Cat's in the Cradle

The cat creature was angry. "You've got a lot of nerve showing your pusses here! Do you know the damage you left me?"

Hel frowned. "We went back to make amends. You had already packed up and moved here."

The mutant was close to livid. "After a Betrayer found the place and turned it over, do you really think I'd stay? I don't need the Bailies knowing where I am, thank you."

"Well, we are sorry, Wagstaff. We're here to pay for the damages."

"And how do you think you can do that?"

"With this," Hel pointed to the large machine Cleo and Sarge brought into the room. "It's the latest from the biolabs. It can spot and control malignant growths with greater accuracy."

Wagstaff's face softened as he gave the machine the once over. Hel knew they had a deal the moment she heard him purr.

If Wagstaff's face could grin, it would have. "It's always a pleasure doing business with Voice's agents. Sweetheart? You've got yourself a deal."

Wagstaff's mood changed when he saw the blonde who was helping Sarge bring the machine in. "Wait a sec! That bag of sweets is my property. What are you doing with it?"

Hel froze. She had all but forgotten that Cleo's body was among the people Wagstaff had found in those old freezers. Technically, she and Sarge had stolen Cleo from him.

Cleo was shocked. "I beg your pardon. I'm not your property, I'm a free woman."

Her words shocked the cat. "You spoke!" He walked over to her. "Say something else?"

Now Cleo was confused. "Something else."

Wagstaff looked over at Hel. "How did you do that? This is a trick, right? How are you doing this?"

"She's not doing anything." Cleo replied. "I'm doing this myself."

"You couldn't be," Wagstaff hissed back. "You've been locked in a cooler for five hundred years. Do you know what that does to a person's body? A person's brain?"

***Melody added: Cleo shrugged. "Major Freeze Burn? Didn't happen in 'Encino Man.'"

" 'Encino Man'?" Wagstaff wrinkled his nose.

"Another movie Cleo?" Sarge asked.

Cleo nodded. "One with a major hottie! One thawed Brendan Fraser coming up!"

Wagstaff looked at Hel and Sarge. "Is she always like this?"

The two women just nodded.***********

"Listen," Wagstaff said. "I've been thawing out stiffs for years. I know what they're like. Their muscles are preserved from the freezing, but useless from all that atrophy. Their brains are nothing more than dead meat. Take my word for it, girlie. You shouldn't be walking and talking like this."

"But I am," Cleo said. "So there."

"That's impossible," the cat insisted. "Unless..."

"What?"

"Unless you were cryogenically suspended, frozen while you were still alive," the cat sighed. "No. That's ridiculous. All of our other stiffs were cryonically suspended. Put into the deep freeze after they were pronounced dead. Why would you be any different?"

"I couldn't be," Cleo realized. "From what I remember, it was illegal to freeze living people. They were all frozen after dying."

***Melody added: "She wasn't dead when she was frozen," Hel put in. "She was supposed to be getting..what did you call it?"

"A boob job."

"Yeah, that, and somehow she ended up being frozen."**********

Wagstaff looked at Cleo's chest. "A boob job, huh? Wanted more than one set of those?" Before Cleo could slap him, he looked up at her eyes. "Hey! How's your memory? What do you remember from your past?"

"Practically everything," Cleo replied. "I'm the soul of pop culture trivia."

Wagstaff started to purr again. "I've been trying to set up an old-style restaurant for years. But I could never find any of the recipes. If you remember what you ate five hundred years ago, we could be in business."

Cleo laughed. "You got the wrong gourmet. I microwaved everything."

"But you know what the food back then looked like," the cat insisted. "What it tasted like. You could let us know what we're doing right or wrong."

"Well..." Cleo mused. "First of all, you couldn't cook it yourself. No offense, but you'd probably shed all over it."

"No offense taken. I'm aware of my shedding. But would you agree to help?" He looked at Hel. "Okay, here's my offer. You can keep sweetie if she can just come over once in while to check our culinary experiments."

Hel was having a tough time taking this whole thing seriously. "I guess it's okay if Cleo doesn't mind."

Cleo grinned. "A chance to bring pizza back to the world? Wagstaff darling? I'm all yours!"

It wasn't long before Cleo was seeing Wagstaff on a semi-regularity basis. Hel and Sarge had to admit that it was kind of a treat when she brought back something. This time, Sarge saw Cleo walk in with a large bag. Something inside it smelled pretty good. "What you got this time, Cleo?"

Cleo opened the bag. "Ta-da! Hamburgers!"

"And they would be?"

"Meat patties on a bun."

"Meat, huh? Anyone we know?"

Cleo harumphed. "No! No one you know! We finally found a synthetic food that grinds like meat. Try one out, it ain't bad."

Sarge did. She had to admit that she was impressed. Hel tried one as well. She made a yummy sound. "Not bad at all."

"Yeah," Cleo gave a far off look. "Wagstaff and I are cooking up miracles in that kitchen of his."

Sarge got goosebumps when she heard Cleo sigh. "Uhh...Cleo? What are you trying to tell us?"

Cleo tried to snap out of it. "Huh? Oh nothing. Except..." Cleo's far-off look returned. "He reminds me of a TV show I used to love. I mean, here he is. A man with the features of a cat. He lives in the tunnels beneath the surface of the world. He comes from a secret place. "And though we cannot be together. We can never be apart."

Sarge nearly choked on her burger. What was it Cleo once said? "Houston, we have a problem."

***Melody added: "Cleo, you and Wag aren't..you know?" Hel asked.

Cleo grinned. "Doing the nasty? No-"

"Good let's keep it that way."

"Not yet anyway," Cleo finished. "And why would it matter?"**********

***Maggiemay added: "Well, the kitty litter might be a problem."**********

***Melody added: "Sarge!" Hel shook her head.

"Well, she asked!" Sarge huffed.

"I think she wanted a serious answer."

Cleo looked at Sarge and then Hel. "How 'serious' are we talking?"

"Interracial and Intermutant relationships are not allowed. If anyone found you and Wagstaff together as lovers, it would mean death for the both of you."

Cleo was stunned and disgusted. "Wonderful!"

"Cleo what's wrong?" Hel asked as Cleo's legs buckled. She helped Cleo sit in a chair. "I..I just don't believe it! I thought we were getting past all that stuff five hundred years ago. How..? Why?"

Sarge and Hel said nothing for a moment, watching their friend's heart break before their very eyes. *************

"Look." Cleo argued. "Whatever develops between Vincent and me is our own affair."

"Wagstaff." Hel corrected. "The creature's name is Wagstaff. Cleo, I don't think you're attracted to him. I think that you're attracted to an image you saw on one of your TV shows."

"None of you understand," Cleo stammered. "It's a tale as old as time. A song as old as rhyme. And..." Realization dawned on her. "And maybe you're right."

"We just don't want you getting hurt," Sarge said.

Cleo visited Wagstaff the following day in his kitchen. The cat was checking out the way his lackey was mixing the contents of a bowl. "Ah, Cleo. I didn't expect to see you so soon. How did your friends like the burgers?"

"They gobbled them up," Cleo nodded. "There's no doubt about it. You're a major threat to their washboard tummies." Then she frowned, and got serious. "Wagstaff. We need to talk."

Wagstaff gave a nod of his own. "Let's take this in my office."

Once there, Wagstaff sighed. "I think I know what this is about. I've had a clue about this from the way you've been looking at me."

"You remind me of someone else," Cleo admitted. "Someone who was a scholar. A poet. Someone who was never real. A fantasy I could easily fall in love with."

Wagstaff looked up at Cleo. "Let me tell you something about me. What I do to get my jollies. A while back I found another frozen body. She was like you, only fatter. She was in the same state as the other stiffs. Her mind was gone. Her muscles were atrophied. What sounds she made were groans and gurgles.

"I ripped off her garments and tied her to a slab. I took her right then and there. She didn't complain. She frothed at the mouth a bit, nothing more. I raped her on the spot, and I enjoyed it. It got me off. "I continued to have fun with her for days on end. After a while she got smelly and nasty from her sweat and excrement. And she got thin. I didn't bother to feed her much. I finally chucked her out. I let her die, and I junked her. I sold what body parts she had that were still good. Don't worry. None of her wound up in the food."

Cleo reaction was shock. "Are you saying all this to gross me out?"

"I'm saying this to give you an idea of who I really am. Of what I really do. And if you hadn't left with Hel, I would have done all that to you.

"Cleo. I'm not that poet, scholar fantasy you saw me as. I never was, and I never will be. But I owe you thanks."

Cleo's brows knitted. "For what?"

"For thinking of me that way. Nobody has ever thought of me as anything more than slime. But for a while, I looked into your eyes, and saw myself as something better. I'll always appreciate that. I can never thank you enough, Cleopatra."

"Oh, now look what I've done, Cleo. I've made you cry. Here, dry your tears, blow your nose, and come with me to the kitchen. There's a new pastry I've made that you gotta try."