Warrior Princess

Our friends are remodeling their house. Currently, they are house-sitting and cannot keep their cat at their new location. So we agreed to watch her for them.

Her name is Xena, like the Amazon warrior princess television show with Lucy Lawless in the starring role.

The cat Xena is as deadly as the Amazon fighter.

Small in stature, she is a gray and white, short-haired killer. She screams her meows if we get too close. She hunches behind blind corners and on the edges of hidden counters, then whips out a claw-extended paw to swipe tracks across our arms and legs. She teases us, rubbing lovingly up against our shins, weaving in and out between our legs, her tail straight up and quivering. We've learned not to take the bait only after she's snatched our whole hand in her mouth and chomped as hard as a pit bull.

The first week at our house she refused to eat or drink. We checked her cat box every day for signs of elimination only to find nothing, nada, zilch. Worried, we got her some canned cat food and once she heard the snap of the metal lid, she became obsessed with the smell, chasing us through the kitchen to make certain we were putting the gooey wet stuff in her bowl.

Now!

Soon, every time we were in the kitchen making cooking sounds, she was on top of us, demanding a taste of the refried beans, the tomato sauce, and even the mild chili peppers used to make enchiladas, hoping for wet, smelly cat food.

She understands our words, too. "I'm going downstairs," Ann will say and soon the cat will be perched on the bottom step, guarding the passageway with her teeth and claws, hissing and spitting as if being attacked by a dog.

"I need to find my water bottle," I said the other morning and the moment I spotted it, Xena spotted it too and raced to the bottle to rub her sleek body against it. The closer I got to the bottle, the more agitated she became, stomping her back feet as if beating the war drum of the floor.

I went into the kitchen and used a different water bottle.

She sleeps up high -- the back of the couch in the living room, the top of the highest cupboard in the kitchen, the tall corner of the cabinet in the family room. Half the time we don't even know she's around until one of us screams or gasps or jumps back quickly, avoiding a scratch or a bite or a deadly warning hiss.

Her mothers come to visit her every other day. Xena transforms into a real cat then, purring softly, leaping up into the arms of one mother or the other. They pet her, coo softly into her ear, stroke her soft fur, rub the rough spot between her ears. They cradle her in their arms and Xena lies flat on her back, her once deadly claws straight in the air, clawless and loving.

We can pet Xena then, when she is distracted by her mother, but once Xena realizes there are another set of hands stroking her back, she turns like a viper and spits her discomfort. Then, when Jeanne and Lisa leave to go back to their house-sitting job, Xena grumbles and groans, moans and meows in her sickening, mass-murderer voice, stomping around the house as if possessed by demons. Pissed.

I am hard-pressed to believe she is not possessed.

I consider myself to be an animal person. Every animal I have ever met comes to me willingly, rubs against my legs or leans against me for a scratch under the chin. Xena is a mystery. I want to understand her. I want to get close to her.

Dare I say, she epitomizes my life-long struggle -- I want her to LIKE me.

But aside from canned food and affection from her mothers, there is little Xena likes. She walks through her life grumpy and irritable. She looks for a fight. She likes the taste of blood. She rarely relaxes and when she does, it is usually when she curls up deep in the chair, blending in with the wool throw on the couch or the chair.

Like a snake.

Jeanne and Lisa call us every day. "How's she doing?" they'll ask, which is immediately followed by, "You two are saints."

"It's really fine," we'll say. "We want to help out and she's really no problem."

Then everyone laughs because we all know, she's not a problem.

She's a warrior princess, her claws a battle axe, her teeth a mace, her hissing a battle cry. Defender of inner demons.


Xena stalking the kitchen counters.