This dumbass cat, dude. Literally the stupidest animal on earth. I peer over the neighbor's gate and call her name quietly. "Meowzers... pstpst..."
She looks up at me from the far edge of their yard. For a moment her orange little ears stand at attention. Then she looks back at the clump of grass she's eating and, after weighing her options, continues to eat it.
This is so fucking embarrassing. It's 7:30am on a Tuesday and here I am strolling up to these rich-ass neighbors' front door wearing an extra large Sublime t-shirt and sweatpants. I've never even walked down this part of my street before. The houses are fucking huge. I brush the hair off my forehead and ring the doorbell.
And then immediately this super hot chick comes up to the other side of the glass door and sort of peers through it, puzzled. She's maybe in her early 30s and wearing yoga clothes. I try to make a friendly-but-distressed face at her through the door. She opens it partway.
"Uh... hello?" she says.
"Hi," I say, "I'm so sorry to bother you this early in the morning, but my cat just escaped, and I see her in your backyard. Could I, um, go back there and get her?"
She blinks at me a couple times and adjusts the shoulder strap of her yoga bra, which had started to slip. "Yeah," she says. "No worries at all. Freaking pets, right?"
"Oh my god, thank you," I say. "Yeah, freaking pets is right." I step back from the door to go grab Meowzers, but then for some reason she steps out after me. I pause.
"Do you... want a hand?" she asks.
"Oh," I say. "Um, totally, yes."
So we head back into the yard, where Meowzers has started licking the side of an apple tree. "She's literally so dumb," I explain.
"Oh, dude," says the woman, "you should meet the cat I grew up with. He would eat cotton balls out of the bathroom trash can. He thought they were mice."
I laugh. She delivered the joke with a straight face, but she's smiling at me with her eyes.
We get up close to Meowzers and I start to bend down, but of course just as I get within grasping range she leaps off to the side, sprints in a loop around the tree, and charges back towards the house.
"Fuck," I say, starting after her. I dash back in the direction of the front door just in time to see her step up on their porch and go inside. "Fuck," I say again. "Oh my god. Fuck."
"Did she just go inside?" the woman asks.
"Um. Yeah. I'm so fucking sorry," I say.
She laughs. "That's a really dumb cat," she says.
"I tried to tell you..."
"Come on in," she says, grabbing my wrist playfully and taking me towards the door. "Don't even worry about it. We'll find her." Her hand is soft and warm, and I feel a little sad when she lets go. I also feel a little erection coming on, which is not good news in sweats.
She leads me into the living room. Every piece of furniture looks like it cost more than I make in a month. Every wall is a floor-to-ceiling glass window looking out into their yard. I see Meowzers's orange tail slip around the doorway into the kitchen.
I follow, trying to step lightly on the polished wood floors. My stupid fucking slides are probably tracking dirt everywhere...
The woman tiptoes right behind me, clearly hoping not to startle Meowzers. "By the way," she says quietly, "I'm Jess."
"I'm Ryan," I say. "Sorry again about all this."
She puts that soft warm hand on my arm and rubs it up and down. "Literally don't even worry," she says. "Pets are crazy."
I step into the kitchen, ready to lunge for her if I have to. But then I freeze. First shock: Meowzers is up on the counter, licking milk out of what must be Jess's cereal bowl. Second shock: there's another bowl just like it, but with no milk.
There are two cereal bowls. Is someone else home? But also woah, hey, that's none of my business. I grab for Meowzers and--
Damn she's fucking fast! She slips between my hands and hits the floor at a gallop, zipping back into the living room and up the wide modernist staircase to the second floor.
"Jess," I say, as she stands behind me in the kitchen blinking. "I am so sorry. I... think she was drinking out of your cereal bowl."
She laughs again, even harder this time. "This is fucking wild," she says. "You have a wild cat."
"Please let me make this up to you once I catch her."
"Don't even worry about the cereal," she says, still laughing. "I'll give that one to Jeff."
"Jeff?"
"Oh, yeah, Jeff, my husband," she says. "He's in the shower."
My vision goes a little blurry. I realize I've been hearing the sound of the shower upstairs since we walked through the front door. I also realize I have a raging boner, and as we tiptoe up the stairs I try to rearrange it subtly so she won't see. Even flat against my belly it's trying to shove itself out the top of my waistband. And the last thing I want is for this Jeff dude to walk out of the shower and see me rock hard, walking upstairs behind his gorgeous wife.
When we get to the top of the stairs, she nudges me into a bedroom and turns on the light. "Let's check in here," she says. Then she closes the door.
"Um," I say. "I don't really see her in here."
"Let me get down and check under the bed," she says. She bends down, lifting her sculpted ass up in the air behind her. I don't even know why I look at it, but the yoga pants hug her pussy tight -- so tight I can see the crease where her labia meet. And she clearly knows it. And -- oh my god, really? -- I think I just saw her get a little wet.