It’s a lovely summer day and the warm sun beating down on back as I wander around the cemetery feels wonderful.  I meander contentedly around the tombstones until I find my friend, Charlie the Cemetery Cat.  Not having seen Charlie for a while, I fill him in on my experiences with the Obese Bovines and Brutus the wimpy doggy and invite him to tonight’s party. Charlie doesn’t seem to have much of a life with the increasingly insane cemetery caretaker and I think he might enjoy seeing how the ‘other half’ live.  On the other paw, if all goes according to the peculiar vision in Chris’ head, Charlie may just count his blessings and be thankful for his life as it is…

In turn, Charlie brings me up to date with the goings on in the cemetery. Not that I’m overly interested.  I simply listen to his tedious tales in order to humour him.  I mean, what do I care that there were sixty-nine fresh graves dug in the last fortnight, that two lesbians were arrested for getting ‘up to mischief’ on top of a mausoleum and that some stupid child died through sniffing Tippex?

Quite frankly, I couldn’t give a flying fuck - death, with the exception of wishing it on the neighbours, just doesn’t do it for me, and, after reiterating my invitation, I beat a hasty retreat.

For the want of something better to do, I gravitate towards the Bovines and to my utter delight, encounter Mr Fat Cow in their back garden.  The poor, sad, pitiful little man is wearing a handkerchief tied around his balding scalp in an attempt to keep the sun off it and he looks like he should be in a ‘Carry On’ movie.  I bound up onto the fence and glower at him.  He tries to glower back but can’t see through the sweat dripping off his forehead. "Oi!  You!  Get off there!"

// Why?  Rest assured that I have no desire to come any closer to you whatsoever.  The Goddess alone knows what I might catch. //

Heaving himself off the ground, Mr Fat Cow waves the shovel at me in a manner I suspect he hopes is threatening.  Sadly he’s mistaken.  To me he looks like a particularly deranged scarecrow and about as scary as a Tellytubbie.  Actually, I take that back.   Tellytubbies *can* look frightening, so instead I have to amend my theory and settle on him as looking about as scary as a Womble.

"You dig one of these plants up and I’m gonna murder yer!"

// *Yer*?  I might be more accepting of your threat if I had any idea of what you were talking about.  Thanks for the warning though.  Next time I feel the urge to commune with nature I know where to go. //

Bored with Mr Fat Cow, and not liking how his trousers are slipping lower and lower down, I jump off the fence and make my way to the front of their house.

Just in time to see a door-to-door Mormon knock on the front door…

// If I were you, mate, I’d run while I had the chance. //

Not really wanting to push my luck, and not wanting to miss this show for the world, I speed up, bolt into our yard and hop up onto our fence.  By the racket coming from inside our house I put two and two together and work out that Chris has got the stereo working.

The poor little man, blissfully ignorant of what is about to hit him, straightens his tie and smoothes his hair down as he waits.

His beatific smile slips the minute the door is wrenched open and he encounters the harbinger of doom that is Mrs Fat Cow.  To his credit, he doesn’t run screaming down the path as most other people would have when faced with the vision of Mrs Fat Cow, mid aerobics work out, clad in a Lycra leotard and leg warmers.

I can hardly believe items of clothing like that come in that size and nearly topple off the fence in disgust.  I also have no idea why she’s even bothering with exercise as the only thing that could help her is extensive surgery.  I’d start with taking her head off…

She eyes the Mormon up coldly as he tries to stutter his ‘message of the Lord’ for, I’d say, five seconds before going in for the kill.  Never being one for pleasantries, she simply opens her mouth and bellows,  "You can take your religion and your bible and shove it where the sun don’t shine."

In the best display of perfect timing I have ever seen, our front door opens, the soundtrack from Queer as Folk - ‘I spent all night chasing after some bloke who turns out to be mad, like really mad’ - comes blaring out of it and Chris appears.  The cherry on top of this is the fact that Chris is wearing an exceptionally tight t-shirt (in preparation for tonight) with ‘100% SEX’ emblazoned across the chest in metallic print.   He takes one look at the shattered looking Mormon and glares at Mrs Fat Cow.

She glares back at him as the CD continues on its merry way - ‘There’s always some new bloke, some better bloke, just waiting around the corner’. I imagine I can see the slow and incredibly painful thought process cross over her piggy features as she finally works out something to say.

Grabbing the Mormon, who hadn’t backed away far enough, by the tie, she screeches, "You want a soul to save then I dare you to work on his!  And his stupid cat!"  With this, she propels him towards our fence and I fall off it as he slams into it.

I wail indignantly.  In the second best example of perfect timing *ever*, Chris inches out of the door in order to pick me up as the Mormon gingerly clambers off the ground and the track ends with Nathan’s voice blithely declaring, ‘I was just a shag, I knew that…’

Time stands momentarily still as Chris and the Mormon stand, blinking at each other.  Then, the next song starts and this galvanises them into action.  Chris grabs me and makes a point of casually walking towards the front door as the Mormon, obviously no longer caring about his ‘message’, runs towards the gate, *hurdles* it and continues running up the street until I can no longer see him.

// Bye-bye!  If I were you I wouldn’t stop running until I hit, say, Paris or a cache of mild-altering drugs.  Whatever comes first.  You’re going to need all the help you can get. //

Reaching the door, Chris makes a point of waving to Mrs Fat Cow and she immediately sticks her finger up in response before lumbering back inside and slamming the door.  We’ve barely made it in inside before Chris cracks up.  Putting me down, he leans on the wall and his whole body shakes with mirth.  "Thank God I wasn’t listening through the headphones…  What a classic!"  Somehow, through the laughter, he manages to string together a comment as Sam appears after lowering the volume of the hi-fi.

Without even bothering to ask what Chris is on about, Sam sighs.  "You know, if Vince weren’t a character in a television show then I reckon his, ‘I spent all night chasing after some bloke who turns out to be mad, like really mad’, statement would imply that he’d met you."

"You had to be there," Chris mutters, wiping the tears out of his eyes and picking me up again.  "Come on, Mishy, I’ve got a new collar for you that you can wear tonight."

// Cool!  I hope it has studs.  I fancy myself in studs. //

Sam sighs *again* before returning to the kitchen as Chris carries me into the living room and places me on the dining table.  Ferreting around under a pile of what can be best described as rubbish, he eventually locates the collar and pulls it out triumphantly.  "See?  You’re going to be the meanest, toughest cat in the neighbourhood!"

// What makes you think that I’m not already? //

To my extreme delight the collar *does* have studs on it, two rows of them in fact, and as it gets gently placed around my neck I imagine that I am immediately channelling the power of my large, powerful ancestors.

// Thank you!  I love it! //

Chris looks blank.  "You ask the stupidest questions.  I have *never* cleaned out the cupboard."

"Now, why doesn’t that come as a huge surprise."  Sam meanders out of the kitchen clutching a newspaper in his hand.  "You would not believe what I found in there."

"Try me."  Chris peers at the paper and fails in his attempt to feign interest.

"You have a whole stack of newspapers from the 1930s and they’re absolutely hysterical.  Listen to this, ‘ Whitby - The local constabulary mounted a raid on what they suspected to be a smuggler’s den and uncovered untold treasure.  Said plunder contained a number of jewels, liquor and tobacco.’ It sounds like something out of a ‘Famous Five’ novel."

"Famous what?  I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Enid Blyton novels, oh, forget it, for a minute I forgot you were American."  Sam ignores the filthy look Chris shoots him and continues. "Anyway, another article is about protesters staging a march against evil fascists and immediately next to that is an advert for corsets.  It’s fascinating."

"Yeah, yeah."  To say Chris sounded less than interested would be an understatement.  He points at my collar.  "Don’t you think Mishy looks great?"

// Think carefully before you answer, Sam.  I’d hate for it to be you I decided to pick a fight with. //

"Here I am, trying to discuss history and just perhaps a bit of culture with you, and you change the topic to a studded cat collar?  I’m impressed… Truly, I doubt many other people could change the subject so deftly and so completely."

// *And*? //

Sam finally puts the newspaper down and comes over to the dining table. "And, yeah, as cat collars go, that one is pretty spiffy.  I won’t even ask where you got it though."

// Good boy! //

"Mmm…  Some things are better kept secret."  Seemingly unconsciously, Chris starts to sway his body in time to the music that is still playing and the incredibly familiar glazed expression all but immediately settles over Sam’s face.

Making an effort to concentrate on the repetitive sounding song, I listen to the chorus and begin to think of the power of subliminal messages…  ‘I’m horny, horny, horny, horny.  So horny, horny, horny, horny…’

By the looks of things, the female singer isn’t the only one…

Chris has hardly even registered that Sam has moved before he’s suddenly having his t-shirt wrenched over his head and a hot mouth attaching itself to his collarbone.  Somehow he manages to gasp out a spot of banter, "New seduction technique of yours, is it?"

"Mmm…  You’re right.  I remember now!"

They both collapse on the floor as the CD changes tracks once more and Nathan’s voice returns - ‘I’m doin’ it!  I’m really doin’ it!’.

Thing is, the way I see it, they’re *always* doin’ it…

Still, who am I to complain?  As I keep repeating, if they’re happy, *I’m* happy.  And, well, if the noises coming from the mass of entwined limbs below me aren’t *happy* noises, then I’ll eat a rat…

************

Songs mentioned:

Queer As Folk Theme Horny (Boris Gets Horny Mix) ­ Mousse T vs Hot ‘n’ Juicy Doin’ it - Nathan’s Theme

All from ‘Queer As Folk - The Whole Love Thing.  Sorted.’ 1999 Almighty Records / Channel Four Television Corporation.