Some Enchanted Girlfriend   by Donna Lamb   20. Find Under Harlette returned with the phone but closed it with a snap. “Must have been a wrong number,” she said, grinning. “No heavy breathing at all.”

“Hee-hee, Ho,” I said. She still didn’t get that, so I just grinned back. “Mr. Styx frighten them off?”

“Nah, I got it before he said anything. But whoever it was didn’t talk much. Just one word, really. 'Beauty.' Is that one of your clients petnames for you?” she asked.

I didn’t know, so I just shrugged.

Muffins rolled over on her back and waved her paws in the air. “I don’t like it,” she said.

I rubbed her tummy, it seemed like the thing to do. “What don’t you like, baby Muffins?” I cooed. She tried to scowl at me but cats can’t do that when they’re tummies are being rubbed.

Mr. Styx appeared in the doorway. “Yhh ryryhh hhh ry ryhr,” he said distinctly. Then he wandered off.

“Gumdrops,” said Harlette. “It scares me that I’m starting to understand him.”

“He said he was going back to bed?” I guessed.

Harlette nodded. “You, too? Creepy old string-saver.”

“I don’t like that, either,” said the kitten, her purely vocal purrs almost drowning out her mental voice. “But ‘Beauty’ on the phone might be a warning from someone.”

“How?” I said. “What don’t I know?”

“Your magic is based on the realm of sexual energy,” said the cat. “The generation, containment and release of human erotic impulses and drives.” She glanced at me. “Kate’s magic was, that is.”

“Hmm,” I said. I noticed that the faster I strummed her tummy, the louder her purrs got. She’s just a furry little ukelele, I thought.

“But there are other realms,” said the spirit voice of the kitten, who appeared to be blissing out on my virtuosity.

“Like what?” I asked.

“There are realms and realms within realms,” said Muffins, speaking as Ogen the spirit. “Super realms like Light and Darkness. Life and Death. Subrealms like Erotica and narrow micro-Realms like Collectible Card Games.”

“Snurf,” I said, choking back a giggle.

“I’m not familiar with a snurf realm,” said Muffins. She didn’t seem amused which made it twice as funny.

“I thought she said smurf,” said Harlette. “You know, short, blue men who don’t get enough?”

“No wonder they’re blue,” I said.

“I’m positive there is no smurf realm,” said the kitten.

Harlette continued decorating me with jewelry, rings, necklaces, anklets and a little jeweled barrete for my hair, all during this exchange. I watched in the mirrors and enjoyed the ministrations of my acolyte, distracting myself from giggling at the stuffy attitude of the calico kitten.

“Is a wittle baby Muffins kitty wike her belly rubs?” I cooed, just to be annoying.

“Yes,” said the cat, “but I promise I’ll hate you in the morning.”

That did get a giggle from me and a gurgle from Harlette so I sang a little nonsense playground song for the kitten:

“There’s a place in France
Where the kitties all wear pants,
And the dogs run around
In their long evening gowns.
They’ll never catch their tails that way.
They dance all night and sing all day.
 
“Na, na, nah, nah, nah,
Na-na, na-na, na-na, nah!
 
“There’s a place in Greece
Where the kitties all wear fleece,
And the dogs run amuck
‘Cause they’re just out of luck.
They chase their tails and sing this song,
All day wide and all night long.
 
“Na, na, nah, nah, nah,
Na-na, na-na, na-na, nah!
 
“There’s a place in Spain
Where the kitties all are sane.
And the dogs can say meow
‘Cause the cats have taught them how.
And some wide day or some long night,
They’ll catch their tails but never bite.
 
“Na, na, nah, nah, nah,
Na-na, na-na, na-na, nah!
 
“There’s a place I know,
It’s where all the kitties go.
And the dogs will be there, too,
If you hurry, so can you.
Where nights are long and days are wide,
You be the groom, I’ll be the bride.”

“Hell’s Haberdashery for Headless Heads of State! Knock it off!” said Muffins. She’d finally had enough so she sat up and started washing herself.

Harlette and I both laughed and sang the chorus anyway. Singing in a corset leaves you kind of light-headed and I felt giddy but pleased with myself.

“What were we doing before the Broadway number?” the cat asked.

“You were telling me–uh–what actually happened last night. How’d I end up up in Tim’s room, naked?”

“Huh?” said Harlette. “I missed something? That hunk-a-lunk I met downstairs? Hnnh. No wonder he had such a satisfied smirk on his mug. Oh, yeah, you mentioned that you set the night afire with him.”

“And the morning,” said Muffins. “That’s how I found you so quickly,” she said to me. She stuck a foot straight up in the air and began licking it from the thigh down to the toes.

All the while the spirit voice, Ogen, went back to telling what had happened. “You used Willie Corvair, or Kate did, to bootstrap yourself into the astral domain for a looksee because you thought someone, Frank Zed specifically, might be planning something. I went along for the ride and Willie-boy clung to your tail by dint of what talent he had himself.”

“It’s a nice tail,” commented Harlette.

“Really?” I said. I felt absurdly happy for poor Willie but confused by the apparent connection between us. Mr. Styx and I, Kate and Willie–scrambled souls?

“Yes, really,” said Harlette.

“Please,” said Muffins. The kitten opened her eyes and did that cross and recross thing again. It always made her look like a candidate to get her own animated cartoon show someday. This time I noticed that when she uncrossed them, the green one had swapped places with the blue one.

I almost lost the next couple of sentences in wondering if she were doing it on purpose and if not, did she know it was happening. And then I wondered if it was really happening, I mean, I didn’t consider myself –a known nutbar– to be a reliable witness at all.

Muffins got back to the point. “You went up to the astral domain and took a look around. Nothing relled of danger, so you pulled Willie up to you and began giving him his second lesson in tantric sex.”

“On the astral plane?” asked Harlette as if that were scandalous. I wondered if it were or if she was just having fun pretending to be shocked.

“You had the idea that with a little more power you could do something to make sure Zed would leave you alone,” said Muffins.

“What was it?” I asked. This all sounded a bit like something from a book I read about Mexican witches back in college. I didn’t know what questions to ask. I didn’t even know which college I’d gone to.

“Zed, or somebody, had a counterspell ready. Maybe an ambush. I didn’t see it coming,” Muffins admitted. “You and your student were completely involved and the attack came so quickly, you just had time to say, ‘Zed!’ before the blast tore me away from you. It looked like whatever it was had shredded you both to soul tatters–Kate and Willie, that is.”

I blinked a few times. Soul tatters sounded bad.

“I landed, back in my body, in an alley in Burbank where a pair of coyotes tore me apart before I could get my wits about me.” Definitely reminded me of those books about the Mexican witches. Maybe those weren’t fiction?

“Wait,” said Harlette. “You landed in your body–in Burbank? Jingle bell sausages! That’s like twenty-five miles away.”

“Yes,” said the kitten. “Teleportation. I’ve never gone that far under my own power before. It took me hours to get back here and I used up another life trying to cross the freeway.” She sighed with both spirit and kitten voices. “Something else, the coyotes used Death Magic on me; I barely escaped being banished from this Plane.”

“Carp noodles,” said Harlette. She had finished with the jewelry and begun picking out makeup. Lipstick, eyeshadow, foundation, powder, gathering the little tubes and bottles in her left hand.

“I found Kate, well, you,” Muffins indicated me, “by following the glow you made in the ether with that giant. I couldn’t rell you directly till I got close, then I teleported onto your balcony, his balcony and discovered–um, I’m still not sure what I’ve discovered.”

Muffins and I stared at each other for a bit. “So, who am I?” I asked.

The kitten turned around twice and managed to step on her own head. “Ouch,” she said. “I think you’re using Kate’s body–and Kate’s brain–and Kate’s powers–but you’re not Kate, not inside.”

I had to say it. “Do you think I’m Willie?” I had to ask.

“I don’t know,” said Ogen/Muffins, staring at me. “But Mr. Styx out there isn’t Kate either. I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what happened to Kate.”

We stared at each other for a bit too long. The kitten looked worried instead of cute. I wanted a deep breath and a giant to hold me and keep me safe.

Harlette held up the handful of cosmetics she had gathered. “I’ve got a new spell,” she said. She waved the tubes, bottles and brushes over my head and said, “All you cousins, scram, all you Percherons, gee. All you pterosaurs, fly, and all you mastodons, flee!” Then she touched me on the forehead, the tip of my nose and my chin.