Her eyes are in a perpetual state of shock, pupils drowning in the sea green of fairies and fear. Her voice shakes; she grabs for food with a feral snarl and is startled by any and every sudden move. She is constantly on alert. She never stops watching her back.
Last night, she slept in a tree outside my bedroom window as eight males circled around below her, screaming their bloody murder mating calls that could only sound pleasant to a serial killer delighting in the cries of his victim. They screamed and fought amongst each other, while she precariously perched out on a limb. Two males peered up at her from the fork in the lilac tree, caterwauling.
“It’s that time of the month,” I thought to myself, and seeing that I spend so much time with these very stray cats it is no surprise I have my period at the same time as Izzy. Yesterday, I threw precision-aimed walnuts at the males, ferocious in their sexual frenzy, but to no avail. I tried to bring Izzy into our house to protect her from the third gang rape I was about to witness, but she seemed more frightened by closed walls and no way out than the threat of the males. She needs control, as much as is possible and especially at this time of the month.
I have always been a dog person and was thrown into a relationship with more than a dozen stray cats upon moving to Istanbul. The first cat that has since grown up and abandoned me, his surrogate mother, I saved after the dominant males of our neighborhood had torn his throat out. He was nursed back to health in our kitchen and up until recently he would stop by daily for meals and cuddles. Sadly, he was one of the males waiting in line for the gang rape; my little boy is all growed up.
There is no such thing as loyalty among cats. There is only self-preservation and self-serving. There is hunger, desire, and doing what they must to fulfil those needs. There is no love. Their love is a detached and intellectual love. Cats appreciate what one can do for them, but they feel no emotion.
Except Izzy. The gang rape affects her. She looks up at me with these panic-stricken eyes, luminous green, and fluorescent with pain. She skulks around, eating her food with one eye trained behind her like a chameleon. She is every abused woman, pathetic weepy eyes, the neediness resulting in violent scratches, the protect-me-I-hate-you gaze. I see so much of myself in her.
Maybe that is why I despise her so intensely. And will do anything in my power to help her.
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