A few weeks ago Bill The Cat started acting funny. He was walking around cooing, chirping and generally being a pain in the ass. He was rubbing up against anything he could find, and rolling around on the floor at every chance. He walked around the house at night howling in a voice I can only describe as from another world. I swear, it sounded like a child. I told Beau Hunk that if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was in heat.
We called the vet (who has seen Bill twice and both times swore he was a boy), and they seconded my suspicion – Bill was in heat. Oh Fate, you wicked wicked bitch. Like the Boy Named Sue, we have a girl named Bill. Or Byl. Or Billomena. Bill The Transgender Cat. But we are open minded and accepting of these things, so we don’t much mind.
However, for the sake of consistency and in an effort to not confuse the hell out of Woo, we have decided to keep using the male pronoun. Sorry Bill, but you really are just a cat and we have to put your sexual identity issues behind Woo’s need to learn the difference between “he” and “she”. Feline diversity needs must take a back seat to human child education. Let’s just hope that the ACCLU (American Cat Civil Liberties Union) doesn’t find out.
Clearly Bill would need to be spayed, but we had certain scheduling issues we had work around. Until then, we kept “him” in the house. Which was a sight to behold. He spent a few days cooing and chirping, howling and yowling, and basically trying to get laid. We were ever so happy when that phase passed.
But Sunday afternoon he started in again. The Wanton Hussy was back and wanted outside, big time. We couldn’t open the door without him bolting outside. The house went into lock down. But we have had a bit of false spring around here with temps in the high 70′s, so we wanted to air the house out by opening the windows. The sliding glass door was cracked open a few inches in compromise.
A little after 7pm on Sunday, we realized that Bill wasn’t hanging out with us. We searched the house frantically, which is when we discovered that the back door had been pushed open and the screen was ripped. Bill had escaped, in heat, and at night.
The main concern wasn’t him out being a trollop, it was that he was out at night. There is a canyon behind our back fence that has a large population of wildlife, including coyotes and bobcats. We have been told that cats just don’t survive around here, which we believe since we never see cats roaming around. I had all sorts of horrible thoughts about our little Bill’s fate, which left me a sniveling, sobbing mess. Beau Hunk, bless his giant heart, made several trips out to the yard and canyon searching for our Bill, to no avail. Bill was gone.
Sleep never did come, and I passed the hours in bed staring into the darkness. Around 2am I saw a silhouette outside our bedroom door and couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Bill! He was home!! I jumped out of bed and flipped on the porch light to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Yes, it was him. Our little Bill was safe! But when I turned on the light, my stupid dog came bounding out of his dog house, straight for Bill. Under normal circumstances, Bill and my dog are best friends and play all the time. But Bill was spooked, so he bolted. We searched the yard, but no Bill. He was gone again.
Beau Hunk took watch from the living room floor, while I took watch from the bedroom, praying he’d be brave enough to come back. After an hour, I invited Beau Hunk back to bed and took up the watch. I stayed there, mentally begging Bill to come back home, for hours. Finally, around 7am, with the sky lightening, I gave up, turned over and decided to sleep. Beau Hunk went back outside for one more check.
Lo and behold, Bill was sitting out front. But he wasn’t alone. He was accompanied by a big bruiser of a Tom. Apparently our little slut’s boyfriend had the decency to walk his date home. Beau Hunk brought Bill inside where he was met with that parental conflict of “if I wasn’t so revlieved to have you home, I’d brain you”. Afterall, the little shit did deprive me of a whole night of much needed sleep.
As the sun broke across the horizon, we spotted another suitor sitting beyond our back fence. So Bill had managed to find two Toms in a canyon full of coyotes and bobcats and survive the night. But without a doubt, Bill had been soiled and was destined to be an unwed mother. Oh the shame!! Clearly our Bill was broken and must be “fixed”.
Due to our schedules and other logistics, we basically had to take care of this right away. It was either do it now, or in three weeks, which of course would be too late. We explained the situation to our vet and they were kind enough to squeeze our little knocked up hussy into yesterday’s schedule.
Bill is now back home, resting comfortably, sans girly bits. Last night he was clearly not comfortable, so we did our best to take care of him. We made him little beds on the floor with pillows and articles of our clothing so he’d have our smell to comfort him. He stayed there a while, but eventually chose to take a nap on Woo’s bed while I was at class. When I got home, he kept going to our bed and looking like he was waiting for me to lie down so he could snuggle in. I wasn’t ready to go to bed, but Bill needed his mama, so I tucked in.
He immediately snuggled up against my leg and fell asleep. He stayed there most of the night, only moving to relocate to his standard place for sleeping – my ribcage. At one point he even requested a “love fest”, the term I use for when he shows up purring madly and wanting rubs and pets. He’s doing better this morning than I would have thought. He’s eating, drinking, and is climbing on the furniture to find the best napping spots. He’s still sleeping a lot, but seems to much more comfortable and mobile than yesterday.
Hopefully our Ms. Bill will quit darting out the door now, and won’t be spending any more nights in the canyon at risk of being a tender tasty snack for those further up the food chain. And all those neighborhood Toms will just have to find another little hussy to knock up, because our little girl is officially off the market.