Pomona, CA—Closing her eyes and taking in the serene moment of blissful connection, local special education teacher Samantha Summers rubs her cat’s belly in peace knowing that her hand will soon be brutally mauled.
Summers found herself in this situation after her cat hopped onto her lap and curled up a few minutes before. After the usual head scratch, she chanced delivering a belly rub despite knowing it might be the last thing she ever does with that hand.
“He has such a cute, fluffy belly,” she told the Post, while trying to control her breathing and not give into the primal fear that was lurking at the edges of her mind. “And he seems to like it so much. I mean, until he inevitably decides it’s too much and turns on me.”
Summers states that she finds herself in this situation often, even though she knows better, almost as if her compulsion to do so is akin to the compulsion her cat feels to launch a blitzkrieg upon her appendages after some ordained amount of time.
Her cat, Sobie, a part Siamese, gives every external indication of being completely at ease.
“This is about as good as it gets,” Sobie told a reporter. “The sun is on me, I’m on my third nap today, I just got a head scritch, and now I’m getting my favorite: a belly rub. What more could I want? Oh, but… hm, you know, all of a sudden, I’m just not sure. Gosh, wow, suddenly this is not pleasurable at all. In fact, this might feel like an attack all of a sudden.”
Summers, perhaps sensing her impending change in fortunes, looked up with misty eyes.
“It’s been such a perfect moment,” she said, choking back tears. “I know it’s seconds away from being over, but I wouldn’t change a single thing.”
Sobie’s demeanor had, in a few seconds, changed subtly but evidently, his paws beginning to wrap around the hand that pet him, his back pushed against her legs, his ears laid back. And his eyes, deep in their unknowable blackness, projected the essence of murder.
