They met through an online dating site. There were several immediate reasons for Drew not to contact her. In her introductory video, Chloe spoke in a baby voice. She said "um" many times. Also, he didn't like her couch, as much of it as he could see, it looked fussy. However, there were two reasons that made him take a chance. One, she was cute. Two, she teared up talking about her love for cats. Her passion seemed sweet.

"I just love cats," she told the camera. "I just do. I want them all in my house where they can be with me all the time. I think about how many of them need love and it makes me cry!" And she cried.

When they met, cats was the first thing they talked about. He expected she had several, and he sniffed her carefully, when he thought she wouldn't notice, for the odor of litter and cat pee. She had none, she said, tearfully explaining that the maintenance man had left the door to her apartment open and her cats had wandered out and disappeared.

"I think about them out there without me, what will they do? Will someone else find them and love them, will they love her more than me? I just want to die!"

She explained over dinner. "I think about their little triangle noses, and their whiskers and their ears and their little feet and I just love them so much!" She wiped tears, smiling. "I want to put bows on them."

They made another date. He wore a bow tie. He brought her a head band with kitten ears. She became angry with him.

"I don't want to be a kitty, just because I love cats."

He apologized. They made another date. She called him "Baxter," after her first cat, which she described in so loving a voice he found himself becoming aroused.

Between the second date and the third, he adopted cats: a young calico cat from a guy he worked with who had developed allergies, and a marmalade cat from the shelter. The marmalade cat didn't like him. The calico climbed the drapes while he was at work, and knocked over a box of cereal.

The third date began with Chloe on her knees playing with the marmalade cat and weeping. Baxter held a couch pillow on his lap and slid his hand into his pants watching her as she stroked and cuddled and baby-talked.

She took no notice of him at all. He slid off the couch onto the floor by her and butted her with his head, cat-like. She giggled with delight and kissed the top of his head.

"Baxter is a big kitty!" she said. "Let me give Baxter a bow tie."

She took off the bow tie he was wearing and replaced it with a bow tie she brought out of her kitty-shaped purse. It had an odd smell and was uncomfortably tight.

Chloe climbed up onto the couch and held his face in both her hands. "Is Baxter a good cat? Or is Baxter a naughty kitty?"

Baxter opened his mouth to say, "naughty kitty" but she answered for him. "Baxter is a good cat. Baxter is the best cat of them all."

Baxter rubbed himself against her legs and made a sound in his chest approximating a purr.

She rewarded him by running her hand through his hair, stroking his beard.

"Come up here, cuddle with me." He climbed up next to her on the sofa, curling up with his head in her lap, rumbling in his chest. He'd done odder things for a pretty girl's attention.

Chloe spoke in her sing-song baby voice, stroking his hair and his face. He nuzzled against her leg.

"Baxter likes his new collar, doesn't he, Baxter is my good cat, Baxter is the best cat."

Baxter felt himself growing sleepy, felt her stroking the sleep into him, heard her singing in her baby voice a babble song about cats and nonsense words and he felt the power of her small hand against his head and he wondered why he'd ever had misgivings about Chloe as he drifted off to sleep.

When he awoke, Chloe was still there, chirping about kitties and about cats and he didn't know what else. He realized he was hungry, and thought he might see about ordering food for the two of them. He yawned and stretched and saw a dark brown kitty paw near him and he wondered about that because neither of his cats was dark brown.

"There's my good cat, there's my Baxter," Chloe said, coming from the kitchen to the living room with a bowl of milk.

Baxter stood on the sofa to greet her and as he did he noticed whiskers and a tail, and he leaped straight up and landed on the floor and did the only thing that made sense, he darted under the couch and lay there, lashing his tail and wondering why he had a tail and if he ever had not had a tail.

Chloe bent down and peered under the couch. "There's my Baxter, silly boy, be a good cat Baxter," she said and her smile was so sweet and so sad he crept forward to her.

The marmalade cat hissed.

"I love cats so much," Chloe said, scooping Baxter into her arms. "I just want them all to live with me in my house."