I started laughing while moving back from the window to retie the towel. I didn’t close the door and the kitten followed me in, looking around with the air of a spoiled child slumming in the home of a less fortunate cousin.

I re-adjusted the towel and sat on Tim’s hassock, leaning down to get a better look at the little cat. “Aren’t you a brave one? How did you even get up there? Did you come from the apartment upstairs?” Okay, I admit this was said in a cooing voice like one would talk to a baby.

The kitten, with one blue eye and one green looked at me and said, “Don’t be an ass.”

I sat up straight on the hassock and stared at the animal. “Pardon?” I squeaked.

“Talking to me like that,” said the cat. “No one else’s around, you don’t have to put on an act.”

It turns out that I am crazy, I thought. I swear, I looked around the room to be sure we were alone like the cat had said. Then I whispered, “You can talk?”

The cat rolled its eyes. Her eyes, I seemed to remember from somewhere that calicos are always female. “Of course I can talk. Hell’s Little Fiery Dumplings, what’s wrong with you?” The voice sounded rather cute but the attitude was like that of a waitress in a New York coffee shop. Gimme your order, awready, I got tables.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” I said to the cat. “I haven’t been myself this morning. I woke up in bed with a strange man, I can’t remember my own name and now a cat is giving me the redass. I feel an attack of the screaming heebie-jeebies coming on.”

“Hell's Pimple Pads,” said the cat, stepping back. “You’re not Catewood!” Or did she say, Kate Wood? The little thing puffed up like a three-toned dandelion and hissed at me.

“Oh, go fizz yourself,” I said. “Either I’m haloonisating again or there really is a talking cat. And if so, said talking cat can explain herself or go fall off another balcony.” I laid back on the hassock and threw a hand over my eyes in my best Scarlett O’Hara parody. “I’m so confused, all I need is another pussy giving me attitude.”

The cat made a dash toward the still open balcony door. I had to raise up and turn sideways a little to see her but she stopped halfway to look back at me. “You don’t know who you are?” she asked, sounding like she didn’t believe me.

I nodded. “Well, I found out about half an hour ago that my name is Constance Catewood and I live in apartment 415 but other than that, I’m completely lost.” The dream didn’t help, too confusing. “And if you’re my cat, how come you’re up here instead of downstairs? Did I smuggle you in last night in the pocket of clothes I wasn’t wearing?”

The kitten washed a paw. “You’re not making any sense at all.” She looked at the paw and gave it another lick. “You look like Kate Wood, but you don’t talk like her and you don’t know who I am, do you?”

I shook my head. “I’ve never met a talking cat before, I’m sure I would remember that.”

“I’m your familiar,” said the cat. “Or, I was Catewood’s familiar. And....” She stretched her neck out and sniffed of me. “And you’re in her body, but you aren’t her!” At that the kitten put back its head and began to wail, a high-pitched yowling of surprising volume coming from the tiny body.

“Sh, sh, sh!” I said, straightening up and reaching for the little animal. “You’ll wake Tim!”

“I don’t care,” said the cat, dodging. “Is he the one that’s been snogging you?”

“Well, yes, I guess you could say that–except you’re a cat and cat’s don’t talk.” I made another grab for the kitten but she forded when I expected her to dodge.

“Clumsy boob,” she said and bounced out of reach.

“Leave my boobs out of it,” I said. All I needed was for me to go one way and them another and I'd fall on my face. I tried to change direction and ended up rolling off the hassock and out of the towel. I lay there on the carpet, naked again and more than a little disconcerted. I realized just how little sense anything that had happened that morning made and wanted to start yowling myself.

The kitten dashed up and whapped me on the cheek with a soft paw. “Hell's Toaster Pastries in Seven Infernally Delicious Flavors,” said the cat. “I can’t hurt you! The bond!”

I scooped up the tiny thing in my hands and brought it close to me. “I’m sorry that I’m not who you think I ought to be, but believe me, it’s just as distressing to me as to you.”

The cat sniffed and struggled but she could no more escape my grasp than I could Tim’s. “Go ahead and kill me, then. Get it over with, that magical backlash last night already cost me two of my lives but I’ve got a spare or three.”

I chuckled. “I’m not going to hurt you, little Muffins.”

“My name is Ogen, not Muffins,” hissed the cat. She tried to bite me but it didn’t hurt at all.

“You’re so cute!” I said, cuddling her against my cheek.

“Oh for pity’s sake! Knock it off!” she complained. She began to purr. “Oh, now look what you’ve gone and done. You got my motor started.”

“Too cute!” I said, partly because it seemed to annoy the little fuzzball and she really was that cute and even cuter when complaining.

I didn’t realize what position I had ended up in, kneeling on the carpet, bent over to hold the kitten to my face with my posterior pointed at the bedroom door. I didn’t realize, that is, until I heard Tim say from behind me, “What am I looking at?”