Cat World

Illustration by Pedro Gomes

ExxonMobil6 wants to put his fingers in my mouth until they wrinkle and turn pink. He wants to palm the thick cord of my trachea. He might even want to push against it, watch my face turn pale until the tiny egg of my vision blurs bloody like a video game victim: YOU DIED. 

ExxonMobil6 tells me this in an AOL chatroom for people who cosplay as catgirls and catboys. My avatar is a peach-colored anime girl with white cat ears tufting out from her short dark hair. I drew a copy in art class after finding pictures of her online in her sailor fuku, with her large, wide green eyes, her white panties and thick crew socks. I love her white socks.

When Exxonmobil6 PMs me he asks A/S/L and I tell him 18/F/Florida because I’ve always wanted to live in a panhandle. But when he asks where in Florida I don’t know what to say. I’ve never been. My uncle runs a charter ship out in Summerland Key, so I tell him that. 

ExxonMobil6: the keys. must be nice living in a place like that.

dErAnGeDkItTy69: yeah lol

ExxonMobil6: how’s the atlantic?

dErAnGeDkItTy69: what?

ExxonMobil6: the ocean. you live in the keys?

dErAnGeDkItTy69: oh yea

I tell him about going to the beach in bikinis with my friends, how we drink cold vodka from red cups and sit around bonfires cooking hotdogs and making s’mores. 

“I would love to see it,” he says. “You and your friends in your bikinis, spread-eagle.”

I admit I don’t know what spread-eagle means. 

“lol.” he says. Just like that.

ExxonMobil6: send me a pic

dErAnGeDkItTy69 has logged off

At school Mikaela passes me a note. You get high? I write back and tell her I used to (a lie), and I quit (also a lie) but I’d be interested in giving it another shot. I am interested