each for any sound of a fallen cat in distress.

"Sebastian?"

Nothing moved. Nothing but the scent-marks to prove the cat had ever been here.

He circled back to the far parapet and stood considering the fire escape. He'd seen nothing of the cat while coming up, but that had been more than an hour ago. Gripping the double railing, he moved out and began cautiously descending. At the landing of the final tier, he stopped. The last section was hinged and counterweighted. Retracted, it was at least ten feet from the ground. A cat's weight wouldn't be enough to tip it. But ten feet wasn't an impossible jump, if a cat were sufficiently determined to run away from home, where he was convinced he was no longer wanted, no longer loved ...

Inevitably, Vincent had been remembering Devin, whose similar departure had caused so much grief, for such a long time. They'd all believed him dead - lost somewhere in the Maze, or fallen from a serpentine. Only after twenty years had Devin himself come home to confirm that he'd gone Above, believing no one would care enough to miss him.

More than ever, Vincent was determined to find the cat. But the last section was empty, and so was the alley beneath it. He stood imagining himself searching through all the city's alleys for one cat among thousands, night after night; a cat, moreover, who didn't want to be found. A cat with stripes and spots, who would gradually forget his name had once been Sebastian.

An icy wind slapped at him as he turned and began slowly ascending. He didn't want to tell Diana that the cat was gone. But there was no alternative.

When he reached the roof, the wind made a different sound. Something loose, flapping. Circling among the roof's projections, Vincent found on a lower level, one dormer whose window hadn't been boarded up. Instead, it was covered by plastic sheeting. A corner had torn free. Without checking what might be below, Vincent turned and slid through, hung by his hands, and dropped.

He landed cleanly. The sound told him he was in a large, unpartitioned space. If there were windows to the sides, they were securely boarded; it was as dark as the deepest ranges of the Maze. He smelled dusty, shut-in air. Above him, the torn sheeting continued to flap.

"Sebastian," he said. There was no need to call or shout. The cat would hear him. Know him. Assuming the cat was here at all. "Sebastian, I'm sorry. You had found a home. Good care. And I spoiled it all for you. You wanted only what was yours. And believed I had taken it from you. So you've run away, thinking that no one cares. She does, Sebastian. Three times, now, I've seen her in tears. Twice, it's been in concern for you. Please come home. For I know that you love her too."

He heard nothing. Saw nothing. But he felt it; eyes steadily on him. His back hair tingling. He knew that sensation too well to mistake it now.

Taking the cat food from his pocket, he located the tab and pulled off the top. He placed the can on the floor, then backed against the nearest wall and slid into a balanced crouch against it. Low. Unthreatening.

"I'm not a cat, Sebastian - truly. We were only pretending. What a cat may have of her is yours. Yours forever. I cannot be that. Although ... I cannot be anything else ..."

He shut his eyes. He could smell the opened food clearly. A dry, fishy smell; tuna. A favorite. If he smelled it, so did Sebastian.

Presently, he heard the small sounds of the cat beginning to eat.

His muscles knew to the inch the position of the can. It was the bait; he, the trap. Setting it there, he'd imagined the hungry cat coming to eat and the quick spring that would capture it. Probably it would scratch him. Perhaps even bite. That would make no difference. Once he held it, it wouldn't escape. His hunter's imagination had conjured the image, and the sensation, of furred hands closing around fur, the claws gripping ...

Instead, he found himself kneeling. Holding out his hand. Leaning to brush smooth fur. The cat growled warningly, then resumed eating. Vincent's hand again stroked the bent head, laid-back ears, neck and peak of shoulders, then lifted. Sebastian growled another muffled, full-mouthed growl.

"Trust can be bought only with trust. You are not my dreadful Other, but only yourself. Sebastian. Exactly who you should be. Come. Let's have a pet, you and I," Vincent invited, stroking in a way that eased the cat a little nearer. "With your handsome spots, and your extremely conversational tail, and your eighteen fully retractable claws, and your clever ears that can fold back to ignore anything you don't choose to hear. Not to mention your fine whiskers that go wide when you're smiling. And your eyes with their vertical pupils. The great cats have round pupils - did you know that? But your eyes are exactly proper for you. Sebastian. Good cat."

The sound the cat was making had become a confused gargling, as though Sebastian hadn't fully decided between eating, growling, and purring. But the ears were no longer flattened.

"And the great cats can't purr, either. Diana likes purring. She likes it when you purr to her. Good cat. Sebastian."

The cat shuddered. The tail flicked irritably. Then Sebastian's head lifted to meet the descending hand and risked an abrupt, curt nudge.

"While searching for you, I found a place where the boards are loose," Vincent said, steadily stroking. "I could open a hole and put a pole through. With your excellent claws, you could go up and down whenever you choose. Perhaps you also need somewhere else to be, at times. A place that's your own. Above, in the loft, and here below, as well. A cat of two worlds. I suspect there are mice down here. Perhaps even rats, to give you a battle. Harbor rats sometimes come into the tunnels. I know from experience they can be very fierce. Do you think you might like that, Sebastian?"

A purr. Beyond question, a purr.

"I thought you might," agreed Vincent.

*****

Fortunately, the elevator still remembered it had once stopped on this floor. It carried Vincent smoothly, although noisily, back to the loft. The sliding steel door revealed Diana jittering anxiously outside the accordion gate. She yanked the gate aside, her eyes locked on a very dusty Sebastian held comfortably, securely, in Vincent's arms.

She stuck out her hands. "Gimme!"

Surrendering the cat, Vincent requested, "Don't be severe with him ..." just as Sebastian began sneezing. Strange sounds, almost like muffled chirps.

Diana held the cat high and shook him. "You incredible muggins, where do you get off, scaring me like that, hey?"

Sebastian sneezed several more times. He tried to lift a bent wrist to lick and groom his face but couldn't, dangling from Diana's grasp. The tail made a question mark in one direction, then the other. One ear flicked like a shrug, that admitted fault but offered no apologies.

Tucking the cat close, Diana wove through the piles of debris to the only piece of upright furniture. she flopped on the couch with Sebastian practically under her chin, alternately scolding and snuggling the prodigal. When he finished removing tuna and dust from his own face, Sebastian politely proceeded to groom hers, crouched on her chest, methodically licking her cheeks and nose while she petted him. Even from fifteen feet away, Vincent could hear the purring.

Diana, he reflected, was handling the reunion better than Father had. Then again, Sebastian hadn't been gone twenty years.

Vincent didn't want to intrude; this time was Sebastian's. Having firmly shut both doors again, he decided the next most useful thing he could do was reduce the chaos. Since he knew where most of the kitchen supplies lived, he began there, storing cannisters, boxes, and zip bags of staples inside the kitchen island, then starting to replace the contents of the surrounding row of cabinets.

Seated on the floor, wondering if under the sink was really the best place for a string bag of soft, sprouting potatoes, he locked tight; Presence. Then, faster than thought, he unlocked; Diana. When her hand settled on his shoulder, he barely twitched at all.

"Your turn, babe," she commented, bending, leaning partly on the island's countertop and partly on him, resting her forehead against the crown of his head, her hair layered over his. The hand on his shoulder began stroking. The touch of the Queen of Faerie, weaving languorous magic.

Vincent picked up a can of stewed tomatoes. Preserved vegetables lived in the upper cabinet, above and to the right of the sink. Rising, he put the stewed tomatoes away, then turned back for another can. He found Diana offering one. Creamed corn. That lived with the tomatoes. He put it away.

Diana next held out a jar of peaches. Fruit lived in the next cabinet over. And the half-empty box of instant potatoes belonged above the refrigerator - away from the steam of the sink and stove.

Shared, the work went easily, wordlessly. A conversation of gestures, of reaching, offering, taking, storing away, that let the deeper conversation settle. It too had no words.

Unacknowledged, refused, the promise of enchantment faded. She was not Circe, not Titania. As he, with steadfast regret, was only himself. Nevertheless they knew each other's minds and motions with an effortless, unexamined coordination that was almost eerie.

When the floor was bare of the last can, jar, and stack of plates, Diana sat with arms loosely-crossed over her knees, looking up at him. "Pretend's over, huh?"

Wiping his hands on the kitchen towel, Vincent just nodded. He'd been certain she'd understand. He offered the towel to her. Taking one end, before he could let go, she'd pulled the towel tight and used it like a rope to draw herself to her feet. If he hadn't reflectively tightened his grip, she would have thumped back - an awkward, comic fall. But her rise was smooth, graceful, because somehow, though unprepared, he hadn't let go and she'd known he wouldn't.

That means something. But he didn't know what.

"I'll fix some tea," Diana said, passing by to the stove, collecting the kettle. "If I take care of the hot water, maybe you can locate the rest of the makings. You know where everything is better than I do, now. Be months before I can lay my hand on what I'm looking for. Remind me to turn you loose on my closets, sometimes."

When the water had boiled and been poured, Vincent took his blue mug to the small square dining table he'd righted and put where it belonged, against the windows. Having set one chair upright for Diana, he took the other, just as though this wasn't the first time he'd ever trusted his weight to it. It creaked slightly but didn't collapse. He stirred his tea, his back to the windows.

"You want to do oblique," Diana commented, sliding into the other chair, "I can do oblique. I'm actually pretty good at oblique. Not to mention horizontal ..."

"And I thought it was Sebastian who was determined to be provoking."

"It's a dirty job, but I guess somebody's got to do it." Diana sipped tea in a way that made him remember she'd never really cared for tea. "And for future reference, the word is provocative. Provocative is a whole different story."

"I'll try to remember."

"Trust me. I'll remind you," she regarded him soberly. "Thanks," she said, at length. "Thanks for Sebastian." She put a hand on his wrist. Her expression was solicitous, wistful. "But then what becomes of my good cat Vincent?"

Vincent laced his fingers around the mug and studied the imitation wood grain of the table top. "We leave him to his dreams."

"Quit while we're ahead, you mean," she commented acutely.

Vincent nodded.

"We have to?" Diana protested. "It was fun."

"It wouldn't have stayed fun. He's ... not that sort of cat. He's like the dark; not something to be played with."

Withdrawing her hand, Diana leaned away and brushed hair off her shoulder, deliberately casual. "If you say so."

"I do."

"He liked the pets, though - I could tell," she argued.

"He did. But that wouldn't matter. He makes no bargains. Has no gratitude for past kindness. He merely takes."

She shook her head. "You make it sound so damn grim," she complained. Then her face brightened. "How about we swap off, and I get to be the cat?"

Vincent couldn't help smiling.

"No, really." She thumped elbows onto the table, leaning toward him, seeming in complete earnest. "You rub my back, and I'll see what I can do about a purr. Do it better than you, anyway; you never even tried. And if you don't like your hair braided, I figure you have to brush it once in awhile, right?"

"Occasionally."

"Nice big soft brush and - what is it? three hundred strokes?"

"Five."

"Call it an even thousand." Diana held her spoon upright and licked it. Offhandedly. Provocatively. "After all, there's a lot of hair."

"Diana ..." Vincent's reproof broke off in a chuckle. "You indeed do oblique very well. Also incorrigible."

"Incorrigible is one of my best. Look, I mean it; what do we have to quit for? I thought we were doing fine!"

"We had a long discussion on that very point, Sebastian and I. And we agreed he was the cat of this house, and I was....."

"... the man?" Diana prompted hopefully.

"... not. Pretense is generally harmless ... unless it becomes a lie." Vincent looked at her levelly. "Can you truly tell me that what you want is another, larger cat?"

She licked a finger and marked an imaginary score for him in the air. "It's what I could get," she admitted frankly. "I'd settle for that."

"No. You wouldn't. And neither would I. Beyond a certain point, Diana, it's dangerous to pretend otherwise. Willful self-delusion - attempting to blind oneself to the true state of things. And to the consequences. There never was such a creature as 'your good cat, Vincent.' There never will be. We must not go so far into our game, delightful though it was, that we mistake it for the truth."

"Hey," Diana said, "do you know the difference between a neurotic, a psychotic, and a psychiatrist?"

"Is that a question or a riddle?"

"You're supposed to say, 'No, what'?"

"No, what?" Vincent echoed obediently.

"The neurotic builds castles in the air, the psychotic lives in them. And the psychiatrist collects the rent. Now you're supposed to laugh." When he declined, she made a face at him.

They drank tea.

"Hate to admit it," Diana said, "but I agree with you. Give me a choice, I'll take real over pretend any day. Which is why I'm not a whole lot crazier than I am. It's only psychotic if you try to live in 'em. Okay, you got it; no more George and Martha stuff, fighting over dead babies that never existed, and like that ..."

"You're quoting," Vincent mentioned.

"Quoting's legal when I do it. Only obscure seventeenth century poetry is out. Albee's modern. That's legal. I got a fighting chance, that way."

"I'm glad you explained it to me."

"Okay,'' she said, "No more pleasant but fairly psychotic mind games. From here on, head on. Sebastian's a cat. You're not. I got that completely straight. Sebastian's pet around here. You aren't. you got that straight, too?"

Vincent nodded gravely. "You may even have him 'fixed,' if you think it best. I promise not to take it personally. Sebastian is Sebastian. Not a proxy or a metaphor. He's free to be a cat, for that's what he is. I am not."

Diana surveyed him a long moment, then asked the dangerous, ultimate question. "Then what are you?"

Somehow it wasn't at all frightening or humiliating. His mind took the question like a ship lifting to a wave.

He folded his hands. ''I haven't the faintest idea. Except ... not a cat. Not in most of the ways that matter. Though there would be nothing shameful in it if I were. Or to the degree I am ... You and Sebastian have taught me that, and I'm grateful."

Diana considered her spoon very seriously. "It's not just cats that like petting, you know. People have been known to do it. On occasion. Entirely for people reasons." Her eyes slid back to him. Obliquely. Lazy half-shut and mysterious with a different enchantment. "If we've ruled out cat, you suppose we might take a crack at the rest of it? The people part?"

"Only," said Vincent, "if I may braid your hair. And dispose of certain shirts."

"Deal," said Diana, ''as long as your shirt's included, too. Sometimes, anyway." She waited until she had his nod of uneasy capitulation. Then her eyes spiked him to the chair. "And tickling."

That was too much. "Perhaps," he said, terrified and delighted.

"Done!" Grinning, she stuck out her hand.

The bars fell away.

END

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