A CAT NAMED STEVE

I have a cat named Steve.  He's a good boy.  But he gets beat up by other cats.  Sometimes my kids harass him.  They like to pat his big belly and tell him that he's fat.  My husband also molests him.  He likes to pick Steve up and hold him and smells his fur.  I think it's really weird.  I keep reminding him, 'purring is not consent,' but he never listens.  Truly, I'm the only one who respects Steve's bodily autonomy.  I pet him when he approaches me and when I do, he makes little fists with his paws, gripping the ground as though he might float into the air on a cloud of ecstasy.  

Unless he's getting the tar beat out of him by a neighbor cat, his tail is almost always straight up in the air, like an exclamation point at the end of the statement, 'I am happy!'  I can relate.  I'm the same.  I have this weird internal resilience where I keep bouncing back even when people fuck with me or things go poorly.  I don't even hold on to bad feelings about it.  It's just...life, you know?  I'm just happy I get to experience it.

I don't really know what's going on in Steve's little pecan brain, but I'm starting to think he really chooses happiness.  I mean...he purrs when he licks his own butthole.