Mr X & Juliet - A Love Story

Juliet in her pre-loving the world mood with butter on her paw to encourage her to love us.

 Warning:  The following story may contain ACO material (suitable for adult cats only to read).  If you prefer not to know about cats in season falling in love with totally inappropriate males don't read any further.

Juliet has fallen in love.  Sadly her feelings are not reciprocated.  The object of Juliet's love is very embarrassed about the whole thing, is not a cat person and would rather not discuss the whole sordid incident, so we'll call him Mr X.  I'm sure none of you have the slightest idea who Mr X could be even though Graeme is the only Mr anything in the house.

We are minding Juliet for a few weeks while her real parents, my son Justin and daughter in law Savannah, are on holidays.  Juliet is a beautiful Domestic Long Hair tabby cat, about seven or eight months old I think.  They had tried to arrange cat sitters closer to home but I think their friends must have had a premonition about what was about to befall us all.  At first Juliet wasn't too keen about moving in with us and took quite an aggressive position on the whole "here for a holidays" idea.  She hid under chairs, sulked in corners and generally made us all feel guilty about relocating her.  She used language no young cat should even know and used it regularly.  She swatted and scratched any living creature who came within swatting or scratching range and generally acted like a very feisty hostage.  I tried the old "put butter on a cat's paw" trick to see if I could calm her down a bit.  She enjoyed the butter, but retained her dark thoughts about us.  Little did we know that this was all just PMS.

Even though I'm not totally convinced it's not an old wives tale, I've used this trick successfully on most of my cats when they move in with us and usually, by the time they have finished the tasty treat and cleaned their fur thoroughly they zone out and are at peace with the world.

After Juliet had made sure she'd ruined any chance of Justin and Savannah enjoying their holiday she mellowed a bit.  Not much at first, but little things like not trying to shred my hand if I tried to pat her, and refraining from growling threateningly whenever one of us passed her hiding place, began to happen.  I hoped that soon she would at least tolerate our presence in her gaol.  Almost overnight Juliet's outlook changed and she began to view the world as a good place to be.  She began purring and rubbing up against our legs.  Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, the same mouth that I'd threatened to wash out with soap.  She'd hop up on my lap and politely pass the time of day with no references to being held hostage in our discussions.  Life with Juliet was looking up.

Then it happened.  The reason she'd mellowed became obvious.  Juliet was in season.  I have only lived with one other female cat in season and it was an experience I never wanted to relive.  I had been stuck in a tiny flat with three young cats, one of whom behaved more like a cat possessed than the friendly little tortoiseshell she usually was.  Topaz, the cat in question, climbed the blinds, crawled along the carpet on her stomach, tried to bite the heads of the other two female cats who had always been her best friends, and meowed a low moaning meow non stop.  The vet, when I rang him, said he couldn't spay her while she was in season, so I hunkered down and rushed her off to the vet's, along with the other two girls, as soon as Topaz was back to her normal self.  Having endured that over 30 years ago (it left a deep scar on my psyche as you can see) I wasn't too thrilled about Juliet's delicate condition.

I must say Juliet was a lot more discreet about the whole thing than Topaz ever was.  Juliet began by flirting with us both.  She would drop to the floor, turn her tail to one side and then roll on her back, making demure little meowing sounds to entice us closer.  I took pity on her and patted her or rubbed her tummy and she appeared grateful for these small bits of attention.  Then, as the days progressed and we hadn't got passed the patting and tummy rubbing stage of our relationship, she started to prowl the house looking for a boy.  Our only male cat these days is The Redhead (Tristan our ginger de-sexed tom).  When he arrived home one morning after a night of chasing mice in the grain shed, Juliet met him at the front door, rear end first, tail cocked to the side.  She cast him what she felt was an alluring look over her back and gently meowed at him.  Poor Tristan backed up as quickly as he could, saying he wasn't that kind of cat!  To be fair, I couldn't blame him, Juliet's last welcome had been to attack him with claws out and bad language in place because he had the effrontery to enter his own house.  Now, here she was, a Jeckle and Hyde cat who wanted bygones to be bygones.  Tristan wasn't having a bar of it.

So, Juliet had to cast her net further in order to find a boy.  I can only think what happened next was brought about because she homed in on the only testosterone possessing creature in the house - Mr X.  She began her seduction more discreetly this time.  At first she wound herself around his legs, tail cocked to the side, and tried to whisper sweet nothings into his ankle.  His ear would have been better but it was almost six feet off the ground and Juliet measures about  15" tops on all fours and even lower in what had become her natural tummy on the floor, tail to one side pose.  When this got her a little scratch on the head and kind word, Juliet decided to up her seduction techniques a level or two.  She began to stalk Mr X.  Where ever he was in the house, so was she - purring and flirting.  She'd drop to the floor, raise her rear end and give him the come hither look over her shoulder.  When Mr X proved to be a slow learner she began marching her back feet up and down while still looking him in the eye and purring demurely.

Mr X finally got the hint but embarrassment was the only emotion Juliet managed to stir in his breast.  Mr X tried ignoring her, no longer giving her the little pats and kind words.  This had no effect on her pursuit of the new love of her life so Mr X began giving her not so kind words.  I found myself retrieving the love struck cat and putting her in another room at regular intervals throughout the day.  I'd give her a pat and a tummy rub as consolation, but as far as Juliet was concerned it just wasn't the same thing.

Things came to a head two nights ago.  Mr X was sitting at his computer and Juliet was under our bed, plotting her little heart out.  After a while she snuck out of the room, and crept into the lounge room.  There she eyed her quarry sitting at the other end of the room, concentrating on the computer screen.  Juliet sidled up to where Mr X was sitting and gazed up at him with adoring eyes.  Nothing.  She gave a tiny little mew to announce her presence and still nothing.  Finally she jumped up onto his desk and began rolling around on her back professing her undying love.  I'm afraid I wasn't much use by this stage.  I was rolling around myself, but with laughter.  Mr X assumed his now familiar hunted look, picked Juliet up delicately and put her on the floor a few feet away from his seat.  He then resumed his computer work.  Juliet,ever the optimist, began backing up towards him, rear end in the air as usual and kept backing up until she reached his foot.  Mr X didn't even notice.  I was still incapacitated with laughter so couldn't step in to retrieve her.  Finally I said, "He's just not interested Juliet."  Mr X looked up from his computer saw me still doubled up with laughter, looked down and beheld Juliet, up against his foot doing her best to radiate sex appeal from every hair, and he gave me a forlorn, hunted look.  He also mumbled something like, "And that's putting it mildly!" to the cat.  I took pity on him and once again moved Juliet to another room.

Juliet's stalking continued for another day or so.  Mr X found lots of reasons to be out and about on the farm and Juliet sought consolation buy sulking under our bed.  Today Juliet is back to her old, non in season, self.  She no longer loves the world as she used to.  She is back to tolerating my presence but really wanting her own Mum and Dad to come rescue her.  She hasn't given Mr X so much as a glance today.  He is able to come and go without assaults on his person by a small cat and is much happier for it.

Oh, and please remember - if Mr X ever finds out this got out - you didn't hear it from me.  OK?