The Whiskerly Sisters

PART I

Cat’s Cradle

PART II

Cat’s Chorus

PART III

Cat and Mouse

PART IV

Cat out of the bag

Copyright

For Irene

With grateful thanks to:

Sheila, Vicky, Helen and Annie for their support and friendship

The characters in this book are entirely fictitious.

F
resna was running late – again! She'd had all day to get ready yet still she knew she would not make class on time. Chances were that Charley would put the weight against the door and refuse her entry, but she did that most weeks and yet she somehow always managed to charm her way in and she knew she always would. Fresna found that punctual people irritated her. “Why waste your time running up against the ticking of the clock,” she reasoned to herself, smiling inwardly with pleasure, “when it's far more fun to waste it rubbing up against the throbbing of the cock?” which was why she again found that she was running late.

Throwing back the rumpled quilt, she leapt out of bed and threw on her sweats, lithely bending to lace up her Nikes. Straightening up, she smiled at the man sprawled naked on the queen sized bed. Fifteen years her junior (not that you would ever guess), he was tall, athletic, sexy as hell. She moved towards him and he sat up in the bed to receive her swift, farewell kiss, his toned mahogany flesh contrasting perfectly against her pale ivory skin. “Great abs” she thought, not for the first time, as she released him. She had a penchant for dark-skinned, muscular men, especially if they leaned towards sexual submission. Leaning forward, her lover tried to catch hold of her, begging her to stay a while longer.

“Not a chance,” she responded, backing up and heading for the door. Grabbing her rucksack, she threw a saucy wink towards the forlorn man and left the room. “Catch you later,” she called over her shoulder, offering him a reprieve. “Much later,” she mused. Fresna wasted no time on the past and spent scant time planning for the future. Life was for living right here, right now. And right here was where she had been and where she wouldn't be again until she felt the urge. Whilst right now, she was late for the gym. In a parallel universe, Fresna might have been a dog trainer, but, in this phase of her life at least, it was the men in her life that she chose to keep on a leash – down boy for her pleasure, at heel, when required; sit and stay in the meantime. She hadn't always behaved with such casual arrogance.

Flooring it all the way to Fit Heaven and neatly beating an anonymous ‘also-ran' to the last space in the car park, Fresna inevitably schmoozed her way into her third gym class of the week and commandeered her usual position front and centre of the room where she could fully admire her flexible form in the wall wide mirrors. You didn't leave a piece of ass in the bed she'd just left by stuffing yourself full of crunchies, she reminded herself. No, the crunchies she needed were one up four down, push, push, pulse – several times a week flat on the mat followed by the rhythmic lift, kick, step ball change of the aerobics class or the relentless swing of the kettle bell.

To Fresna's left, her best friend, Jax gritted her teeth, trying desperately not to look as miserable as she felt whilst panting and gasping her way through what she sarcastically referred to as her second Fit Hell session of the week. Recently out of a disastrous, long term relationship, Jax was a woman on a mission. Getting in shape and losing weight were her primary goals; remembering the rules of the dating game ran a close second. And then there were doors to close on too much time spent on a waster before she could open the windows and welcome in the early morning breezes of what she hoped would be a new and better life.

Immediately behind Jax was her youngest daughter, Izza, easily moving her graceful little body in time to the music. Young, fresh limbs powered seamlessly through triceps curls and hamstring stretches. That tight little butt certainly did not need its glutes working out, but Izza needed the exercise to offset her increasingly frequent bouts of depression. Gratefully stuck in an over dependent relationship with a manipulative user, Izza lived her life on a rollercoaster of highs and lows; a circle of conflict, compromise and confusion in which the overarching rule of thumb was heads I lose, tails he wins!

At the very right hand edge of the front row, stood the outrageous, tangerine clad Celia. Neither tall nor short, neither slim nor fat, Celia was no oil painting, but she did have the most beautiful hazel eyes and the most fantastic pair of legs. Still, if her looks weren't outstanding, her personality most certainly was. Straight as the Great North Road and with a definite point of view on just about everything, here was a woman who believed in living life to the max, professional and sober during the day; hard living and even harder drinking come the evening. There wasn't a man on the planet that could drink Celia under the table and, having been divorced for many years, she felt there was no longer any room for romance in her life. She was simply not interested. Besides, there was always somewhere to go – a theme party, a book signing, a girls' supper, a gallery opening, a premiere – whatever it was, Celia would be on it, larger than life, stunningly flamboyant and definitely upsetting someone with her loud voice and strong opinions.

At least she would be there if she wasn't on holiday because travel was Celia's first love and she was never without the next vacation in view. It was an established fact that Celia lived for the sun, gloried in it, delighted in it, observing it bake all but the merest strip of her flesh to a crisp as often as work and solvency would allow. She was not one to worry about the detrimental effects of ultra violet light or gamma rays, which she considered to be complete hogwash spouted by scaremongering public health wallahs with nothing better to do than rob folk of their pleasures. Sod that! Give Celia a sandy beach under the midday sun and there she would be topless, thonged and splayed, slowly roasting herself towards leather paradise. Bliss!

Directly behind Celia, beautiful, blonde, petite Tiffany moved perfunctorily with all the programming of a Pentium. There in body and spirit, if not in mind, Tiffany was in love again. Choosing to ignore the fact that he had left her at the club last night to come home alone while he had a last drink or two with his ex, she concentrated on his insistence on phoning for her taxi and then paying for it to take her home, reasoning that this meant he must be serious. Mustn't he? This time, she knew, it really would be the final first kiss. Better yet, she'd been driven home by an incredibly dishy cab driver, who didn't seem to be able to keep his eyes on the road, glued as they were to his mirror and from there onto her face. Parking neatly on the kerb outside her home, he had leapt gallantly out of the car to open the door for her, deftly offering her his card with the suggestion that she might like to call him sometime. Winking broadly, he let the lady know that he would take her anywhere she wanted to go. Tiffany had frowned slightly as she tried to think how best to respond to this double-edged offer. Two timing Jay would be unthinkable but, on the other hand, the brief time she had spent with her ‘chevalier d'autos' had been enough for her to see how future suited they might be. He had seemed so interested in everything she had to say, so personable, so eager to please. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the way his Levis had fitted so snugly across those toned buns or the reflexive movement of his biceps as he pulled open the taxi door. Tiffany's pupils dilated at the memory. What would those arms feel like wrapped around her? Mortified, she hastily pulled herself from the brink and tried to concentrate on the rhythm of the class.
Where was her head at? She was in love with Jay, dammit!
she scolded herself.
But, then again
, she reflected, smiling at her perfect reflection in the mirror opposite her,
a little flirting never did any harm. Did it?