Cat Tales~

~Cat Tales~

The first time I remember meeting Cat, Davidson brought me there for help. I had been severely injured during a fight with vampire bounty-hunters. Davidson knew it would take awhile to heal & regenerate myself. He knew I would be safe with Caterina. She was an entrusted friend of his. She was a beautiful Native American woman, dark-complexion, long dark hair & uniquely blue eyes, that contrasted to her dark features. Even her aura was beautiful, bright, radiant, and magnetic. I could even see why he was attracted to her. She had an amazing power about her that drew you in. Cat ran the local party palace...the area's most well-known secret. Cat Tales, the local bar, and brothel. It was quite the popular place. Cat was a bar-owner, a Head-Mistress, and a vampire too. She was tough & ran an excellent business. It was all self-sufficient, and safe, due to Cat's loyalty to her protectors. Her world was safe, and those in it as well. When I got there, I was delirious, and barely remember much about our first meeting. But when I was around her, at first I was withdrawn, not quite receptive to her or her manners. But after a few days of her nursing me back to health while listening to her fascinating stories, I had begun to earn respect for the woman. She was wise, patient, and kept many necessary things to herself. She was like a well of information, and her ability to handle everything calmly amidst choas, truly amazed & perplexed me.

Months had passed, I had grown closer to Cat...forming a relationship, I felt, perhaps a friendship. I watched how she ran her bar and the night shift girls. Alot of them weren't even vampires, but she handled them all the same, keeping everyone in line. She ran a tight shift, and yet everyone there seemed happy. She carried such compassion for her domain. I liked the enviroment so much. I hardly missed Davidson at all, even though he happened to float in & out. I began to take a closer look at the two of them. Davidson & Cat had what appeared to be a marvelous relationship. One that had lasted many life times. But I noticed he occasionally did things to her that I could not understand, nor continue to overlook. I felt as though I had been put in a position to grow closer to her, only to find out he was unknowingly hurting her, putting me right in the middle all of a sudden. She had grown accustomed to his fillandering, but something different was mixed into the equation. I sensed his involvement with another woman. One that stirred a passion within him, just as Cat did, but in a different way somehow. He was having his cake & eating it too, which isn't that what vampires do? But the history that these two shared went beyond rules...its hard to explain but maybe in a chapter or two, I can give you some insight to the life of this exciting duo.

At first I saw her as a stand-in for Davidson. Maybe he thought the two of us could help one another since we had him in common. But through her eyes, I witnessed another side to Davidson that I had never seen before nor liked. It stunned me, I have to say. I had held him in such high regard in my vampire heart, he was my teacher, my mentor, my father-figure. It was a blow to see him make mistakes, lie and deceive right in front of me. I knew he did those things, we all do. But not to your coven or close friends. So I got stuck in this complex web he'd woven, and Cat too. Sometimes the moments were hilarious, but other times filled with rage & tears. It was strange, to see a different reflection after so many years. Sometimes you think you know someone, really truly know someone, only to realize, you do not know them at all.

I was sneaking around one night, looking at books in Cat's library when I ran across what looked like a journal. I opened it & read the preceding page....
I don't remember much about the first time I saw him. I didn't even get to see his face. I just remember this guy in front of me, off to the distance and when I caught a glimpse of him I was mesmerized. He had his back to me and my eyes must have been drilling a hole in his back, I couldn't look away. I felt the magnatism even then. He turned in response to someting someone said and I was lost in his eyes.I couldn't tell you what he looked like. I never made it past his eyes. I had no idea who he even was at the time.All I know is in that one moment I was his. Time had no meaning, I had always been his and I knew I always would be. I don't know exactly what it was that made me turn away. I just remember being so startled by the feelings that had errupted inside of me I had to get outside.I didn't know if I would ever see him again but I knew I would never forget him. I was thirteen at the time and thirteen year olds are not supposed to have the depth and understanding that I did that night. At least that is what they say. But then they didn't know much as time would tell. I can't tell you the first time I actually met him face to face and talked to him it is all a blur in my mind. The years they tumble over and over in my mind and like us they seem to have no true beginning or ending. When we met we met as friends, who had lost each other lovers' whom we still loved. We started in the middle of something, love, lust,life, I don't know I never fully figured it out. There is a fire that burns inside of my heart when he is in the room. And he leaves a spark that stays lit when he is gone. I think I was the first to walk away. I couldn't cope with the fear that I was losing myself. I wanted to be everything he wanted, but the core of who I am rebeled against it. He never asked for me to be anything other than who I was. It was something inside of me that I was too inexperienced to deal with. Then a tragedy in his life, and a call from out of the blue by a friend saying he needed me, sent me a few years later running to be by his side. I stayed as long as he needed me. But he needed time to deal with things on his own and he slowly began to pull away and I let him go without trying to fight for what we had. I knew he would be back,eventually. Over the years that is how it went. We would run into each other somewhere and the sparks would fly and for a while we would be right back like we had never left. For one reason or another we never could stay though. I went through all the stages of trying to purge him from my soul. To forget what we shared, how he made me feel. I tried drugs, booze, and for awhile, I tried other men. Then I came to realize that none of it was going to get me anywhere, so I learned to deal with it. Over time it became a comfort knowing that there was someone out there who would always care for me whether he was in my life at the moment or not. I carried my love for him hidden like a treasured secret and it gave me strength and courage to be the person I wanted to be. As the years went by I began to fool myself into thinking I could keep it hidden. I wanted things out of life that I knew he wasn't prepared for and felt time slipping away from me. I married and I moved a thousand miles away. I felt almost safe.I still dreamed of him almost ever night. He was my first thought on waking and he was my last thought before I went to sleep at night. I still knew what he was doing and how he was, I kept up through mutual friends. But he wasn't within my reach. The years flew by and then I returned home. I stayed out of the area he lived in. I knew that I was not strong enough even after all the years that had come and gone. For almost a year I managed to not run into him. I've always had a special knack for knowing when he was near so when I would get those vibes I would just leave where ever I was. But fate has a way of taking charge when she so chooses. I was having a really bad day and had to go to the one spot of town I had been avoiding like the plague. I was distracted and let my guard down for just a moment and that was all it took. I heard my name and turned knowing before I did who it would be. I was lost before he said hello. In one breath all those feelings I had tried to hide and ignore came rushing to the surface. He felt it too, it was in his voice, in his touch, in the way he looked at me. He made me promise to come and see the coven, I couldn't refuse, I loved them too and had missed them. So a few days later I showed up at the house. I told myself just to see them and catch up on old times and then I would leave. Of course he was there. We all sat and talked. I got ready to leave and I don't remember if it was him or me who said what but somehow we decided to meet and talk and just hang out for awhile and catch up. Don't you love it when you lie to yourself? We went to a little place he knew where we could be alone one night and we talked and talked and we had never been apart. We were back in the middle again were we always seem to stay.I remember exactly what I had on that night, where I was sitting. I can still see his face. I knew before he leaned towards me he was going to kiss me and every part of me was screaming for the touch of his lips on mine. I will never forget that first kiss after so many years and nights of needing and wanting him and missing him. So on it went, once again. Then something happened that we both understood meant I would have to leave his life once again. After a while he moved out of the area. We hooked up out of town a few times and it was so wonderful to not have to hide to be able to just be ourselves and be free. He started coming home to be with me when he could. ===== There is a fine line between the truth and how we want it to be.

I had some insight to why she loved him so, but I felt bad for intruding on her personal diary. But those were thoughts I could've read had I scanned her mind during a quiet moment alone. But knowing this only made me more aggravated at Davidson for how he treated her sometimes. I wanted him to appreciate her a little more than he did. But I had no way of telling him currently, without becoming deeply involved. At the time, I didn't exactly know how involved I wanted to be. I guess it depended on just how he treated her from that point on, since I now knew the depth of her feelings for him.

There once came a time when neither I nor Cat, could stand to be around Davidson. After all, when you have a personality like his, it emits a type of magnifcation, the type that sucks you dry of thoughts, feelings, and life to a degree. He overwhelms your senses with his compassionate campaigns, reeling you in gently. But the hurt ran way too deep this time I feared. He had went to far. It makes me ill to watch him act so blissfully unaware of my secret loathing of him & what he seemed to stand for. That only meant that deep down, maybe I truly loathed my own existence as well.

Cat had a worse time with him than I did at the time. She loathed him for many more reasons than I. I only loathed him for one reason....he lied. In turn that made me feel disrespected and quite ignorant. And with that the big strong foundation of our life-long bond was forever broken, with only a lie. So if I felt this bad over a lie, Cat had to have felt worse than any of us. We were merely his bloodchildren and nothing more. She loved & supported him throughout the sands of time...devoted to him in spite of his ingratitude.

Davidson had a very bad habit of taking off to parts unknown for periods of time. No one could find him during his mystery hiatus either. Little did I know he was living out another life, his fairy-tale life so to speak. He retreated to the company of that woman I'd grown to hate. To have him out & out lie to me, and then take it further with even more lies on top of that. I wondered how much of his teachings, advice, wisdom, if any of that were anything more than just compounded lies. When the news finally broke, Cat was shocked, but not at all surprised. Then came disappointment, in the fact that he felt he had to cover everything up, be secretive with us, when the truth probably is, he enjoyed every minute of it! Like a cat covering its shit in a litterbox is what he reminded me of. Why else would he stage these little fantasy worlds he obviously had scattered about the world? It made me feel belittled that we (the coven) weren't special. My existence suddenly felt so insignificant in the spectrum of things. I felt Cat needed me through this hell we were so carelessly thrown into.

Cat sat by candlelight writing this emotional journal entry...It's a terrible thing to learn that your life has been based upon a false hood. It's beyond words to describe when you discover that not only your life, but your death and reawakening was based on a game so complex I couldn't even begin to understand in the emotional state I was in. Davidson's house of cards was starting to topple. Century's of manipulation were now starting to show and the discovery of being just another pawn on the board was almost too much to bare. I had watched the moves all these years. Silently reminding myself that there was a part of him I would never know, a part I couldn't trust. I was fool enough to believe that I was smart enough and too much a part of him to be placed on the board. Never realizing I had been there from the very begining till now. My first coherent thought was of Jessica. I had felt bits and pieces from her over the past few months. Feelings of confussion, turmoil, and rage. I had never been very good at feeling others, Davidson was the only one I could ever find or feel from great distances. His presense always seemed to drown everyone else's out for me. But Jessica was different from the first moment I saw her. Her vibrant personality, I think, and maybe her bond with Davidson, helped. I had only been a pawn, a play thing, but I felt he genuinely cared for her. He just couldn't help adding her to the game he had been playing so long. I needed to find her, try to warn her, in case she did not know so that she could protect herself, although I had a strong suspicion she already knew. One of the first things that is taught when you start this existance either by another or learned on your own is to run when there is danger. It's never possible to stay in one place for long anyway. It's hard to explain why your neighbors grow old and wither and you don't. I had no way of telling how much danger if any I was in or from which direction it would come from. The simplest solution was to run and sort it all out later. I wanted no memories, no keepsakes, no trace of the place I had loved and now grown to hate. The place where I learned my whole existance was based on lies and half truths. So I sent it all up in one glorious cleansing flame. I stayed just long enough to make sure that everyone was safe and no one was going to be able to save so much as a door stop. Then I turned my back and fled. I felt a sudden jolt of emotion, shock then understanding. I knew Jessica was near. At the moment I just wanted to feel safe and I could think of only one place he wouldn't find me. I knew Jessica could find me and would, so I kept going. I needed to rest and think. I had always expected this some where deep inside. I had spent too many years watching him build his own reality and shape others. But I had a feeling she was going to be blind sided by the turn of events. We were going to need each other and I was not going to let her down by falling apart. Together we might be able to stop the tide of what ever was coming our way.

By the time I arrived at the Cat house, it looked like an actual living hell already............flames leapt towards the midnight sky. The entire place was engulfed. How ironic, I thought to myself. There, outside the bar & brothel, stood all the girls, safely, gazing in disbelief & awe. The look of disbelief was not upon my face, however. I stood back in the shadows, watching Cat's life & love, burn. I must have been there for hours watching the flames consume a very sacred place to alot of people. At the crack of dawn, only embers remained, at that instant I knew there's only one reason why this house would come down...Cat. Odd how she isn't even here, as if she knew or perhaps had something to do with it. It was time to find her. But for now it was time to sleep.

I went to cemetary that I knew she loved to visit. I wandered through its crowded landscape looking for shadows of her. Faintly,in the distance, I heard crying. A small candle flickered in the mausoleum we frequented. I ran to it. Inside, hiding from the rest of the world, was Cat. SHe ran to me, embracing me in tears. I knew he had hurt her badly for her to cry in front of me. She had always been so strong, I never saw her weak. But I understood this time why she shared her grief with me. It made me hate him even more than I thought possible. My weakness was empathy. We sat quietly, holding one another for hours. She had never needed anyone but Davidson, but unfortunately he had severed that tie I knew, forever. She then turned to me, I was the only one who knew & could share this burden with her. Because of that, I, too, shared my grief & pain. It was all we could do at the time. We knew we needed to properly deal with it for either of us to move forward. So to us, this was therapy. And we knew very soon we would be strong again. And that would spell definite danger for Davidson, I was not sorry to say. And I could not wait.

She began to share her thoughts with me...from her point of view she speaks...
Side by side we sat in the flickering candle light. Our grief spent finally, and now I could feel the beginning of the ember of rage. Over the years I had felt pain and saddness beyond measure, all endured for him. Never this rage that was starting to engulf me. I relished in the feel of it. There was a freedom to be found in it. One I had never known. I wanted blood, his blood. Nothing else would do. I looked at Jessica and saw the flame in her eyes, but there was something else there too. She had reached passed it all and was deep in thought. She turned and asked,"Cat, what is it he holds most dear to him." One simple question and I was slammed back into reality. How I envied the way her mind worked I knew immediately the answer she already knew. His power. Not just his power, but how he held it without seeming to claim it. It was one of the vital abilities in retaining it. The illusion of the father figure who done no wrong. She nodded and started to lay out the first step in her plan. It would be the beginning of the pain he was going to feel. First we would take his power. Worse for him, we would give him no one to fight for it. By slowly tearing down the house of cards he had built, removing the players one by one. Each of us would spend our time very carefully, educating the others on the things he had done and hidden over the years. Allowing them to figure out for themselves the deception that had been played on them. In this way each time he lost his hold on them. He would keep losing little pieces of his game not knowing why and watch it all crumble down around him. He would of course suspect us. But what could he do? We would not try to take his place. We would give him no battle to fight, only loss. Once upon a time my entire existence had revolved around Davidson. Although it still does the coin has been flipped and now instead of protecting him I was going to play a part in destroying him. Not only that but we were going to use the one thing he always claimed to hold so dear...the truth. I looked at Jessica and we both started to laugh, oh this was going to be fun! Part one would tear him off his pedestal, I had a feeling when we got to part two he was going to wish he could die.

To read more about Caterina, visit Caterina's home page