Little Cat

‘Mira.’

Gio was so stern that I laughed.

‘Okay, okay. Hoc est enim corpus meum.’

‘Good. “This is my body.” Say it.’

‘This is my body.’

I looked down at my chest. My nipples were big again.

‘And when the priest holds up the goblet of wine, he says, Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei. Say it.’

‘Hic est enim calix sanguinis … ?’

‘Mei.’

‘Mei.’

‘“This is my blood.” Say it.’

‘This is my blood.’ My gut rumbled.

‘“Except you who eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” John 6:53.’

Gio looked at me and nodded, as if I knew what he was saying. But I’d never heard this kind of thing before. I didn’t know anything about Jesus Christ.

‘The Christians pray,’ Gio continued, ‘because Jesus was a real man. He had a real body and real blood. The Christians pray because Jesus showed them his body, his unclothed body pierced with nails, so that they could look at his wounds and remember their own.’

Gio stretched his huge fingers over the steering wheel. Yeah, Jesus was crucified, that much I knew.

‘The very first time I met the mother of my children,’ Gio said, looking over at me briefly, ‘she wanted to kiss me, she wanted to “do it.” But I knew that I would be an animal with her. I didn’t want to be an animal with her. I was going to grip her neck and sink my teeth in … ’

Something was changing inside the car. There was this electricity between us again. I reached out and touched Gio’s neck. S

oft baby hairs flattened down on the skin.

‘I couldn’t stand that she was doing the same thing to all those other animals.’

We turned off onto a smaller highway. Gio stopped talking. He let me work out the kinks in his neck. I felt him start to relax in my grip. When we were kids – of course I remembered this now – Nadia told me that Jesus was killed by the Jews. Suddenly Gio twitched and something cracked in his neck. My hand flew off and stuck to my lap.

‘You, as a Jewish girl, cannot so easily be a whore, am I correct?’

Oh my god. Why the fuck was he so shocked about me? He was the one who came to my room. He was the one who was a smuggler pimp!

‘It has nothing to do with being Jewish,’ I said.

Gio ignored me. He took out a handkerchief from his pocket. He pressed it to his open mouth. It looked like he licked something off it.

‘Do you know why God told the prophet Hosea to marry a whore?’

‘I think I should get out,’ I said. ‘I just told you I was not a whore.’

Gio accelerated.

‘Why would God tell the prophet Hosea to marry a whore? Would many men want to marry a whore?’

‘I don’t care, okay? I want to get out!’