Round-headed, long-necked, sleek and lean, one eye red and one eye green, Terracotta Cat sits in the dollar bin in a neglected corner of the second-hand shop. Porcelain Skunk and Ceramic Bunny give him snide looks and wide berth.

Skunk sniffs. “What’s your glaze?”

“Years of good use,” Cat replies.

Bunny says, “I like your eyes, your tuft of tail.”

Cat smiles. “My little Amy liked it, too. Persecutors, alas, forced the family’s flight. Amy’s papa hid the family jewels in my sight.”

“Fat chance!” Skunk scoffs.

“The cat himself, me, had to be hid elsewhere. ‘Amy, you’re old enough now,’ Papa declared. Ensconced warm and snug, I crossed the storm-tossed sea steeped in delirium, sluiced by showers of Amy’s first love-juice, for whenever Amy stirred, my stunted tail brushed her sweetly swollen berry or teased the quivering aperture of her adorable little asshole.”

Skunk chortles.

“In the New World, I graced her bedside.”

Bunny frowns. “Then how’d you end up here?”

Cat sighs. “Amy married a good man, but jealous. He banished me to the attic. Ungrateful great-grandchildren pawned me.”

Annie and Beth appear before the dollar bin. “Isn’t he cute?” Annie says, picking up Cat.

Beth says, “He looks just like a —,” whispering a word which brings a bright red blush to Annie’s pretty cheeks. “And he smells just like you when you’re pooled with pleasure and about to —.” Instead of a word, this time Beth whispers her fingertips across Annie’s lips.

Annie shivers.

Beth says, “Oh, sweetie, I can’t wait to get him home and fuck him into you.”

Earlobe pinched, pussy cupped, Annie gasps, quakes, comes.

Cat slips from her fingers. Falls. Shards of cunt-glazed terracotta, a cat’s-eye emerald, and a blood red ruby splash the dollar bin.

Skunk and Bunny are rich.