"Purr" Said The Tigress

At times I am like a tigress. I target my prey while remaining unnoticeable. I prance around and observe its movements. I assess my prey from a distance, calculating the best time to rush in and pounce. Unfortunately, my inner tigress usually disappears after the attack is complete. Something within me then shifts. I don’t use sharp teeth or pointy claws to devour my prize. I begin to fumble, loose my focus, and become jittery. The tigress inside me transforms into a harmless kitten high on catnip.

My inner tigress has been with me all my life. She was with me in high school when I pushed a torpedo, disguised as a tongue, out of my mouth. She was with me after college when a date demanded I pay for a bartender’s tip. I stood up from the bar stool, grabbed my coat and growled: I am the woman! My date paid for the tip and later treated me to an Italian feast. I gobbled a big heaping plate of pasta with meat sauce, sucked my fingers, and licked my lips in triumph.

The tigress was also with me the day I invited myself out to lunch with Alejandro, the bartender from Shampoo Nightclub. I had no problem sliding between two girls standing at the bar and grabbing his attention. I had no problem seductively roaring “I’ll call you”. But I had a problem two days later when I realized I actually had to make the call.

I picked up the napkin covered in blue ink and read Alejandro’s name and number aloud. My hands began to sweat. I began to pace. I dropped the napkin on top of my desk when entering my bedroom for the third time in seconds. It was official. I had lost my inner tigress. I began a search. I flipped over my bed skirt and fell to my knees. My hands brushed the carpeting underneath the bed to only find Elijah’s old, charcoal gray, slippers. I pulled them out and placed them on my feet. They felt warm as if he had just worn them. I walked over to the closet, swimming in the size ten slippers yet feeling comfortable. I looked atop the closet shelf, stacked with boxes of old letters, old cassettes, and old journals, and found Elijah’s brown leather wallet. He had left it during his last visit. I reached for the wallet and held it in my hands. The leather was cold and dusty as it had been stored away in my closet for months. I paused, clenched Elijah’s wallet in my hand and glanced back at the napkin sitting on my desk. Elijah isn’t coming back. Enough is enough. I walked toward the desk with the same caution of a tigress when stalking its next meal. I picked up the napkin, walked toward my cell phone, and exhaled.

The telephone rang and rang. My pulse quickened with each long ring. The machine soon picked up. My inner tigress had to shine.

“Hey Alejandro, this is Sujeiry. I met you at Shampoo two nights ago. Um, give me a call whenever you get the chance. Oh and um, my number is a New York number because that’s where I’m from. I’m still in South Jersey even though it’s a New York number. I mean I live in South Jersey, for school. I just never changed it. Ok, bye.”

I hung up and cringed. I let the napkin drop to the floor, cozied up on my love seat, and let out a soft purr. I had captured my prey with the smoothness and cleverness of a tigress to only morph into a harmless, restless kitten. All I needed was a ball of yarn and some tasty catnip.