There's only one female who makes him purr

STYX THE CAT is starting to grow on me, but it wasn't always that way.

Before I relented and allowed her to come in off the streets, I was engaged in a battle of wits with the former stray. Styx understood that I didn't want her in front of my house, and I understood that LaVeta and the kids would sneakily feed her as soon as I left for work. Styx and I played our roles in our cheeky little war dance, and, like a professional coach on "Dancing With the Cats," I took the lead.

"Get off my lawn!" I'd growl in my best Clint Eastwood-before-he-started-talking-to-chairs voice.

She stood there on the edge of the lawn, a black female revolutionary, fighting the same battle that black females have fought through the ages. She wanted respect. That much was clear when she looked at me with a glare worthy of a famous female-rights activist and meowed a timeless question.

"Ain't I a woman?" she'd purr.

"No," I thought. "You're a cat. But I get where you're going with this, and I like it."

We danced that way for a while, communicating with silent thoughts that no one else could understand. By the time we took Styx into our home, I'd already come to an understanding with the cat. I would let her live here, and she would leave me alone.

She's been here about two weeks now, and things are beginning to change. She's forced me to reach down and pet her once or twice. I've done this against my will, of course, but I've done it nonetheless, and each time I did, she responded with a purr that said, "I've got him now. All I have to do is reel him in."

Like most men who are too dumb to see when they're being manipulated, I've begun to view Styx's advances with an "aw, shucks" kind of shyness. LaVeta, on the other hand, has watched the whole thing with an amused twinkle in her eye, and she's recognized it for exactly what it is: Styx using her feminine wiles against me.

I don't see anything wrong with petting the cat every once in a while. That's why they call them pets, right? You pet them. But still, Styx seems to have designs on me, and LaVeta, like any wife worth her salt, is watching carefully in case things get out of hand.

Good thing I'm not a superstitious man. Otherwise I'd be in trouble. You see, today is our 13th wedding anniversary. For me, that's a reason for celebration, because I love my wife, and I love the fact that we've got beautiful kids and funny memories to show for the 13 years we've spent together since we got married in July 2000.

For people who believe in bad luck, however, a 13th anniversary could be problematic, especially when coupled with the sudden appearance of a black cat who targets the husband with petting, purring and (don't tell LaVeta) rubbing up against his leg.

Well, I want to make one thing abundantly clear. I don't care how many times Styx sidles up to me. I'm not impressed with her purring or staring, or leg rubbing, either. After so many wonderful moments together, there's only one female for me. That's been true since my first date with LaVeta, on July 5, 1997.

I'll never forget that night. We went to dinner and listened to jazz at the now-shuttered Blue Moon Jazz Cafe, took a walk to Penn's Landing under the summer moonlight and talked for hours on a bench at the edge of the water.

That night was so magical that we decided to retrace part of it last week. We dropped off the kids with my in-laws, left Styx at home and took a moonlit walk along Penn's Landing. We held hands and laughed, ate a late dinner on Market Street and reminisced about some of the things that have happened since the first time we took that walk.

As I looked into my wife's eyes and thought of our children and our home, our ups and our downs, our years of living and loving, I realized something. Thirteen years into our marriage, LaVeta's got my heart. She doesn't have to worry about some conniving little female who wants to steal it. Not even a little cat named Styx.