“Why is that?” he said, tipping his head to the side and dragging the razor carefully from cheek to jaw.

“Because he clearly, as a baby, had some kind of accident because there’s this weird, crooked, tip at the very end of his tail. Feels like a kink. His tail is perfectly normal until the very end where it takes a sharp right. Like maybe it was broken, or something.”

“Huh.” Paul replied, going to work on his upper lip, pulling the same face as I during those rare occasions when I apply mascara.

“You’ve never noticed?” I persisted. “How different all the cats feel?”

“Only when they try to sleep on my head and I knock them off.”

“Huh,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the shower stall. “Anyway, sorry I never noticed your callus. Want me to get you a pumice stone, or something, next time I’m out?”

“Sure, if you think about it,” Paul said, walking past me to the closet to pull out his jeans. “But it would be nice if you took more notice in the next decade or so. But if you don’t there’s always the other way.”

“Which is?”

Paul twirled his wet towel and snapped it in my direction.

“Try grabbing my tail in the middle of the night.”