This is what happened to me after Love came into my life. I'm taking the time to write this down because I know what I've done will cause people to talk, and some of the talk will say he was behind it all, but I want everyone to understand this:

     Love is not evil.

###

     He arrived about two months ago. I was just getting home from another day of work. Another dull, pointless nine hours of keeping the books for the Malcomson Auto Parts Company. Another congested drive home, to park three blocks away. Another walk past 11-year olds in sports team caps who yelled words at me they shouldn't have known yet. There was more new graffiti on my apartment building: “ELF” had been covered by something completely unreadable. I climbed the stairs and passed the manager, who was swabbing down the steps with ammonia. He cursed at me for stepping in his work. I apologized and went to my door. 

     I turned on the t.v. - it was always the first thing I did when I came in. Say what you want about television, how it's a bad influence, warps young brains, whatever...all I knew was I felt less alone – or, maybe, noticed the loneliness less with it on.

     I set down my purse and jacket and was about to take off my shoes when I saw him at my window. Scrawny and scarred, his hair dirty and matted, with patches of pinkly-diseased skin showing through. A big gray cat, sitting there outside the kitchen window.  At first I wondered how he was sitting there two floors up, then I remembered the window-box I'd abandoned once I'd realize the window faced onto an alley that got about 15 minutes of sun a day.  Right below my window was a garbage bin; he must've jumped up from that.

     I looked at him, wondering, waiting for him to run away. He didn't. Instead he just looked in at me with mild curiosity and a touch of longing. I approached carefully, and when I unlatched the window and slid it up he opened his mouth and uttered a surprisingly small, even delicate noise.

     I'd never been much of a cat lover, but something in that scratchy little voice just melted me. He must've known the effect it would have, because then he actually dared to step over the sill of the screen-less window. He made his way gingerly across the drainboard to where I stood frozen in - what? Disbelief? Fear? Hope? Then the impossible happened: He put his head against me and started purring.

     Me. He was purring for me. He could've gone to any window in the building, on the block...and he'd come here to me. Tears welled up. I moved my hands slowly to his rough coat, and when I stroked him he kind of fell into me, the purr louder than ever. I lowered my head to his, and I think I gasped out something like, "Oh, aren't you a love?"

     We stayed that way for what seemed like a small eternity, sharing an intimacy that not even two human beings could know. Finally he moved off and meowed pitifully. I looked at his ribs, plainly visible beneath his motley coat, and realized he must be starving. I opened a can of tuna, and he gobbled half of it down, then settled back to clean his paws. I sat near him, considering.

     There was no longer any question of previous ownership. Whoever he'd belonged to before had obviously abandoned him, and anyway he'd chosen me. I'd never had a pet before because the manager didn't allow them, but as long as my new companion went in and out the window, I didn't think anyone would even know he was there. I'd get him a bed, a litterbox, his own dishes, medicine, toys...

     Now all he needed was a name. I thought about the first thing I'd said to him, and realized he'd practically chosen his own.

     "Do you like your name, Love?"

     He stopped licking his paws, came over to me, clambered up into my lap and promptly fell asleep.

     I took that as a “yes”.

###

     I called in sick to work the next day - first time in two years - and took Love to the vet. They gave him distemper and leukemia boosters, antibiotics and a flea dip, Tresaderm for ear mites and strict instructions to feed him more.

     I took Love home, then went to the pet store and spent the rest of a month's pay on food, bowls, litterbox, litter, toys, collar, brush, scratching post. I didn't buy him a bed, though, because last night he'd slept with me, curled into my side.

     I called in sick the following day, too, so I could make sure he was happy. He didn't even play with the expensive toys, just stayed glued to my side. If I didn't pick him up every once in a while he meowed anxiously. I got out my camera and took pictures of him. I didn't have anyone to show them to, but I wanted them for myself, to put up at work, in the car, anywhere he wasn't.

     I wanted to remind myself everywhere that I had Love.

###

     The next week was a period of adjustment for us both. Love grew healthier, his skin healed, hair turned thick and glossy, eyes bright. And I - well, I had to get used to the idea of a reason to go home at the end of the day, or get up in the beginning.

     Love was funny, too. Sometimes he'd launch mock attacks on me, playfully digging a claw into my arm while his back legs wiggled frantically. Sometimes Love broke the skin, but I know he didn't mean to. It still made me laugh.

     I tried to read one book about cat care, but threw it away after 30 pages. It didn't apply to us at all. Love wasn't aloof, or cool, or independent. Love didn't vanish for nights at a time only to return with a fresh kill. No, Love was affectionate and warm and loving. I couldn't imagine a better partner.

     There was only one thing wrong with the whole:

     Love was finicky.

     Oh, not so much at first. True, he never finished a whole can in one sitting, but he at least made a good effort. I found some he liked better than others - Beef and Live Nuggets in Country Gravy, and Veal and Kidney Feast (Sliced) especially. But after a few feedings even those were left uneaten. I'd put the food down for him when I left in the morning, and come back ten hours later to find cockroaches nibbling away at a full bowl. I only saw him eat one roach; after that he just played with them.

     The net effect was that while his silver coat and outward appearance grew sleek and vital, you could still count every rib at a distance. Picking him up was like hefting meatless bones in a silken bag. I tried making him special things to eat; I nearly gagged on the smell of raw and cooked chicken liver for three whole days. But, just as with the cat food, he always tired of it sooner or later.

     Once I went to the pet store and bought several live mice, but Love was particularly surprising here: He showed no interest in the mice whatsoever. After three days I let them go in the alley. How could I have expected Love to kill? Even to eat. It just wasn't in his sweet nature.

     Love was wasting away, and I was powerless to stop it.

###

     I lost track of things.

     Anything not directly concerned with Love or getting him to eat just ceased to be of importance to me. I went to work because I had to make money for his food, but everything else - household chores, shopping, paying bills, t.v. - fell by the wayside.

     I must have missed the first of the month because one day I answered a pounding on my door only to find the manager standing there, his flabby face red and swollen from alcohol. He was demanding the rent check, now three days late. I tried to tell him to wait, I'd go write it and be back, tried to tell him to just wait in the hall, but he ignored me. 

     He pushed his way in. I tried to remember if Love was in or out. I hoped the manager was too drunk to notice in either case.  He wasn't. While I went for my checkbook, he picked up the framed photo sitting on top of the t.v. It was Love, of course. He was about to ask whose cat it was when Love himself made the fatal mistake. He walked into the room, meowed loudly and wrapped himself around my ankles.

     The manager stared down, his sweaty brow furrowing, and demanded with his typical intellectual aplomb, "What the hell is that?!"

     To my response, he screeched, "I can see it's a goddamn cat!  What I wanna know is what the fuck it's doing in here?!"

     Love retreated from the harsh words. With one meaty hand, the manager slapped the door shut to cut off any escape. Before I could even try to offer the lame "he came in through the bathroom window" story, he took in all the damning evidence: The photos, the litterbox, the food bowls, the toys.

     "You keepin' a goddamn cat in here? HUH?!"

     Love hissed at him.

     He turned to the corner where Love crouched, back up, mouth open, pupils dilated, and he made an abrupt grab. Love hissed again, drove a nail into his skin deep enough to leave a bloody furrow, then bolted. The manager bellowed like a stuck pig and stumbled after Love, who cowered now behind a chair.

     I unthinkingly threw myself in his path, pleading. He didn't even hear me, just shouted, "That little fucker is going."

     He pushed me aside and lashed out at Love with one workbooted foot. Love yelped in pain and dodged around him.

     I didn't see what happened next, because I was walking blindly into the kitchen. I say "blindly" because it really was as if I couldn't see, or wasn't even there. Someone else had taken control of me, my body, someone stronger than I, cooler and more confident. Someone who knew Love was worth fighting for.

     My biggest butcher’s knife was in my hand. In the living room the manager had boxed Love into a corner between the couch and the wall. He picked up a pillow and was leaning down with it while Love spat and battled. He had one arm pulled back, the arm in a lethal fist.

     He was moving so slow...or maybe we were in a movie, one of those scary ones where slow motion means violence. It was easy to stab him. With my full weight behind the knife I buried it in his fat side up to the hilt. He froze, gasping as he saw the blood flood out across his dirty white t-shirt. He started to reach for the hilt, but I was still moving faster. I grabbed it and twisted, then yanked it out at a different angle than it had gone in. He took one step towards me, overbalanced and went down.

     Suddenly I was fully aware that I was standing over a man I had just killed, with a dripping knife still in my hand. He'd fallen face down and there was clearly a hole in his right side.  Blood and pieces of grayish-white stuff were spreading out from the wound.

     I waited to feel something - revulsion, horror - but instead I was calm, serene even. For one thing I realized I'd wanted to do this for a long time. The fat bastard had always disgusted me, with his sweat stains and USMC tattoos. I would never again have to listen to his wheezing voice asking for the rent check on the first of the month.

     Then a funny thing happened.

     Love crawled out of his corner and approached the corpse carefully. He sniffed at the oily hair, then walked around to the glistening side. He put his nose to the blood, and his tail twitched. He padded up to the wound, investigated it cautiously, then stuck his nose down into the ragged cleft itself. He reached a paw up and used it to pull the wound wider while blood gushed fresh around him. His face disappeared completely for a second, then re-emerged with something wet and blue clenched in his teeth. I guess it was the liver. He pulled back, bracing all four feet against the dead man's side, and the meat finally gave way with a ripping, sucking noise and a noxious smell. I might have felt my stomach turn over, but I couldn't take my eyes off Love.

     He was eating.

     He was eating with great relish, shaking the meat as he gulped it down. When he was done he reached in for the next piece.

     Now I knew what would satisfy Love.

     I waited until he was done. He went to his favorite spot in the living room and began to clean his paws and whiskers. He even burped.

     I went into the kitchen. When I came back I had plastic trash bags, knives and Tupperware containers.

     I got to work.

###

     Love ate well for the next two days. On the third day I tried cooking the meat, and he ate half of it.

     Getting rid of the leftovers had posed a slight problem, but in the end it was really no harder than taking the trash out. Two plastic bags and an early morning drive across town to a distant trash bin took care of it. The stain in the carpet was harder, but it was an old rug, dark brown anyway, so the blood didn't even show. I laughed about all the times I'd asked him to give me new carpeting and he'd turned me down.

     It became clear to me now that Love had special needs, needs I would gladly fulfill. The first thing was shopping. I ran my credit card to the limit buying knives, cleavers and a gun, a little snub-nosed .38 that fit neatly in my purse.

     I began driving around late at night, investigating the possibilities. I found places under freeways where you could always spot one or two transients asleep. I figured since they were probably passed out from alcohol anyway the task would be especially easy. As long as the meat wasn't too pickled.

     The first one, of course, was the worst. Carrying a plastic trashbag, two knives and the gun, I walked up to where he slept under an overpass. Even though it was 2:30 in the morning - a Saturday morning, so I could sleep in - there was enough traffic overhead to cover any sound. One shot, then I was kneeling over him, cutting away the clothes. I reminded myself to buy some little face masks - the smell was so bad I had to walk away once for a breath of healthy carbon-monoxide-laden air. After the clothes were off, I cut quickly into the right side, just below the rib cage. I'd bought a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, because Love obviously preferred some parts to others. I held my breath and quickly cut away what I hoped were the liver and kidney, and shoveled the grub into the plastic bag. Blood spilled out, sure, but I'd bought new hightops and was careful not to kneel, just squat.

     The whole thing took seven or eight minutes. It was quarter to three. I'd killed a bum, a homeless, sodden nothing. Nobody'd seen me. Nobody would care. Nothing mattered except whether to cook it or leave it raw. Whatever he wanted. Because only one thing held real meaning:

     Love eats.

###

     And eat he did, very well. Three days later, when that first one was used up, I went out and got another one. And another after that...and another...

     It got easier every time, even though the news people reported that police were "conducting a massive manhunt for the gruesome killer". There's no shortage of them these days, the ones who sleep where they can, the ones who're too drunk or stoned or burned out to care. By the time I’d hit number five, I could cut out the pieces Love wanted in three minutes.

     It should have been possible to feed Love forever...except something unexpected happened.

     Love stopped eating.

     Oh, not all at once. It was gradual. He just started eating a little less all the time. I tried different parts. One night I rolled a supplier over onto his stomach and took some butt and leg - but it made no difference. I tried cooking it, filleting, roasting, baking, boiling, frying, grilling, microwaving, even liquefying. He would just sniff the new contents of his dish and walk away. He began to grow thinner, he slept more and looked like he could barely move when awake.

     One night I was driving back from disposing of leftovers. As I pulled up, I saw a boy busily tagging my building with his graffiti. I recognized him as one of the local kids who liked to taunt me sometimes, wolf-whistling or yelling obscenities. I got an idea, and I walked up to him. He saw me coming, stopped painting, smiled and asked if I wanted a taste of "big ese dick".  I put a gun to his head and said, no, but I knew somebody who might. His smile disappeared instantly. I ordered him into the building. 

     Just outside my door he tried to tell me I was making a big mistake, that I was a stupid bitch. But by the time I had him in the bathroom and told him to turn the shower on full, he was sobbing. I shot him twice in the chest. The second bullet went right through him and shattered the mirror over the sink. I didn't use it that much now anyway.

     I turned the shower off, then bent over him. I didn't waste any time - I was hoping Love would eat if the meat were really fresh. I bent down and tore the cheap black t-shirt away with my bare hands. The two shots had torn large holes in him, but I put my fingers in and pulled them wider. He groaned, not quite dead yet. I ignored it and walked out, picked up Love and took him to his dinner. I set him right down on top. 

     He just curled up in the warm blood and went to sleep.

     I started to cry. Love was dying, and there was nothing I could do. I picked him up, got a wet towel and cleaned him off. I set him down again, hoping against hope he'd go back into the bathroom and eat. Instead he curled around my ankles, rubbing and looking up at me, imploring.

     That was when I got it.

     Of course.

     That was why he'd come to me in the first place.

     I laughed, the tears forgotten, and got my tools ready.

###

     I know some who read this will think I was insane, that I went too far, that I sacrificed too much for Love...

     But haven't we all?

     If I look at all our books and movies and songs, I should be acclaimed a great romantic hero. I gave myself completely over to Love...

     Because it was me he wanted all along.

     It wasn't his favorite part, but he ate almost the entire right leg anyway. The tourniquet stopped most of the blood, but I'm still feeling light-headed and know I have to hurry now. I've opened the windows so he can leave when he's done. I don't want Love to die with me.

     It's time now. The knife is ready, and Love is ready. I hope I live long enough, after I make the slit, to feel him inside me.  To know his satisfaction. To experience the final exquisite pain of Love.