Cat is Dreaming
The morning after, Daisy gathers her things, counting them off in threes: panties-socks-pushup bra. Shirt-pants-sweater. Blush-concealer-eyeliner. Wig-lipliner-colored contacts. Each category comes out in a single, murmured breath, each item grouped where it belongs. In the past month, she’s become very good at this sort of compartmentalization.
Her test subject is still asleep. The man, a fluffy-haired UCLA undergrad, drools on his pillow as she slips out of his dorm. He fumbled with the condom last night, apologizing with a juvenile duck of his head. He reminded her of the golden retriever her mother took in from the kill shelter. “I’m gonna make movies one day,” he said, tugging at the wrapper. “I’m studying film.” He wore a slim-fitting suit that he’d buttoned down to the bottom, and puffed a contraband cigar before doubling over and coughing. His body folded over hers like a ready-to-eat meal. “Just let it out,” she whispered as he wheezed and wagged his tail. “Good boy.”
She wonders how old he thought she was. She’d put herself down as thirty online. He’d specifically requested someone older, someone who could pass as Marilyn Monroe, a fantasy of his. He’d be JFK; she’d be MM. She’d run with it, if only to see if she could get away with it. He’d pressed into her with a full-body shudder, his back arching, the doe-eyed inexperience shining in his unfocused gaze, and she’d grabbed his hips so hard her blond wig almost fell off.
The bus isn’t crowded at this hour. A sticky yogurt stain covers her seat, and she tries to avoid it as the bus chugs through Downtown LA.
“Walk of shame,” a stranger teases, the stench of alcohol reeking from his underarms.
The fluffy-haired undergrad will want to text her when he wakes up. If he didn’t lie, Luke is his name. Luke is nineteen but “basically twenty, almost twenty-one.” Daisy didn’t bother asking him for an ID. Regardless, he sits firmly in the young camp. He didn’t even have proper sheets for his bed, and it made her sick to her stomach when she spotted his high school letterman jacket in his closet, a white football ironed to the back. She blocks his number.
The stranger whistles as she begins to wipe away her makeup, and she eyes him through her periphery. His beard is speckled with mayo. His shirt is printed with a cartoon tabby and a halting, cursive caption: Cat is dreaming a good day. It has a flimsy and papery quality, almost see-through. She thinks to herself, You talk big for someone who buys knockoff tees from Asia.
He whistles again, and it’s true, a month ago she might’ve said something, but she stays quiet, though she’s never been the quiet kind. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. She’s been trying to take the advice to heart.
*
The woman who owns the Halloween costume store knows Daisy to be a regular. Her name is Edna. Edna is a voluptuous woman with a hiccuping, carbonated laugh and a haircut identical to the character Edna from The Incredibles. Whenever anyone purchases a Batman or Superman costume, she winks and bobs her bob, like a dog trained to sit and stay. Once, Daisy asked why she dug her feet so hard into the stereotype. “Why not?” Edna asked in a cheery tone, checking out Daisy’s purchase for that day: a billowing Fleetwood Mac-style get-up. “It brings in business, which brings in money. You know how much I like money! Ha-hua-hua-huaa!”
It being mid-August and horribly hot, the store is nearly empty. When Daisy enters, the doorbell chimes, and the employees, preoccupied on their phones moments ago, snap to attention. “At ease,” Daisy says. From the register, Edna shouts, “Is that Daisy? What’s this I hear about it having been your birthday last month?”
“Don’t remind me.” Daisy heads to the costume aisle.
“Did you celebrate?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t think you did. I think I would’ve heard about it.”
“Are you my fairy godmother?”
“Please.”
Twenty-six was dull. The year wriggled its way into the forefront of Daisy’s life with two significant losses: health insurance and her long-term boyfriend, who broke it off with a soft apology. “You’re just not what I’m looking for right now,” he clarified when she pushed him for an explanation, then had the nerve to look ashamed. She asked him what she could do, but he didn’t have an answer. They were in public, sitting at an onigiri shop in Little Tokyo, the urge to scream welling up in her chest. His gaze was glassy. He was the kind of person who carried a deep primal shame with him everywhere. He felt bad for everyone, and he made a real show of it too, crying at nature documentaries, whispering to teen waiters at restaurants, and withdrawing into his bedroom for days at a time. On the rare occasion they had sex, he apologized for his inability to get hard. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he stammered, though she knew he jerked off to porn nearly every morning, moaning to himself in their shared bathroom. He loved pretty girls, bombshells. Mostly, he felt bad for himself, and the shame turned into self-pity.
“Do you have dresses?” she asks. “Or aprons?”
Edna materializes next to Daisy, her blue eyes gleaming with mirth. “An apron? Who are you looking to lock down?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“What about a Rosie the Riveter look instead?” Edna flexes her skinny arm.
“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of Laura Ingalls Wilder, almost Mormon.”
“You’re not converting, are you? Trust me when I say fundamentalism isn’t the answer, and trust me when I say I’ve tried!”
Daisy assures Edna that she has no plans to convert to Mormonism—not now, and not anytime soon. The trad-wife look is a tough ask for a store that specializes in vampire fangs and sexy cop costumes, and Edna rummages through her stock until she conjures up a light blue dress. “Oh, that’s perfect!” she exclaims. The sleeves and cut are modest, and the hems ankle-length and frilly, like a woman on the cover of a Southern cookbook.
Daisy purchases a blue bandana to complement the outfit.
“Would you miss me if I fucked off to Utah?” she asks. Edna laughs.
*
Patrick belongs to a different group of test subjects than Luke. He’s not a bright-eyed undergrad experimenting with his sexuality, but a thirty-something-year-old mechanical engineer actively caught up in it. Mentally, she sorts him into a group of repressed men who seek out willing sex partners on anonymous forums, arranging meet-ups, labeling themselves with their age, height, weight, and city. So sterile. He informs her of his habits with pride. “I renewed my VPN subscription for you,” he says while she takes off her bandana. “You are an escort, right?”
“That’s a crude way to put it. You’re not paying me, for one.”
“It’s more the spirit of things.”
His fingers graze the hem of her blue dress, which excites him. He tries to hide this, but his attempt at feigning indifference fails, unmasked by the visible bulge that forms at his crotch.
Her dress creases between her legs in an x as she flattens the fabric. His bedroom smells arid and stuffy. Curtains cover his windows, and he doesn’t have a mirror.
“I thought you were a catfish,” he admits.
Daisy doesn’t tell him that he’s not important enough for anyone to catfish. “Well, surprise. Come here, baby.”
He stutters, telling her to wait. He gives the orders around here; that was part of their agreement. When he speaks, he overenunciates each syllable, as if fighting anesthesia.
“Come here,” he says after a minute, sitting down on the bed, and she heads over. This pleases him. “Okay, now get on your knees.” She does. The floor is made of tile and cold to the touch. His next words sound like a script he’s rehearsed ten times over, the dialogue ripped straight from Hollywood. “It’s been a long day, you know. I could use a pick-me-up.”
As requested, she informs him that he works so, so hard to provide for their home and imaginary children, and she bites her inner cheek to keep from giggling. He remains stern.
“Keep going.”
She sneaks up behind him to massage his knotted back. He shakes her off, and presses her shoulders down, a silent request for compliance.
Patrick wears thick glasses that apparently combat a nasty case of astigmatism. He’s skinny, less-than-maintenance calories skinny, and built like a ruler. Daisy’s dress cinches at the waist and flutters outward with each movement, swishing in the air like a sigh.
The dress, she tells him in a soft, inviting voice. It’s too tight, too stifling. Can he help her undo the clasp? He leaps to her aid. Her clothes come off in their usual groups, three at a time. Dress-petticoat-socks. Underpants-and-bra-and-panties.
Patrick is easy to please. It’s not difficult to find out what makes him click. Online, he confessed his 50s housewife fantasy after only three messages. In a show of solidarity, he sent her fifty dollars for a Plan B, then fifty more for “inflation, just in case.” Daisy pocketed the last fifty for herself, and considered making a reservation for a solo dinner in West Hollywood, or visiting a fancy bar where wealthy and virile businessmen mingled.
She’s dolled herself up for the role. She dons a 1950s-style wig slathered with ozone-killing hairspray-lipliner-colored contacts. Blue contacts, like a cheerleader. A virgin smile like Sandra Dee. What Patrick wants is someone beautiful to choose him. He wants a doting American housewife to make his. What Daisy wants is to make herself into that person—if only for a night.
“Keep it down,” he insisted when she first arrived on his doorstep. “I can’t have people knowing about this. I’m a feminist.”
“Are you religious?” she asks him once they’ve finished, shimmying back into her petticoat. Her tongue tastes salty. “Hey. Were you a Sunday school kid or what?”
“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me,” he snaps.
“What if I’d showed up in jeans and a t-shirt?”
To his credit, he tries his best to look confused. “That’d defeat the purpose.”
*
By now, her wig collection has ballooned to a full shelf, ranging from blond to red to black. Curly, wavy, and straight. Short and long. Frizzy and sleek. Ponytail, pigtails, bun. People have such diverse tastes, and under the guise of anonymity, they’re not afraid to make them known. She wonders if they’ve ever been that honest to anyone else in their lives. Everyday she lines up her wigs like expensive wines and brushes them, coating the hardwood floor with thin strands of synthetic fiber. Her sister asks if she’s adopted a dog. Daisy purchases a Swiffer. She sweeps with the carelessness of popping a pimple, more for the repetitive action than the actual purpose.
Her wigs glimmer and gloat and gleam under the harsh light of her studio. The blond ones are the worst offenders—so shiny that they become mirrors. In the mornings, her reflection flashes on the corn-colored locks.
One day, she decides to store them in her bedroom closet. Out of sight, out of mind. An entire row of the closet is bare, gathering dust. She once stored little trinkets inside. When he wasn’t wallowing in a pool of invented shame, her ex-boyfriend used to give her gifts he thought might suit her: bracelets, rings, necklaces, pieces of advice here and there. Most of the time, the jewelry was from Claire’s. Most of the time, it didn’t suit her, or fit her, but out of obligation, she wore it for a week. If he noticed, he didn’t say. He always wore a serene, self-effacing smile. After they broke up, he asked for the jewelry back. To do what? He’d never mentioned a sister.
*
The best test subjects are the ones that give her a gift, something tangible to make it worth her while. Jonathan presents her with a glistening box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates.
“Anything for me?” he asks.
“Me,” Daisy answers. He chuckles.
“Am I everything you dreamed of?” she asks in a playful way, and he tells her he appreciates her coming. She’s exactly what he expected.
Jonathan boasts a full head of jet-black hair and a lean runner’s frame. Objectively, he’s attractive, full-blooded Sicilian with brown eyes, olive skin, and a tall Roman nose. He has a cat, who sits perched on his mattress. The cat has matted dark fur and a gasoline smell. “Max is an outdoor cat,” he informs her in the same tone that kids use during show-and-tell. “Say hi.”
“There’s no such thing as an outdoor cat. You live downtown.”
“He comes and goes when he wants.”
“What you have is a feral cat,” Daisy points out. “And when he gets hit by a car, you’ll have a mountain of veterinary bills.”
He shrugs. “If it bothers you so much, I’ll kick him out.”
“Promise me you don’t have rabies.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.” He shuts the door on the yowling feline, but not before waving. “Bye, bye, Maxy. Poor baby. Jenny don’t want you here.”
Jenny is one of Daisy’s many online aliases.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Okay. Now, what were we doing?”
“You make me sound heartless.”
“Max will be fine. He prefers to sleep on the couch anyway.”
“Like a person.”
“Like a person,” Jonathan agrees.
Jonathan isn’t like Luke and Patrick. Jonathan is Daisy’s age and trying to get over something. He refuses to elaborate on exactly what he wants to overcome, though he’s offered her more than enough guidance on how to dress: a brown crop top, a pair of baggy jeans, braided red pigtails, a ceramic flower brooch from his dresser.
“That seems overly specific,” she told him during their call, and he said, “You said you’d do it.” She supposed he was right. She offered him her address, but he gave her his. The whole time, he didn’t mention using a VPN.
The sex is quick and quiet. It’s surprisingly intimate. Jonathan goes through every step of foreplay, kissing her neck as if he already knows her. His palms traverse her spine and land on the small of her back. He burrows his cheek between her breasts, hooded eyes drinking in the tender flesh of her skin. He comes with a gasp and murmurs, “Lizzy,” and Daisy gets the vague sensation that if she searched up an image of this Lizzy, she’d be the splitting image.
Once it’s over, Jonathan curls up in a fetal position, resting his head against his pillow, and deflates. The white sheets crumple underneath him. For a moment, she thinks he might cry, but he doesn’t. Lizzy dissipates into thin air. His breaths even out. His thick hair, sticky with sweat, falls against his forehead. When he finally dozes off, his face loses ten years.
Around midnight, Daisy decides to leave.
Panties-socks-pushup bra. Blush-concealer-eyeliner. Wig-lipliner-colored contacts. Sweater-keys-phone. The hallway is short but creaky, and the floorboards echo. In the living room window, she spots a passing glimpse of her face, still flushed by sex, lit up by a passing car. It happens so fast she doesn’t have the time to recognize herself.
It’s dark. While jimmying open the front door, she almost steps on the cat.
“Shoo, Max,” she whispers. The cat presses up against the door, whining. “Shoo!”
Jonathan’s snores drift down the hallway, and her scalp begins to itch from her sweat-stained wig. “Do you want to get run over?”
A meow in return. Daisy hisses back.
“I’m trying to help you,” she says, and something in her chest catches.
It’s cold, even inside Jonathan’s apartment. His heating must be broken. After watching the cat pace back and forth, she takes off her wig and holds it under her arm. “Fine,” she relents, shaking her head, trying to understand. “Go do what you need to do.”
She lets the animal out, then goes.
*
Later that day, while she’s sitting alone in the bath, half-submerged in the murky water, she hears a knocking at the front door. The concealer has melted off her face, and she’s slotted her red wig neatly in her closet. Her feet, bare against the arching tub, slip as she squints into the humming bathroom air. The humidity is thick enough to bend her senses, and it morphs the uneven knocks into something tangible, akin to the thudding of a chest, thump, thump, thump into the hallway. What time is it anyway? Five in the afternoon, her phone reads. Too late in the day for the mail, and much too early for a hook-up. A gentleman caller, like in the movies? Now wouldn’t that be something. The idea gives her a tiny thrill, though she’s not wearing any makeup, though her hair sticks to her cheeks like mud. She’s left the key under the mat, and she sighs in hopes that he’ll hear her. Ten minutes later, the bath water is cooling and her skin wrinkling.
She combs the entire building to no avail. At the top of the stairwell, she turns abruptly onto her floor and shrieks, but it’s only her own shadow. She sidesteps the figure on animal instinct, then looks at her shoes and feels silly. There’s no one there.
That night, she dreams a dream she will not remember in the morning, and when she wakes—the windows shut, the door closed, too early for the sun and too early for the sounds of life to begin trickling through the walls—she lays there in the fading blackness, soaked in the vague warmth of her own body, waiting for the sweat to settle, cool, and take shape.
Clary Ahn is a writer. Her work appears in The Pinch, Air/Light, and Epiphany, among others. Her playwriting has been supported by The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and the CRY HAVOC Company. You can find her at @claireoflune.
