Marvin, the cat, simply lay on the chair and watched the proceedings around him. He only moved when an ass threatened to sit on him or else, a little while later, when a lap threatened to disappear again. But in some manner or another, with or with out the human flesh in between, he was always lying on the chair. He reasoned that it was his chair because, after all, possession was nine tenths of the law, right?

There were, of course, a few rare moments when he was not on the chair or even on the lap on the chair, but he kept these times to an absolute minimum. Oh, he did get hungry or thirsty from time to time (who didn’t?), and with these came the obligatory bowel movements and relieving of oneself (oh, come on, it’s a fact of life!). Sometimes these things had to be done, and even fewer times these things had to be mentioned (thank god!) because the narrator was trying to use as many words as possible to fulfill a personal goal of writing fifty thousand words by the end of the month of November, year two thousand and one. That’s neither here nor there, of course, but the fact was that said narrator was quite a bit behind, it being the early morning hours of the twenty-third of the month and he was only on about word seventeen thousand or so. All of these facts should remain unmentioned as we continue on with our story about Marvin -- did I mention he was a cat, oh best beloved? Yes, he was and still is a cat, bless his soul, but he was not the Cat Who Walked By Himself, no siree. Quite the contrary, he was, in fact, the Cat Who Lay on the Chair With Or Without The Lap, which isn’t nearly as nice a title for a story, just so you know. Luckily the chapters in this book aren’t titled, but rather are discreetly headed with only the word "chapter", followed by the numerical representation of a consecutive counting of how many chapters had preceded said chapter, plus one. Luckily, I say, because just for the sake of argument, let’s hypothetically assume that the chapters had instead been given distinct names, such as "Chapter Eight: The Deathday Party" which can be found in the second book of the Harry Potter series. Of course this chapter would not be given that title, but would instead be given the title "Chapter Sixteen: The Cat Who Lay on the Chair With Or Without The Lap". Well you can just imagine that if someone saw this book on the shelf of a Barnes and Noble bookstore (assuming also, and previously, that the book had by some freakish miracle been published in the first place) and if that person were - as it is known to be done among some distinguished circles of new book buyers - to open the book to a random page and see what kinds of names the chapters had been given by a certain author - namely me - well, then they could very well open it to some part of chapter sixteen which, coincidentally, holds a lucrative spot just past the first third of the book which, as you may well guess, is a prime target for opening-to-a-random-page activity, and then they would plainly see that some fool - namely me - had entitled the chapter "Chapter Sixteen: The Cat Who Lay on the Chair With Or Without The Lap" and chances are very good that they would immediately return the book carefully to its proper place on the shelf in disgust. Coincidentally, they would also probably wonder why the chapters of such a short book are so small as to allow chapter sixteen to come along only about a third of the way through the book. Curiosity might lead them to remove the book again from its proper place on the shelf to flip through the end of the book and see how many chapters there were in all (wish I knew).

All that aside (and, for the sake of suspension of disbelief, promptly forgotten, please), it must be mentioned that this story of Marvin, the cat, though he is still living in November of the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and One, actually takes place a few years earlier, in the near past you might say, if you were the type of person to use such a term. The time the story, if it can even be called that, takes place is quite important (even though the date remains, unfortunately, ambiguous), because it is when the Walsh family was still all together and intact. Yes, you could say Marvin’s full name was Marvin Walsh, if you were the type of person to attach to household pets the last name of the family that they happen to be living with, as if they were somehow an actual member of the family (incredible notion!). If you were one of those types of people, then you would probably say that little Marvin Walsh, the cat, was the cat son of Ned and Irma Walsh, even though it would be quite obvious to everyone that little Irma Walsh had not actually given birth to little Marvin Walsh (the cat).

But this is neither here nor there. It is however at the Walsh family home that Marvin was, if not born, at least born nearby, and raised until the present time. And for as long as anyone could remember, he liked that old wooden chair for some reason. Maybe the reason was simply that the chair was in a good spot for Marvin to lie in and watch all the important happenings of the house. The chair was an old country craft chair, the type of chair that wasn’t old enough or nearly high enough quality to be an actual antique, but was, in fact, just a cheap rip-off of an antique-looking (not really) chair that ended up looking like a cheap stage prop from The Little House On The Prairie.

The important thing to remember here is that Marvin liked the chair and, indeed, found it quite comfortable. And not only was the chair comfortable, but there was also a good chance that the Lap that ended up in the chair (after the associated Ass had driven poor Marvin off) was also very comfortable. All in all there were, at this time, four Lap-Ass combinations walking around in the cozy three-bedroom house where Marvin lived, and a good three of them (the three biggest) had laps that were at least as soft as the chair cushion beneath. Luckily the smallest one, the one with rather bony and uncomfortable-looking lap, only very rarely sat in Marvin’s chair and, in fact, seemed to prefer rolling around on the couch or the floor when it wasn’t too busy running from room to room screaming at the top of its lungs for some reason or another.

The fact was that all this aforementioned screaming had driven poor Marvin quite insane and quite deaf long ago. Perhaps he had somehow willed himself to be deaf to cope with all the noise of the house, but it was quite apparent that you could yell into his ear at the top of your lungs and he wouldn’t budge an inch. The only thing that could get Marvin to move was a large human ass traveling with some momentum towards his furry little cat head. It was even suspected that perhaps Marvin was also legally blind in his later years, for his field of vision had narrowed down to only being able to recognize the blurry shapes of the asses and laps appearing and disappearing around him. Like a cave fish, Marvin’s vision had deteriorated later in his life from extreme lack of use due to his spending about ninety-nine percent of his time engaged in restive cat-napping.

When he had to sit on a lap, he preferred the lap of the big girl most of all. The strange thing was that the girl seemed to be getting bigger and smaller at the same time. In the early days the biggest girl didn’t seem to have a lap at all, but instead often just sat on the floor with some book or another. When she got taller her lap appeared and her ass shrunk to the size that it could fit on the chair. For Marvin, those days were like heaven, for her lap was as soft and squishy as a plush pair of water balloons. Slowly but surely the lap got bigger, and Marvin had more lap to sprawl across, but it also seemed like the lap was at the same time losing a little of its softness. By the time the big girl started going away for long periods of time, her lap had become almost firm and muscular, and Marvin pined for the days of the large fleshy lap of youth that he had known and loved.

Chapter 17

 

Chapter 16 was first written November 23, 2001

It was last edited December 28, 2001