I love little pussy, her toys are such fun

My mobile rings next to her and scares her off. It's Annette.

"I went to lunch with Sugar Daddy today," she says, sounding exhilarated, which is strange because usually her meetings with Peter, her long-time shoddy sugar daddy, give rise to nothing but complaints about how stingy he is.

"I asked for the holy grail of sugar daddy gifts," she continues. "A mortgage! He said yes."

"Hold on," I cut in. "You know what he's thinking. He wants to carry you across the threshold and right into the bedroom."

"No," retorts Annette, who never gives Peter so much as a peck on the cheek. "He's pushing 70. I doubt he could carry me across the threshold without doing his back in. Besides, I would never cheat on Reese."

Reese is Annette's boyfriend. He doesn't yet know about Peter.

"But if I tell Reese about the house in Portobello and he complains, then he's nuts," says Annette.

Queenie meows sweetly in the kitchen. She has decided it's her dinner time.

As the naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch said: "Cats go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want."

Queenie treats me a little like Annette does her sugar daddy - with all the qualities of a seductive femme fatale.

Neanderthal is going to be back in half an hour. I sprawl on my bed feeling inspired.

I look up to my shelf of toys and take down a diamanté leather cat collar and lead and put it on, attaching the lead to the bedpost, and wait for my owner to come home.

He does, and pets me in all the ways that I demand. I fall asleep purring within, and wake the next morning still tied to the bedpost.