Tommy scooped up Albert, cradeled him like an infant and scratched his belly. Albert's eyes closed and he purred contentedly while stretching to offer more of his soft midsection to Tommy's attentive caresses.
After a while, he put Albert on the bed and scooped up Victoria in a similar fashion. He was speaking gently and lovingly to her, scratching her ears. He moved his hand to her belly saying, "such a sweet kitty. Such a pretty pretty girl. Yes you are. Yes you are. Yes you are. Her's a pretty girl."
I guess Victoria was feeling a little ugly. She suddenly decided she'd rather not be held. Her claws came out and searched for perch. Once she was comfrotable with the leverage situation, she lept out of his arms and ran into the living room.
I looked over to see Tommy's face turning red, his mouth open in a silent scream, veins in his forehead bulging. He squeaked a little and collapsed to his knees. There was a gasping inhale and then "OOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" He rolled over on his side, his hands rubbing his chest. He gasped for more air and kicked a little while trying to form words. I couldn't really tell what he was saying, but I could make out the word "nipple."
"Your nipple?" I asked. "Something about your nipple?"
"That bitch scratched my nipple!"
"Here, move your hands. Let me see."
Tommy complied and sure enough there was a single drop of blood coming from a small scratch right where the nipple met the areola. "Looks like she got you a little bit there. You'll be ok."
He spotted the blood and ran out of the room. He returned with a wad of toilet paper pressed against the nipple. "I'm bleeding!" He exclaimed. "Gotta stop the bleeding."
Convinced the situation was well in hand I returned to my email. Victoria was in the window sill watching the pedestrians below. Tommy approached her wagging his finger. "That was my nipple, you bitch! It's a very sensitive area and you scratched it! Bad kitty!" He went over to the sofa and collapsed whimpering.
"Oh my god in heaven! Oh my god, I've never felt so much stinging in my nipple! Oh merciful heaven above make the pain stop! Will the bleeding ever end?"
"Let me see it. Move the toilet paper."
"Get away from it! I'm not exposing it to the elements! What if it's still oozing?" Tommy put his chin on his chest to get a better view of the affected area. He made little kissy noises at his nipple.
"Do you want a bandaid? A bandage?"
"Do you have one? I mean a special one? I don't think I can use a normal size one. The cut is on the bumpy part of my nipple. I'm going to need a small round bandage. A nipple sized bandage. The rectangle ones will just get stuck in my hair. It's got to be a nipple shaped bandage or none at all."
"I'll see what I have." I went into the bathroom and looked in the drawer. Most of the bandages were standard shaped, but I finally fond a box of oddly shaped bandages. There were even some that were nipple shaped. I knew, however, that they would not be acceptable.
"Here you go," I said. "Nipple shaped bandages. And you have a choice. You can have the one that looks like a ying yang, the peace symbol, or the yellow smiley face."
Tom stared at me blankly. You know you're weird, right? Don't you have any bandaids that are just, you know, brown?"
"No, the only other ones I have are the rectangle ones you said you didn't want."
"Well, maybe I was too hasty. I'll have one of those."
"Ok. Would you prefer Casper, Godzilla, or Jar Jar Binks?"
"Brian, why don't you have anything normal? Why?"
"I dunno. Do you want nipple shaped ones, or rectangle ones?"
"Nipple shaped, I guess." Tom was unhappily resigning himself to the reality of the situation.
"Good. Ying yang, peace sign, or smiley face?"
It took him a minute to respond. I think he was actually counting to ten. "You want me to put a smiley face on my nipple?"
"No. I want you to put the ying yang on your nipple. But I'm offering you a choice. Which would you prefer?"
I held them up like a deck of cards and Tommy selected the peace symbol. I helped him affix it to his nipple. I told him he had the nipples for peace and suggested the Bush administration could use a few more peace-nips.
Tom was not ammused.
When he left a few minutes ago, all indications were that his nipple was comfortably healing under the peace bandage. I slipped him the smiley face and told him to keep it in his medicine cabinet in case the wound reopened before it was fully healed.
He took the bandage, but was still not amused.
Posted at 1:17 p.m.
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