Page 12 of Three Meows

I tried not to snicker at the typical wet cat look, but it was impossible when Marshmallow, as it turned out, was 80% fluff. The cat gave me a grumpy mrrph, looking pretty miserable as the water dripped down his fur.

“It will be alright,” I cooed and pressed a kiss to his forehead as I took him out of the bathtub and started drying him with a towel. There was only so much I could do this way, but a more thorough date with a dryer had to wait until I could get dry as well.

I let the dirty water run and bundled Marshmallow into a cozy towel burrito. He gave me a slow blink of satisfaction and I nearly squealed at getting the honor of this expression of cat affection being directed at me. Marshmallow closed his eyes, purring.

“Such a calm, precious kitty,” I praised. “Now, just wait here like a good boy while I shower.”

The cat’s eyes snapped open just in time to see me shuck the crop top and the bra in one go. Ugh, I hated sleeping in my bra. Now I had marks from where the fabric bit into my skin. My gaze drifted to my right boob, where another kind of mark resided. I smiled to myself at the sight of the streaks of red paint Chester’s fingers left behind.

A crash sound reverberated in the bathroom.

“Hey! I said to stay in place,” I scolded the cat, who just threw a bottle of shampoo over the edge of the cupboard he was sitting on while trying to escape from the towel burrito. “I will let you out in ten minutes.”

Not trusting the cat to not roll off the high place, I bundled him in one more towel and put him between the cupboard and thewashing basket, hoping that was going to keep him still for the time I needed. Satisfied with my brilliant plan, I hopped into the shower and gave myself a perfunctory scrub, washing my hair only once instead of doing my four-step routine. That meant that likely some of the stubborn paint was going to remain on me, but I could tackle this again when I didn’t have a guest waiting for me.

I emerged from the shower naked and wet. Marshmallow made a sound like he was dying.

“Just a second, precious,” I fretted, forgoing getting dressed properly and just slinging a towel around myself in my hurry to finish tending to the cat.

A dryer in my hand, I freed Marshmallow from the burrito prison.

Was he mad at me? The kitty turned his head in the other direction whenever I stepped into his line of sight. Oh well, I was going to have to work hard to regain his trust. Right now, all I could do was send the waves of heated air in his direction and card my fingers through the fur to hasten the process and prevent any tangles. Fifteen minutes later we were back to a fluffy kitty. In fact, Marshmallow looked like he had unlocked a new level of fluffiness.

“A little sheep, a cloud, a cotton ball,” I sing-songed to him, delighted at how soft he felt and looked. “You’re like new. No one could even guess you became a rainbow cloud for a moment… but this photo is too good not to share.”

Marshmallow’s ears stood up to attention in alarm, and I swear he tried to prevent me from using my phone to send the photo out. Despite the sabotage, I managed to send a photo to Rowan.

Lisa:

Just look at hiiim!

Rowan:

[laughing emoji] [rainbow emoji] [skull emoji]

Did Rowan communicate solely via emojis when using a phone? This needed thorough testing! I grinned widely, starting a rapid exchange of texts with mister tall, dark, and mysterious. It turned out that no, Rowan didn’t rely only on emojis.

He used images and hilarious gifs as well.

“Look, Rowan is suggesting we should do glitter next.” I showed the video of a feline sparkling with glitter to Marshmallow.

The white cat yowled at me in protest.

“Fine, fine, no glitter for you, you big baby. Let’s cuddle on the couch, far away from devious paints and glitters. How does that sound?”

This time I got an approving meow. We settled on the comfy couch, Marshmallow loafing next to me as I turned on the TV to idly watch a show. It wasn’t very interesting, but I didn’t want to end up in a limbo of deciding what to watch for half an hour, so I left the TV on as background noise and pulled out my phone to text Rowan some more.

Lisa:

Is Chester alive?

Rowan:

[eyes emoji] [distressed face emoji] [skull emoji]

I interpreted it as confirmation that Chester was, in fact, alive, and regretted every moment of that state.

“Poor baby,” I shook my head. “He would be much better off if his student friends didn’t find him and talked him into taking shots. He is much too social for his own good.”

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