Little Black Cat by Aliah Lauren (best book club books TXT) 📖

My hands curled smug around the mug, feeling its warmness, smelling the aroma, sitting by the window like the newest feature in a vintage magazine. I gazed out the window at the rain coming down, slowly touching, felling flicking my fingernails along the gaps in my lace stockings watching the young girls and boys run from the openness in the mall to the cover of other shops and coffee stalls. All dressed in thick long skirts, black boots and over coats. I sat I watched and I felt the holes in my stockings thinking clearly despite the rains blur on the window, the wood fire and presence of other people was just enough to feel although I wasn’t alone in a place I did not know.
That’s when I started to watch myself, I noted down to my pixy black heals with a fishing bell one each of the inside and outside ankle, I noted my thick doyley like cotton stockings that held hitched under my waist by a thick red leather belt above a beige skirt tucked underneath my long sleave black cotton sweater, I noted my hair in high tight curls and a side hat much like a gentleman’s set around my pretty frail face. But most of all I noticed the way I was so calm as if in another world to well suited business men and frilled ladies that rushed around me ordering skim lattés and running out the door, ordering flat whites with a shot of hazelnut appeared to be the trend for those sitting at tables with their fashion magazines buying time, or killing it with phone calls and pretty conversations. I thought of how I was not like them, I was a little more relaxed and open. I didn’t need to be so busy and stressed as them to make my dime, I could feel good about what I do. Transgressive comedy, song and dance and to the highest bidder inevitably I give them their prize, and how could I be so lonely when my bed is shared with a new man every night of the week, when your maids bring into your living room enough tea or coffee and breakfast for you and all your ladies. We do try and keep ourselves from the outside world, only to for fill the fantasy of where we are, working on pure talent and beauty, serenading the men with our true mysterious sad smiling faces. Though today I decided I’d take a sneak peak at the world today, though never you mind this is not a common occurrence it merely drives me crazier for what it is that I do. I watch these men as they watch me and the woman as they glance between each as if to find what they are really looking at.


I look up from my day dream hovering over my cup of hot coffee still with my hands around its rim and stair strait into the eyes of a cat. Yes a cat, its swift black coat her flickering tail, and the haunting eyes of that only a cat could have. The little black cat jumped swiftly from the table she was perched on and came to sit on my table directly opposite of me, she gave me a sleak smile. We watched eachother for a moment until I asked her what she was doing here. She stopped as if to think for a while and responded with a purr of pure dignity followed by “my lady it is not of what I am doing here that ought to be the question, it is of what I see here that should be the question in order”. I taped my fingernails one by one from my little finger to thumb across the news paper which was sprawled beneath my coffee cup and thought of how elegant my nails looked, refined, and beautiful much like the little black cats claws. I tipped my head to the side a slight and admired the shade of red from my lipstick that had stained the side of the cup. “And what is it you see here my friend”. The little black cat seemed to take offence to how distracted I seamed, she slightly tightened her features and responded with “I see a lady, who is merely a whore, she gives only to take, and takes only what little some have left for she feeds on their addictions”. The little black cat flicked her tail from side to side as if a little agitated. She slowly lifted a paw and put it to her face watching me all the time she was doing it. I just stared back, stunned. She paused for a moment then proceeded to clean the fur upon her sleeve. She placed her paw back on the table after thinking a moment and said, “how can you love, when you give yourself away so eagerly, when you share with so many but not yourself, when you love to love but never truly get it in return, when you feed them the finest of liquors, the richest of powders, you give yourself at a truly high price and feed on the richest of the dollar and the poorest of soles.” At that moment for the slightest instant I forgot the distractions of myself, the elegancy of my nails and shade of my lipstick stoped the vain play on my mind and I became slightly outraged. I looked at that little black cat. I looked at her hard and cold. Oh, that little kitty cat she smiled, she smiled at me after being so savage minded, she gave me a look as if to say wake up and smell the roses baby, in fact I knew that was what she was intending. How could she suggest I be a whore in such a blunt manor? She was rude. But all in all I felt it was what I needed to hear, I had always thought that perhaps my profession so to speak and my image was thought to be of somewhat... distasteful to those of another social standard. I noticed the little black cat had a tear in her eye, suddenly I felt remorse for what may be saddening her then I saw in its reflection myself, I looked closely at her tear as it slowly rolled from the corner of her eye, down her soft fury cheek and as it fell as if suspended in mid air and proceeded to smashed upon the table. I thought for a moment It did cross my mind that perhaps there was a little more to life than being they entertainer, I thought of how the simple life would be so much more rewarding than being the three hours of happiness, and the heroin to those lonely lives. Curtly she stood and walked across the table to face me, I sat stiff, she jumped up and gave my chin a quick little nuzzle and strode of with her tail high flicking at the end, I watched every small step as she left.


I neatly folded my news paper and placed my cup again upon its saucer, I straitened the menu, aligned it with the salt and pepper, I called for my bill though someone had already paid, I thought maybe one of the men in tuxedos, likely one I had encountered before. I stood and collectively strolled across the room, I felt a new found sense of strength and awareness, and I felt eyes upon me. I stooped to gather my umbrella and walked outside into the cool air, I popped open my umbrella and gathered myself beneath it, I walked back past the window I was sitting and there in my place at the table I was sitting I saw a girl seated and gazing out the window at the rain coming down, slowly touching, felling flicking her fingernails along the gaps in her lace stockings watching the young girls and boys run from the openness in the mall to the cover of other shops and coffee stalls, she had an expression of foreignness. Then I saw the little black cat watching her from another table at a distance I gave her a polite, understanding smile and continued on my way.


That little black cat planted a seed in my mind, one that slowly bubbles and grows with the heat of boiling and shrinks in the moment of cooling, she led me to believe that what I do is wrong for just a short moment, but believe you me, people make their own choices in life, people write their own stories, magnify their weakness their power. They create their own happiness and misery. The moral to what it is I am saying is that one should not regret or fear the inevitable, take into account the opinions of others but never be so weak as to let them calve away your own happiness. Because by the time you think about could have, or should have its too late your foot print has already been left.

Publication Date: 11-15-2011

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