Chapter 3

I pick up the blanket that Nigella has discarded in her nocturnal movements, and cover her lovely body to shield her from cold. It is then that I notice the bowl of milk has been completely drained, licked clean one might say, particularly if one had suspicions about one’s secretary turning into a cat.

I shake my head and tell myself that all will be right in the morning, that I will discover the source of this elaborate illusion that is being played upon my senses this evening.

Crawling into bed once again, I pull up the covers. Just as I begin to drift off, I awaken with a start. It’s the clattering noise again. Though this time I can see that it is most definitely Nigella who is the source. She is standing at the foot of the bed, staring at me and licking the inside of her lovely wrists.

“Come to bed, kitty,” I say.

Nigella takes to the bed, down on all fours, moving toward me, stalking me almost. Her heavy breasts sway beneath her in a rhythm that matches her movements. Her front paws—hands, her hands, I remind myself—stretch forward and reach to the top of my thigh. I am sleeping in the nude as I often do, so there is nothing to shield me as Nigella drags her nails sharply over the skin of my leg.

Nigella cocks her head to the side again, as if looking for the source of the sound, but not entirely understanding its meaning. She sits back on her haunches and simply licks at the inside of her wrists as she looks me over. And again, there is that trick of the light, the one that shows her pupils as two vertical slits. I’m sure it is only an illusion, but it is difficult to ascertain, because as the moon has traversed the evening sky, the shadow cast by the statue of Bastet is now falling directly over the bed, and blocking most of the light.

After staring at me for several minutes with what I can only describe as a hunger in her eyes, Nigella resumes her forward ambulation until she covers the lower half of my body with her own. She licks the inside of her wrists again, though this time she is sliding one over my thigh, in the place where she had just clawed at me with her nails.

“Good kitty,” I am inclined to say, though I do not know why. Nigella is still entirely human, isn’t she? Perhaps it is the perfection of her movements as she crawls over my body—grooming, licking. She takes up residence between my thighs and I am force to spread my knees to make adequate space. Nigella has started to do this little dance down there, wherein she turns a circle or two before pausing to arch her back and wiggle her tail in my direction. I am absolutely fascinated by this. Never before has she taken our little game to this level.

“Nigella, darling, I love you.”

No sooner do the words cross my lips than my dear Nigella stops turning circles and begins lapping at my thigh. Now, I should have you know that my Nigella is quite an aficionado of the art of oral pleasure between women, and has on more than one occasion brought me to great heights with only her lips and tongue. She seems rather determined to do that again tonight and I feel quite fortunate to be on the receiving end.

“Oh, Nigella. Darling.”

Perhaps it is my exhausted state—several long days of travel only to be awakened twice during the night by the nocturnal movements of my decidedly feline secretary—but I could swear that her tongue feels a little courser than usual. It isn’t the skill with which she is wielding it that I speak of, but rather the texture as she applies it to my skin.

But after a while it really doesn’t matter to me anymore. Nigella has me in such a state of ecstasy—a state that only she can bring me to—but tonight it feels as if she were everywhere at once. There isn’t a bit of my body that she isn’t lapping at, or raking her nails over. Yes, she has taken to doing that again, but this time I do not chastise her for it. I couldn’t dream of asking her to stop anything during this particular engagement.

Finally, all of the attentions bestowed upon me by my lovely Nigella prove to be too much for me to bear. For countless minutes, my body stiffens and shudders. My back arches almost painfully as Nigella drags the pleasure forth from my body, with that course tongue of hers, lapping in just the right places between my thighs.

“Oh, Nigella, I do love you so.”

That is the last thing I say before she moves off of me to curl up at the foot of the bed. I look down at her body and the perfect rise and fall of her chest in the dim light. I want to ask her to sleep beside me, to snuggle up so that we can enjoy the still glowing embers of this incredible passion we have shared. But Nigella is dead to the world again—head on her front paws. Sorry, hands.

There is something else I notice about Nigella as I fight a losing battle with my need for sleep. The shadow of Bastet is directly over her now. I’m sure it’s just another trick of the light, combined with the weight of my fatigue, but the shadow appears to have molded itself to cover her perfectly, almost as if Nigella and the statue are one and the same. But yet there she is, my Nigella, chest still rising and falling to the sound of her delicate snoring. I once again convince myself that it is all an illusion and drift off into slumber.

I wake only one more time during the night, to a similar clatter as the other times. Or perhaps this time it is only a dream, for when I open my eyes the statue of Bastet is gone. For a time I am inclined to rise and check the door and the windows for signs of intruders, but then I experience a rare moment of clarity in this otherwise bizarre evening. The alabaster statue of Bastet must weigh in the realm of something that would require five men at least to move. And to do so silently in the night would require twice that many, if it is even possible. No, it must be a trick of the light.

The next morning I am vindicated. The statue of Bastet is exactly where it has always been. Well, perhaps not exactly. It appears to have moved several feet to the left. I only know this because of the blanket that I placed over Nigella as she lay at the statue’s feet. The blanket is where she had left it, the statue was not. I am quite sure of it.

“Nigella, darling. You must come see this. Someone has moved our room about during the night.” I peer around, but there is no sight of her. “Nigella?”

A glint of something catches my eye and I turn toward the source. The morning sun is up now and reflecting off the diamond-studded collar that encircles the Bastet statue’s neck—Nigella’s collar. Someone must certainly be playing an elaborate game with me.

“Nigella. You’ve crafted an excellent ruse, my dear, but now it is time to give it up. — Nigella?”

I walk slowly over to the statue of Bastet. Her breasts seem quite a bit larger than they were last night. I take a look behind her. As I feared, there is Nigella’s tail, firmly inserted into an alabaster statue. I can think of only one explanation for this—I have gone completely and utterly mad. The only other possibility is too far fetched to even entertain—the idea that my dear Nigella has now taken the form of an ancient stone statue.

I am so distraught that I cannot leave the room for days. Thankfully, young Ahmed comes by to check on us, asking if the germs have taken me too. I tell him that I fear they have, and that I will not be venturing out until I can be sure that neither Mrs. Carruthers nor I are contagious. He seems satisfied with that explanation, and with the generous tips that accompany his discrete delivery of meals to our room, meals that are always accompanied by a bottle of milk and a bowl.

You see, it only took me one night to realize what had happened to my dear Nigella. It was just as I was drifting off to sleep that I heard the familiar clatter and sprang bolt upright in the bed where I lay. The alabaster statue is gone again, and standing at the foot of my bed is my dearest Nigella. She licks her front paws a few times before crawling up onto the bed to begin rubbing her cheek on my thigh.

“Pretty kitty,” I say, “Come here so I can love you.”

As an Egyptologist, I feel I have done sufficient research into all that Zagazig has to offer, and can now call myself the world’s foremost expert on the cat goddess Bastet. Of course, no one will probably ever have the chance to hear the real story, because my idiot brother will no doubt get the details all muddled up at the next drunken museum gala he attends.

That’s alright. I was never really in this for the fame, and it’s enough to know that I have the knowledge tucked up inside my head—and Nigella’s head. She really is quite breathtaking as a cat goddess, my Nigella. Now my only worry is figuring out how I’m going to get her home.

I hope you have enjoyed this strange little tale. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section. I do enjoy reading them.