On All Fours
by nona

Almost there… just a little more, you're… almost there!

His paws, tender and sore, hurt as he pounded them mercilessly on the hard hot pavement. He paused at the corner of what seemed like a huge black sea of rushing machines and trampling human feet.

I can make it. I can make it across, if they'd just… slow down!

He stood there for a moment longer, took in a breath, set his jaw and darted out into the melee. Cars loomed over him, tires missed him by mere breaths and he didn't stop running until the whole world seemed to fall away. He didn't stop until it all fell silent and all he could hear was the rushing of his own breath straining in his lungs. He even kept running after that until he finally collapsed in soft green grass.

I can die here, this is a good place pant. I just can… pant close my eyes.

He lay for a long time in the small patch of grass, his body heaving violently with his exhaustion. A light husky chuckle floated on the wind and gently caressed his pricked ears. He picked up his head and looked for the source of the noise. Settled comfortably on a velvet green pillow in a swath of sunlight sat a cat.

He panicked a little. He's had bad experiences with other cats before and he waited for that cat to ruffle his hair and pounce to prove the presence of his territory.

But the cat's large worldly green eyes fixed him curiously and he twitched his whiskers back and forth as he chuckled again. The cat rose up into a sitting position and stretched his long gray slender body. The cat slowly ducked his perfectly shaped head and rubbed his chin against the bib of dark hair on his chest. He looked at some point above the small patch of grass and said,

"You look… beat up."

He got up from the grass and shakily made his way over to the porch upon which the cat sat. He looked up at him and painfully, on tender paws, climbed the three high steps and went to sit at the edge of the patch of sunlight. The green eyed gray tom regarded him curiously, looking at him with blatant amazement.

"Raycat," he said from his pillow after a moment, his tone indicating that that was the most important piece of information that he could have ever given out.

"Bennykitty," he said, glad to have made an… attractive… acquaintance in such a strange place.

Raycat looked him over again and lifted a slender paw. Keeping his eyes on Bennykitty, he licked that paw and rubbed it over his head, and behind his right black-tipped ear. After he finished cleaning his already immaculately sleek fur, Raycat fixed his eyes on the new animal. His large blue eyes peered out of a snowy white face with such eagerness that Raycat chuckled again.

The dark stripe of fur that ran from this tip of his pink nose to the back of his neck wrinkled a bit.

"What's funny?" Bennykitty asked.

He surely didn't want this tom laughing at him.

"Nothing," he answered. "Sorry, I've just never seen anybody that looks like you around here. You got an owner?"

Raycat's eyes dropped to Bennykitty's bright red collar and then with interest dropped a little lower to the sturdy front legs.

Bennykitty felt his face color and his fur felt like pins sticking into his flesh. No one had ever paid such close attention to him before. He was so used to being alone and fending for himself. There was an exception to that when for a few glorious months, an elderly couple had taken him in, fed him and then gave him a little red leather collar. That couple died in a fire before he could warn them to get out, leaving him alone again. But trying not to squirm beneath the heated gaze, Bennykitty wasn't sure how to react to the look in Raycat's eyes.

When he didn't answer right away, Raycat lifted his eyes. The big blue eyes looked dolefully at him.

"No," he said softly. "I am not from here and I don't have anyone."

Raycat looked at him in surprise. How could someone go without having anyone in his or her lives?

He himself had been apart of a huge litter, masses and masses of brothers and sisters until they were old enough to be separated into several families around the neighborhood. But even then, he could still see them whenever he wanted. All he had to do was trot down the street or even go as close as next door.

About to say something, the banging of the pet door next door distracted Raycat. The faint jingling of bells on a collar alerted him to the approach of trouble.

"Damn," he swore and then got up from the pillow.

"Excuse me?" Bennykitty wanted to know as he turned a little to follow the lanky cat.

"Hang on," Raycat said over his shoulder as he swished his long tail in the air.

Something had caught the attention of this cat, and what that was, worried him.

Around the curve of a neatly manicured bush that separated one yard from the other came a bright orange and white tabby cat. A big maroon bow attached to the fur right in the center of her head had a mass of little bells that sang sweetly to announce her presence. She came to a sudden halt, peered around the shrub and looked over at Raycat. Her eyes then lit on the white cat that sat near him.

"Ray!" she purred, closing the space between them with three leaping bounds. "Who's your friend?"

"Frannie," he growled, dancing between her and Bennykitty, to keep her away from him. "Claws off, give the guy some breathing room. He just flew into town, got nobody, no place to stay… let him alone."

Franniecat bared her clean teeth at her brother and spat in his direction.

"Fffttt! Fine… be that way, Ray."

And with that, her tail decorated with a matching bow held high in the air and trotted off the porch and disappeared down the street.

As a parting shot she screeched, "I'm gonna tell ma!"

Raycat rolled his eyes and then turned back to Bennykitty.

"That's my sister," he informed him. "Keep clear of her, if you know what's good for you."

Bennykitty misunderstood Raycat's warning.

"I would never make any advances upon your sister!"

He then looked away as the scent of estrus wafted around him and embarrassed, he added, "even if she wasn't in heat."

Raycat turned around and looked squarely at him.

"She's not in heat. She smells like that all the time!"

He snorted softly and went back to his pillow.

"So, what's your story?"

"Tennis rackets."

"What?"

"My father… I think he was abducted to serve the making of what those humans use as tennis rackets. You know… catgut strings."

Raycat felt a chill. He didn't want to think of those factories where old cats were rumored to go when their time was up.

"I'm on the hunt for him. I have to find him."

"Benny," Raycat said with a soft smile. "If he's there, he's a goner, I hate to tell ya."

Bennykitty hung his head and his eyes filled with tears.

"I know!" he moaned. "But I have to try!"

"Hey… hey… calm down."

Bennykitty rubbed his eyes with the side of his paw and looked hopefully up at Raycat and Raycat sighed dramatically.

"Look," he said. "I… I got a nice place to live," he jerked his head at the vast building that sat behind him. "And I don't think it'll be a problem for you to crash here, while you're looking."

"Thank you… thank you kindly… Ray," he said gratefully.

Raycat grinned and scooted over on the pillow a little, inviting Bennykitty to sit, which he did and immediately relaxed into the soft depths. He let his tired body press against the body of his new friend. He felt so right, and was so handsome and warm, he didn't think of the appropriateness of his actions.

"You hungry?" Raycat asked contentedly looking down at the delicate black stripe on Bennykitty's head.

"No," he said. "I dined on some bread from a dumpster before I got here. "

Raycat shuddered.

"Dumpster diving?! God… ugh, you don't know how long that's been in there."

"I was hungry… there was nothing else," Bennykitty protested.

"Oh… so that's why you smell like this."

Bennykitty flushed with embarrassment and shied away from Raycat.

"I'm sorry. I hadn't realized that I … had an unpleasant odor."

"Ffft… don’t worry about it,"

The two cats sat in silence for a long time, enjoying each other's company and the mid morning sun.

"It's turkey night," Raycat said absently.

"Pardon?"

"Turkey. Dinner tonight," Raycat licked his chops and purred happily.

"Ah, understood."

Bennykitty smiled to himself. Turkey sounded delicious and he hoped that Ray's owners would let him stay. He didn't want to leave Ray just yet.

Just then the screen door squeaked open and Raycat glanced over his shoulder, towards the large woman that lumbered out onto the porch. She looked down at the two animals and bent down to lift Raycat into her arms.

Raycat yowled loudly and as he was lifted into the air, he frantically scrabbled his paws out to snag Benny's collar to take him with him.

"What's the matter, Raimondo," she murmured, her Italian accent melodious as she pulled his claws from out of the strange white cat's leather collar. "Is this your new friend?"

Taking his cue from Ray, Benny too began to piteously cry out and reach up to Ray.

"Yes… yes! Friend! Best friend!!"

She stroked his head as he meowed his response and she shook her own in resignation.

"Oh… all right, Raimondo. If you say so."

She scooped up Bennykitty and nestled him into her soft mushy bosom.

"O.k., you can come too."

She then blew out a breath and held Bennykitty away from her chest.

"Whoo! What have you gotten into!" she laughed. "You need a bath."

Raycat chuckled indulgently at the horrified look on Bennykitty's face and he nestled against the woman.

"Don't sweat it," Raycat said to him as the woman took them inside. "After the bath… you get turkey! Meow!"

But the incentive went over Bennykitty's head. He was more concerned with Raycat's earlier comment.

"I'm your best friend, Ray?" he asked hopefully, as he dangled by the scruff of his neck from the woman's grasp.

"Yea, well… you're o.k. As long as you don't … get in my way."

"Ah, yes. Understood, Ray and thank you kindly."

Raycat hid a smile.

"Yea yea…"