You and I
I broke out of jail. I hid in a garbage truck and rode to a small town in the middle of the desert, about four miles from the prison. I had to ditch my prison uniform, and so I had to avoid town, lacking anything else to wear. I walked miles through the desert, naked, dirty and smelling like garbage. I would have been spotted if it hadn't been night. Only my fur kept me warm. It didn't do well.
I fucked a stranger for some clothes. He found me there, sleeping in the sand. He was a ratty-looking tomcat, a drifter, living out of a van. I was scared, and embarrassed, but I guess I was also lucky, because he said I was cute, for a crazy hobo. I asked him I could go with him, and he just opened up the back of the van and pulled out a bottle of lube.
We kept on like that, a while, fucking every time we stopped somewhere for the night, and sometimes during the day. I have to admit, I appreciated the attention, after fourteen months with only hard convicts who'd either rape me or kill me if they knew what I liked, and I guess it was a good deal, but I didn't like the lack of passion. I was just a warm hole to him. He was just a van, a T-shirt and shorts, and a few cheap meals to me.
He got stopped by a cop in the next big city we passed through. A broken tail-light led to a drug charge when the cop smelled the immortal odor of weed and booze in the van. I got away when they busted him, said he'd just driven me the last couple of miles. I guess the cop didn't want to bother with some dirty mutt with tangled fur. I guessed my face wasn't on any wanted lists, or many, anyway. The drifter had taken me five states from the prison.
I blew a wolf for his jacket. It had been getting cold, and I saw this guy, standing there in this old ratty trench coat. I'd been walking around in the coming winter cold with nothing but a dirty T-shirt and shorts to wear. That coat looked like a miracle.
I'd already sold my ass a few times, for food, so I tried to look seductive and politely asked if he was lonely. Lucky for me, he did want what I was selling, and led me to his car. He took the coat off, once we got in, and I went to work. I didn't swallow. He got pissed about that, and went to kick me out the door. I grabbed the coat and ran.
I lost a tooth for sleeping in the back of a convenience store. It was a cold night, and I'd been starting to seriously worry I might lose some toes to frostbite, so I started looking for somewhere with a heater to wait for morning. I found a 24-hour convenience store with an unlocked back door, and quietly slipped into the stock room.
I figured I'd stay awake, and wait until dawn to leave. I assumed they only checked the stock room when the shift changed. I turned out to be right, but I didn't manage to stay awake. In the relative warmth, I fell fast asleep, and woke up to the clerk's boot in my face. It would have been a hell of a lot worse if I hadn't gotten out of there as fast as I did, but I left one of my canines on the sidewalk.
I slept with a cat to keep from freezing to death. We were each about as bad off at the other, no shoes, thin clothes, so we shared body heat in the back of an abandoned car. We didn't fuck. I just wrapped my coat and around him and pulled him close.
It was weird. It was almost like having a lover, like a real one, not a john, so close and tight and desperate for warmth. I woke up, and he was gone. He'd taken the change in my pocket.
You met me outside a soup kitchen. I'd just had a first hot meal in a couple weeks, and though a little invigorated, I still had the definite look of "wrong side of the tracks" about me. You walked up and started shooting the breeze.
I couldn't believe it. This young, cute fox walking up and starting a conversation with a dirty mutt in a patched trench coat, no shoes and yellow teeth. You took me to a Starbucks and bought me a coffee, like I was just anybody.
I had real conversation for probably the first time since I'd gone to jail. We talked art, and movies, and books, and a hundred other things I hadn't thought about in over a year.
We were coming to the end of our drinks, and I knew this strange, wonderful afternoon was soon to end, when you asked if I had anywhere to stay. Suddenly, you were no longer ignoring my patina of poverty. I felt nervous, and embarrassed, and a lot of other things, but was confused, again, also. Why were you helping me, which you now so clearly were? I admitted I didn't, and just waited to see where this went.
You invited me to your apartment, and I accepted. We didn't talk much, until we got back. It wasn't that impressive a place, by most standards, but to me it was unbelievable. The warmth, the security. This was like nothing I'd known since first being arrested. You got Chinese food for dinner and shared with me. I tried not to eat too greedily. You let me use your shower, and I nearly cried. I slept on the couch, and you wished me a good night. That brought a tear to my eye, for some reason.
After a few days of this, I fought down my fear of losing this sweet arrangement and asked you just why you'd take in a dirty hobo. You took a few moments before answering, choosing your words. I was so scared that I'd seemed ungrateful, but then you gave me my answer.
You told me about your parents, and your home town, and how they all wondered why you didn't take a nice girl to your senior prom. You told me about the fight when you explained it to them, about the baby picture they threw in the trash in front of you.
You told me about coming here, about hoping it was getting away to place you could be happy. About finding it was all so big and lonely, liberal and modern or not. You told me about how big this little apartment seemed at night, how quiet. You told me paying the extra rent and expenses for a roommate didn't bother you, so long as there was someone else there.
I asked why you didn't try craigslist. You said you were going to, until you saw me there. You said you didn't see my shitty coat and my tangled fur, not before you saw my eyes. You told me you saw something in them, something that made you talk to me. You said you saw something familiar.
I cried when you said that. You thought you'd said something wrong, and I told you you'd only said something right. You were the first one to see me as a person in a long time.
I told you about everything, the careless drug dealer I got busted with, the time in prison, my senseless, impulsive escape. I told you about the drifter, about arriving here, about how I'd gotten by. I told it all through tears, and when I expected you to ask me to leave, you held me. I cried harder and thanked you.
We went to bed together, that night. What we had was slow, and warm and intimate. I, who'd fucked, and blown, and sold my ass, made love, for the first time. It was your turn to cry in happiness, as we lay together in the tangled sheets and the fading scent of passion.
I got a job at a local department store. I started helping with the rent. With the extra money, you started taking me shopping for clothes, nothing fancy, but the first clothes I'd chosen since my arrest.
Our one-year anniversary comes. You buy me a necklace that's obviously more than you can afford. I scold you for it.
You tell me I saved your life, when we met. I ignore the fact that you literally saved me from freezing to death in an alley. You admit that, since that fight with your parents, you'd been having thoughts about razor blades and sleeping pills. You tell me I made you feel worthy of living. I cry the way only you seem able to make me cry and tell you you make me feel the same way.