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Catch Me

By J. F. Peterson

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“Go catch one, buddy.” Deion smiled at Harry from atop the construction spider, chuckled and shook his head. A twist of hair escaped his hardhat and swung in front of his eyes. “Anyone needs it, it's you. And, brother, do you need it.” His spider bobbed as he laughed in the seat.

Harry tried to ignore him. He stared at his sandwich and chewed. Peanut butter and jelly. He made it himself this morning. He went through his mental to-do list to keep from thinking about Deion's words: Food shopping. The med list for the pharmacist. Dinner. Changing his wife's bedpan. Her sponge bath. And that made him think of touching her, which brought him full circle to what Deion had been talking about.

Deion's spider crouched, bringing his grinning face close to Harry. “Don't shut me out. I know you need it, just like no one else. So what's it going to take? They got specials for us veterans.”

Harry flinched. “Why you bothering me, Deion? Haven't you got a few tons of concrete to pour?”

Deion shook his head. “That's frustration talking, man.”

“You're like a parrot, Deion. Cathouse, cathouse, cathouse. Got a brain in that head or a dick?” Harry bit off a chunk of sandwich and chewed.

 “You should talk. Ahhhh.” Deion leaned back with a big grin. “Just thinking about that palace of dee-light give me a good feeling, brother. You come with me. You just don't know when. They got anything you want there, anything. Upgrade yourself, find some sweet thing looking just—”

 “Probably like you. Ugly as a stump.” In truth, Deion was the handsome one of the pair, and both knew it. Harry returned from the war with scars no surgery had been able to repair. Inside and out.

 Deion chuckled. “The ladies love me, even if you don't.”

 “Oh, I love you Deion. Just in very small doses. Time with you is like building up immunity to poison.”

 Deion shook his head. “Been poisoning you a long time then, brother.” The spider heaved up from the ground, lifting his bulk on its spindly legs. “I go pour concrete now. Back to poison you later.”

 Harry tossed the remains of his sandwich into the trash. “Don't do me any favors.” He walked back to his machines. The mantis stood, its two winches swinging on miniature crane arms, and followed Harry. The woodpecker waddled along behind, and the five multi-tooled newts scurried after.

 On the drive home, Harry passed The Cathouse. He always did. He told the car to slow. His gaze went to the building, a big restored Victorian with gingerbread siding. Cars filled the lot. Liquid paper shades shrouded the windows, showing images of females on the menu.

 Not women. Something between human and feline, engineered to look human, but not really human at all. Genesculpted housecats.

 Harry forced his eyes away.

***

 “I baked cookies.”

 Harry set the groceries down on the end of the coffee table without the broken leg. He stopped to straighten the embroidered runner. Mekelle had made it, one of her hobbies. He looked at Cheryl, the housekeeper and his wife's nurse. She wore a broad smile and a baking apron that read, “Kiss the Cook”. Mekelle's baking apron. Mekelle hadn't worn it since the disease progressed to her legs.

 “Hi, Cheryl. How is she?”

 She untied the apron. “A good day, Harry. She's been asking for you. Sleeping now.”

 “The doctor's appointment? How'd it go?”

 Cheryl's eyes dropped. The smile flinched, before returning in something that looked bright and happy and false. Fake it until you make it; he did the same thing. “I think she wrote something down. There on the dining room table. You look at it later. Go spend some time with her. I'm going home. But, remember, I got extra time later this week. I can cover if you'd like. I don't mind.”

 Harry forced his face into something vaguely resembling a smile. “You're a wonder, Cheryl. Thanks, but I'll be here.”

 Cheryl frowned as if she wanted to say something, but then she put her smile back on and nodded. “You're a good husband.”

 He remembered looking at The Cathouse, and the longing he had felt to be touched. A flush of shame ran through him, a warmth that rushed to his face and hands. “Thanks.”

 They hugged quickly before she left. He moved to the pile of mail on dining room table, stiff from work and old wounds. Bills, bills, and more bills. He didn't read the doctor's letter. Later. He went in to look at Mekelle.

 Watching her sleep beneath the sheets, he couldn't see what the disease had done, not the withered legs or the weight lost. The shadows hid the rash across her face.

 He imagined her vibrant as when they first met, before the war, before the disease. He remembered running with her on the beach. Their honeymoon trip to Curacao. He stood a long while, lost in thought. She had been so beautiful. And the nights, the passion shared, he remembered that too. A lifetime ago. His body ached with wanting her, as she had been. In the darkness he imagined nothing had changed and reached out to touch her, but stopped himself. He let the illusion hold.

 A rattling breath broke the spell. Mekelle coughed, wetly, and woke. She moaned. Harry sat and took her hand.

 Mekelle's eyes fluttered open. “My h-h-husband.” A faint smile creased her lips. “I m-m-missed you.”

 “I missed you too.”

 They shared about their days. He talked about the job, she about the doctor saying the disease had moved to her lungs, and that she would need a neuromuscular stimulation suit because soon she wouldn't be able to breathe on her own. He told her doctors don't know everything, gestured at himself to remind her what doctors had said about his chances after the war, and then helped her go to the bathroom, carrying her over and seeing what sheets had hidden: pipe cleaner legs, ribs and hips jutting out. He set her down on the toilet, wiped her after, and brought her back for a sponge bath. She weighed so little, small as the child they'd never managed to have.

 He fed her the ground vegetables and protein supplements the doctors insisted would sustain her indefinitely. “Cheryl made cookies. I can get them. I'll soak them in milk so they're soft.”

 A hint of a smile creased the edges of Mekelle's lips. “No. Share them with Deion. I told Cheryl the recipe. The one you like. Gingerbread men.”

 Harry and Mekelle used to make them together. Afterward, one of them would always play the gingerbread man, yelling, “Catch me!” like in the old fairy tale, while the other gave chase.

 He smiled. “Catch me.”

 She grinned, faintly.

 He put his hand on her arm.

 Over the years they had made gingerbread manger scenes together, Easter bunnies, mummies and vampires. Making something together had been the best part. He remembered the year before the disease started its work in Mekelle, when they had started making scenes of the two of them: gingerbread boys and girls for the family they had hoped to have.

 It had been after one of those batches they got the call from the doctor. Mekelle had answered. She picked up the phone, talked quietly for a minute, then put down the phone and looked at the cookies a moment: A little gingerbread family spread across the kitchen table. With a sweep of her arm she sent them tumbling to the floor and started breaking them to pieces. That had been the last time she made cookies.

 Harry set a reader in front of her, perched on her lap against a pillow so it angled up toward her face. “Okay.” He placed her hands on the controls.

 “My loving husband.” She smiled, but the smile slipped and she shook her head. “I'm such a burden.”

 “No.” He stopped to swallow, his throat felt tight. “You're the best thing that ever happened to me.” He sat on the chair next to the bed. Potpourris scented the room with flowers, but the faint ammonia smell never really went away. “You're my wife, and I love you. I love you. It's no different than what you did for me, back when.”

 After the war, when he had come back a mess of shredded tissue, she nursed him back to health. When the doctor said he would never walk again, she found another doctor who could fix him. When the painkillers became an addiction, she stayed with him through the abuse he screamed out at her. She had been there always, saved him in every physical and spiritual sense. She deserved all the love he could give and more.

 Her hands dropped, as dramatic a gesture as she could make with her limited mobility. “I'm a sponge. An ugly worthless sponge. I don't know why you put up with me.”

 “No, you're beautiful.”

 She couldn't shout anymore, but the words came out in an angry hiss. “Don't l-l-lie to me!”

 He held her hand between his. He remembered the beach, the sound of her laughter, the feel of her against him. In the dim light, behind the pocked skin, he saw her, not the withered shell, but Mekelle, his wife, his love. Beautiful. “I'm not lying.” And he wasn't.

***

 “Harry, what you worried about? Cheating? It's not cheating. You stupid? You can't cheat without another woman.”

 Harry snorted and huddled under the tarp they had set up to keep off the rain. “Any other songs in that playlist, Deion? This one's getting tired.” He bit off a chunk of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chewed.

 “Had this filly last night. You would not believe. Got a download.” He unrolled a reader to show Harry. Deion and what appeared to be a woman, both naked, moved passionately against each other on a bed.

 Harry pushed it away. “Geez, keep it to yourself, Deion.”

 “I'm telling you, they feel better than real women. Better than suits, corticostims. Better—”

 “Spare me the sales pitch, Deion. You like cats, I understand.”

“Not cats, brother. Not some furry thing pooping in your shoes and peeing on the carpet. Pussies. They made for us, brother. You wouldn't believe. Would not believe. Perfect. Hot. Women. And they want a man so bad, they climb right onto you. And the way they ride you, so tight and . . . Better than natural, any day. My girl last night, Tink, she ripping the clothes right off me, and, look. You tell me she don't look like the most beautiful woman.” He held the reader out again.

 Harry looked, curious in spite of himself. A drop of water hit and slid down the screen, scattering pixels into rainbows as it rolled.

 Deion smiled and said, “They make them the way you want, you got the cash. And it's not a lot of cash. You pay, they can deliver in nine weeks. Nine weeks. You bring it home, raise it yourself. A year if you let them raise it. Look like anyone. Anyone.”

The woman on the screen had a model's figure and blonde hair flowed around a face with a perky mouth. Wide, innocent eyes blinked up at him. Harry had expected cat's eyes, but those appeared human too, and a captivating shade of green. Nothing made him think she was anything other than a beautiful woman, a model or an actress maybe. The woman in the image smiled and her lips moved, as if speaking, before she tore her dress off and launched herself at Deion.

“Okay, Deion.” Harry pushed the reader back. “I don't need highlight clips. She's beautiful, but she's still a cat.”

“Pussy.”

“Whatever.”

Deion tucked the reader back in. A dump truck came by, letting off a new load of construction material, and the two of them waited for the sound to abate before talking again. Harry finished his sandwich.

Deion said, “What you got against it? You better than me or something?”

“I'm married and you're not.” He showed Deion the picture of Mekelle on his keychain. “You go do what you want, but I've got a wife to go home to.”

Deion wore a concerned expression. “For how long, Harry?” His spider moved closer to Harry, and Deion put a hand on Harry's shoulder. “I known you and Mekelle a long time. You like my brother. The times you saved me in the Pak.” He shook his head. “I do anything for you. You know. And I worried about you. What's it been? Two years? That sickness? That be the death of Mekelle and you. I tell you. Man needs a woman, goes crazy otherwise. You think you good for her like this?”

More than two years. Harry did not want this conversation. He'd had it with himself often enough, in the dark hours, when the want of his wife burned in him. A man needs a woman, or he starts to feel crazy. Harry knew. But he did not want to think about it. He looked at the skeleton of the north tower. “I'm going to finish up the framing.”

“You go frame. But you remember what we talked about. There's a pussy waiting for you.”

***

 An accident slowed traffic. That didn't happen much, but there were still some self-driven vehicles that caused problems. Up the road, emergency lights flickered, and he turned away to look out the window.

 The Cathouse glowed softly as the cars crawled past, like a cottage from a painting. A banner advertisement projected low along the lawn. Harry read it. Customization, what Deion had talked about, the words scrolled in the twilight air as leaves blew through them: Anything you want her to look like! Models! Actresses! Bring your images, we do the rest!

 Harry thought of his wife, and her touch. In his mind he saw Mekelle on the beach again, young and healthy. Desire stirred in him, to hold and be held as he once had been. He thought of pictures he had of Mekelle.

 His car suddenly accelerated, pulling away as the accident cleared. He turned to watch The Cathouse disappear behind.

***

 “You didn't decorate them.” Cheryl shook her head as she stood beside the box filled with gingerbread cookies. “Or bring any to work.”

 Harry glanced at them, all lined up inside a translucent plastic box. Gingerbread men, all sizes. Cheryl must have used Mekelle's cutters, but she wasn't as good with them. He saw little tears at the edges. “No. I guess I forgot. Maybe another day.”

 “She wanted you to have them, you know. She doesn't want you to suffer. So you take these cookies, you hear me? You take them to work, because I don't need that wife of yours angry with me because you're forgetful.”

 “I'm tired, Cheryl. I'm sure you are too. Pack it up, I'll take it from here.”

 Cheryl had her hands on her hips. “You take those cookies tomorrow. Decorate them if you can. It'll make her happy.”

 “Goodnight, Cheryl.”

 She frowned a moment, then her face softened. She stepped to him and laid a hand on his cheek. Skin thinned by years rasped against his stubble. “She wants you to have some joy in your life, Harry. Don't you see that?”

 Cheryl's hand felt small in Harry's as he removed it. “All my happiness is in that room. Now go home, Cheryl. Please.”

 Mekelle's voice sounded in the other room, little more than a whisper, but loud enough to hear in the quiet house. “Harry?”

 Harry turned, then glanced back at Cheryl. “Goodnight.” He strode away to the bedroom. Mekelle's embroidery basket lay on the floor. She'd tried again, and her faltering fingers had failed her again.

 “Goodnight,” Cheryl said. She looked at the cookies, shook her head, then went to the door.

***

 “Shut up, Deion. Eat a damn cookie.”

 Deion chuckled and the spider leaned over so he could pluck another cookie from Harry's lunch bag. “True, though.” He bit off a leg and spoke through the crumbs. “Four times. Never done that many times since my pup years.”

 “Your fulfillment gives me no end of satisfaction.”

 A frown stopped Deion's chewing. “You speaking Greek sometimes, Harry. Don't you want to hear about her? She had these tight—”

 “No, Deion, I don't want to hear.”

 Deion waved his comment away. “You sit there eating cookies and—” He stooped to poke Harry's sandwich. “P-B-and-J sandwiches. And I know you'll be going home to that quiet house, spending the night looking at a woman who barely even talks anymore. You got no social life. No sex life. Let me help you. You give the word, I get one for you, try it out. Forget Mekelle a while.”

 “Shut up!” Harry found himself standing, looking up at the bigger man, fists balled. “Just shut up.”

 Deion tossed up his arms. “Or what, Harry? You gonna hit me? No, you gonna stand there and the world's gonna keep turning, and I'm gonna talk, and you're gonna suffer every minute she lies in that bed. And you not gonna do anything about it. Best thing you could do would be doing something. Doing anything. But you won't. And it gonna kill you.”

 Harry's pack rose from the construction yard at his mental call. The mantis held its arms high, winches dangling heavy and threatening hooks. The newts' drills and saws extracted and retracted. The woodpecker wobbled over and its steel jackhammer head bobbed in slow arcs.

 “Shut up.”

 Deion shook his head. “You gone stupid, Harry. I got supervisor codes, shutdowns on all these machines.” Harry's pack stopped in its tracks. “Even if I didn't, safeties keep them from doing anything. No, you doing nothing. Just like always, you doing nothing.”

 Harry took a step closer. “You forgetting our service years, Deion? Pride of the Pacific?” At his thought command, overrides and safeties broke. “I got ways with machines.” The mantis stepped forward and a winch line swung, looping around the spider's leg and locking in place. The mantis set its legs and tugged gently.

 The spider compensated, but Deion watched, mouth open in an expression of surprise. “What? My override's not— How you—”

“Just leave me alone, Deion.” The woodpecker stepped close and banging a gouge into the spider's side.

 Deion threw up his hands. “All right! All right. Okay, I stop.” He shook his head and smiled. “You got anger issues, Harry. All that frustration.”

 The mantis jerked the leg and the spider clanged into the gravel.

 “Ah, Harry, look what you done.”

 Harry walked away. The mantis released the spider, and followed him, the other machines trailing after.

 “That's right. You go back to work on the tower.” The spider stood and Deion watched him go. “Maybe you do more than I thought. Happy Friday, Harry.” Deion chuckled.

***

 A suited man stepped around the desk. “Are you a veteran, sir? I read the implant signature when you came in. Welcome to The Cathouse. Thank you for your service. I'll take him, Jenise.” The man reached out to take Harry's hand.

 Harry read the man's nametag. “Mr. Yuuwaku. You own this place? Thank—”

 “Just Yuuwaku, please.” He guided Harry to a small room, and gestured to a pair of Windsor chairs set beside a coffee table. A white runner lay across it, embroidered with flowers. On the runner sat a line of bottles, and a reader. The whole place gave the air of an old-fashioned home, but with a sweet unfamiliar scent, and noise cancelers peeking from the molding in places. “Please sit down. What's your name?”

 “I'm Harry. Thank you, Yuuwaku.” Harry sat. “You served?”

 The man nodded. “Pakistan. Flyboy. Finished a couple tours, Hajan, Jaudar, the Quetta job. Got a taste for these ladies over there. Came home and started this place.” He picked up the reader and poked at the controls. “Veterans receive their first session free of charge. Covers the interview, where we match your personality to our ladies—”

 “Ladies. I like that a lot more than what people usually call them.”

 Yuuwaku looked at him over the reader. “People give ugly names to beautiful things.”

 “You still call this place The Cathouse.”

 “It's a popular term. It sells. But I don't like it.”

 Harry nodded and looked down at the table.

 Yuuwaku set the reader in front of him. “Just answer a few questions, and I can get you started.”

 Harry picked up a corner of the runner and rubbed the fabric between his fingers. “Who made this?”

 “One of our ladies, actually. They're not as dumb as people think. Quite clever, in their way. And affectionate. Very affectionate. They'll love you the way no one ever could.”

 “And what are these?” Harry picked up one of the small bottles. It held a pink liquid.

 “Pheromones.” Yuuwaku opened one and wafted it under Harry's nose. “Our ladies react to them. Without these, they're usually quite docile. Friendly, but not amorous. But with a few dabs, things change quickly.”

 The stuff smelled sweet, with hints of spice mingled in. Harry put it down. “What do I do?”

 Yuumaku capped the bottle and prodded the reader to Harry. “Just go through the questionnaire. It's self-guided, it'll figure out what you want and let me know when you finish.”

 Harry answered questions, working mechanically. The reader interpreted his expressions and response times and answers. It finished with him after five minutes and Yuuwaku returned.

 “Good. Thank you, Harry.” He plucked up the reader. “We have two good candidates for you. Both new. Unused.” He stopped at the sound of a footfall in the back of the room, and looked over his shoulder.

 Two of them stood there. One wore an emerald green dress as brilliant as her amber eyes, a tight thing that hugged close to every curve. A pink chemise clung to the figure of another. Both were the kind of beauty dreams are made of, and both smiled at Harry. The one in green twirled a finger in her brown hair. “The one in green is Michelle. The other is Samantha.”

 Harry blinked, his consciousness stopped. But his body responded. He stood, stomach pulled in, hooking one hand through his belt.

 The one in green took a step toward him, then looked down, bashful, glancing up at him from beneath lowered eyelashes. The other made a disapproving sound and stepped forward. Their body language sent a clear message to Harry, and he found himself stepping toward them for a better look. “They're beautiful.” His throat had gone dry. “Beautiful.”

 Yuuwaku said something Harry didn't catch. The girls mewed sadly. They frowned and left the room, but not before looking back over their shoulders at Harry. The one in green winked.

 Harry slumped back into his chair. Their images hung in his mind, seeping in like water under a door.

 Yuumaku clapped him on the shoulder. “So what do you think? If you don't like them, or you're interested in something else, we can customize to your needs. Your profile —”

 “I have to go.” Harry stared at the empty passage where the girls had been.

 Yuumaku's surprise translated into a confused shrug. “Do you mean you'd like to take one home? That's fine, you'll just have to fill out some papers, and pay for her. We can have our shippers get her to your home by the end of the day. Probably within the hour.”

 Harry shook his head. “I shouldn't have come.” He made his way to the door.

 Yuumaku watched him go, smiling, as if he had seen this reaction before. As if he knew Harry would return.

 Deion pulled in just as Harry reached the parking lot. “You finally made it, buddy.” He looked at his watch. “Must have been fast. But, hey, I understand being impatient. I —”

 Harry brushed past him to get into his car. His heart raced. The door smacked shut. “Take me home.” The car started up, pulling out. Then Harry remembered. “No. Wait.” The doctor's report had given him another list to fill. Medications, and the neuromuscular stimulation suit. Another attempt to stave off the inevitable. “Dr. Armitage's clinic.” He buried his face in his hands. “I'm sorry.” The tears came then, leaking through his fingers. “Mekelle, I'm sorry.”

***

 “It's a bad day for Mekelle, Harry. Trouble speaking. Real trouble. She doesn't say anything to me it's so bad. She's upset.”

 Harry laid his purchases on the couch. The suit weighed almost thirty pounds. It had taken more than an hour to get the right one, and then there'd been the long drive back from the clinic. “Thanks, Cheryl. You can go home.” His stomach growled. He should have stopped for food.

 She glanced at the suit. “What's that?”

 “Neuromuscular suit. The doctor says it will help her breathing.”

 She nodded as if unsure whether or not to believe him. As if she thought he was a teenager buying stimsuits for some VR fantasy. “You got a package. A big package. Came just a little bit ago.” She frowned. “I know what it is. And maybe it's what you need, Mister Harry. I don't know. I guess I just don't know.”

 “Cheryl, I have no idea what you're talking about.” He pulled his lunch bag from the pile and slouched toward the kitchen. “Look, it's been a long day. Please, I'll look into it later.”

 She shook her head. “Mekelle needs you, Harry.”

 He threw his lunch bag to the ground. The sandwich and cookies spilled out. “Don't you think I know that!” He pulled a sudden raspy breath. Shame and anger tightened his hands into fists. It felt as if something slippery and dark slid against his every thought. “Don't you think I know that?” He shook his head as if to shake away his feelings. “I'm going to see my wife, Cheryl.” Harry turned away and closed his eyes.

 Cheryl had stepped away from him, alarmed, eyes wide. “I'm sorry. I'll go.” There came sounds of Cheryl getting her things together, the front door opening and closing.

 The blackness behind his eyes became a well. Falling. No bottom. No end to it. Mekelle would die. He would care for her until the end, hoping for a cure, hoping all the medical stopgaps would buy enough time, but in his heart he knew eventually she would die. He could not save her. They both knew that.

 He thought of Deion and The Cathouse and memories of the place again slithered through his thoughts. Especially the lady in the green dress. He imagined going there, night after night. Becoming little more than the sexual automatons they bred there, a little less human by the day. Maybe that would keep the pain away.

 For a moment he forgot his wife, thinking of that place, that “lady”. Then he imagined Mekelle and shame cut through the images. He grunted, opened his eyes and went to clean up the spilled contents of the lunch bag. He put it all on the kitchen counter, his eyes lingering on the unfrosted gingerbread men. Many had broken.

 Mekelle lay in the dark of their bedroom, her reader toppled from her lap. A line of light from the kitchen slanted across her features and reflected off tears sliding down her face. He sat silent at her bedside, holding her hand. Neither spoke. Her eyes tracked to him. He wiped at her cheeks.

 “I love you, Mekelle,” he said. “I always will.”

 She made a sound, four sounds. They were not quite words, but he understood them: I love you, too.

 He took her to the bathroom, cleaned her and tucked her into bed. They had dinner. It took a while, but he fit her into the suit and her breathing eased as probes sunk into the nerves in her chest. He held her hand and read to her from the reader until she fell asleep. He showered and curled up beside her. He forgot about the box Cheryl had mentioned.

***

 A footstep cracked the hardwood floor outside the bedroom and Harry awoke, mentally commanding sensor reports from a pack of war machines left years behind on a distant Pakistani battlefield. He slid to the floor and crouched there, in the quiet seconds replacing battlefield instincts with fears of an intruder in his home.

 He wiped sleep from his eyes. Mekelle lay sleeping. He withdrew a baseball bat from beneath the bed and stood. Once the movements would have been fluid. Now, old injuries stiffened by sleep made his motions jerky. Twinges of pain accompanied each step as he moved to the door of the bedroom.

 He heard cardboard tear. Something crunched.

 He had left the kitchen light on and a rectangle of light illuminated the empty hallway. The sounds of activity in there were unmistakable. And there on the floor, in the visible sliver of the kitchen, his lunch bag lay on the floor.

 Harry stiffened and waited, planning his movements. Then he took three quick steps to the doorway. He swung the bat ahead of him with a flow of hip and wrist, his weight driving the aluminum shaft toward where the sound told him the intruder stood. He held up the stroke at the last moment. A girl in a tight green dress shied back with a startled cry.

 Michelle, the lady from The Cathouse.

 She stood barefoot and scared, half-crouched, eyes wide, his half-eaten sandwich in her mouth, something else in her hands. She blinked and ran.

 Harry lowered the bat. He rubbed his eyes. His mind moved slowly, still clinging to sleep. A thought came to him. “Deion.” He placed the bat on the counter, poured a cup of milk and padded after Michelle.

 He found her at a large box set inside the back door, the plastic self-opening kind that collapses like a stretched Slinky when the tabs are pulled. He remembered Cheryl had told him about a big package, and knowing what it was. Now he knew too.

 Neither Cheryl nor Michelle had pulled the tabs. It looked as if Michelle had ripped the ribs out from the inside and clawed her way out. The white walls flapped around where she'd torn it, and an envelope flopped at the edge of one of the rips. Michelle crouched inside, eyes peering out at him, finishing his sandwich. She made a soft sound, somewhere between “Meow?” and “Hello?”

 “Hello.” He stepped forward and held the mug of milk out.

 She hung back, shivering a bit. It had gotten cold, but he didn't think that bothered her. She looked scared. She smelled the milk, though. She licked her perfect lips, looked at him, looked at the mug. He set it down in front of the hole, at his feet.

 She appeared every bit as beautiful as she had at The Cathouse. Made to be beautiful, everything a man's body needed to be satisfied. She smiled and inched toward the mug, each move sensual in a way that sent a shiver through him.

 Harry's hands curled and uncurled. He turned his head from her slowly, as if a great weight dragged at him. He found the envelope. It held a card stapled to a bundle of papers and a small package.

 He opened the card. Deion's face smiled up at him and said, “Buddy, I thought maybe you'd appreciate this, after today. Yuuwaku said you liked her. Instructions inside, but he said she's toilet-trained and can take care of herself. You just give her food, and satisfy her other needs, to make her happy. That last may not be easy as you think. Enjoy it, Harry.”

 Harry closed the card. It came with instruction sheets and warranty information, and 24/7 service contact numbers. “Damn you, Deion.”

 She knelt at his feet, cupping the mug between her hands, lapping up the milk. She stopped to lick her lips and grin up at him before going back to the cup. She smelled of cinnamon and honey. His body responded to the submissive pose, the smell of her. Human or not, his body wanted her.

 He reached touched the outermost dark strands of her hair. He held his hand there, looking down at her. His body and mind pulled in two directions: to her, and to Mekelle. He could never love this creature. Not in the meaningful way he loved his wife. But his body wanted the gratification of her, and fantasies of her warm touch fluttered through his thoughts.

 Another smell came to him then. Faint, but there. Gingerbread. He let his eyes move from her beautiful face to her hands and saw the cookies clutched there. Gingerbread men, the ones from his lunch bag.

 He thought of the children's story, of the gingerbread man cooked in the oven coming to life, and escaping its kitchen, only to be eaten by a wily fox. “Run, run, fast as you can, can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man. And here you are, the wily fox.”

 She bit the head off the gingerbread man in her hand.

 “You didn't even need a stream to catch me. Catch him I mean.”

 She put one hand on his leg and rubbed her cheek up against his calf. “Prrt?” Amber eyes blinked up at him.

 He ran his hand through her hair. It felt just as smooth as he had imagined. Did she brush herself? How could he groom her? He shook away the thoughts, and opened the package inside the envelope. It held the little bottles of pheromones he'd seen at The Cathouse. One fell out and broke on the floor.

 Michelle jumped at the crack of glass, then stopped and sniffed. She tilted her head up at him and purred. Her lips parted, just enough to reveal the pink tongue in her mouth. She stood. Her hand pressed against his boxers, then pulled at the fabric. Her hot palm pressed against him and wrapped itself around him.

 Harry closed his eyes and stumbled back. Pleasure moved in a wave through him. Michelle followed, staying close, pressing against him. She dropped the cookie.

 He heard it fall. In spite of himself, he blinked and looked past Michelle, even as she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her hips against him, hiking up her skirt. She wore nothing beneath.

 Harry fixed his eyes on the cookie on the floor. She stepped on it and the limbs broke away from the crushed body.

 The gingerbread man was him. His wife. Each broken, in their own ways. But his wife had found a way to put him back together again. She had found a way when there was no hope. She had not strayed from him.

 He stepped back.

 “Prrt prrt?” Michelle looked confused and tried to follow.

 Harry put his hand up between them. He pushed her back into the crate. She stumbled inside with an unhappy sound. He put the mug in with her, and the remains of the cookies. He pulled the torn parts of the box shut and sealed it with packing tape. He called the 24-7 support number. Someone came within the hour to pick her up. He signed some papers, and she left. She was crying.

 He cleaned up the broken cookies.

 He returned to Mekelle and settled beside her. She had awakened from the noise. She tried to say something, but Harry couldn't make out the words. He took her hand in his and looked at her silently for a long while. Then, “Catch me,” he said.

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