Very Bad

It’s very strange how words, often spoken in jest, can come back and bite you on the arm - literally.
Last week when I replied to comments from ‘Susans’ I quoted Mae West with her famous words - “When I’m good I’m good, but when I’m bad I’m very bad!”. Now I don’t know who is the worst here but when Sparky’s increasingly aggressive behaviour towards me reached a scary pitch I had no choice but to return him to the cattery.
The first couple of incidents I just passed off as initial nervousness by him at being in a whole new environment with people he didn’t know yet, but as the week progressed he started attacking me, hissing and baring his teeth and lashing out. In the first major attack he managed to claw my forehead with deep cuts, just above my left eye, and in the second, while I was preparing a bedtime meal for him, he launched himself off the kitchen unit and bit me on my arm. I threw him off but still he was hissing and snarling, facing up to me. I don’t know what I did to provoke this but it left me badly shaken. Next morning when I came down to give him breakfast he was still bristling at me and made to go for my leg. I couldn’t handle this and no longer trusted him wondering when next he would turn on me. Although he hadn’t attacked Jacqui yet, apart from a bit of hissing, I couldn’t allow that to happen - she would freak out if it did and I thought it was only a matter of time. I decided there and then that I had to return him to the cattery which I did on Saturday. It broke my heart. I feel so sorry for him. We were told he had behavioural problems without specifying what they were and I just thought it was finding himself in a Rescue Centre cage with lots of strange people and noise - nothing a bit of TLC wouldn’t cure. So now I am without a cat again and don’t know if and when I will try again.
A sorry tale, and one that causes me a lot of sadness and pain, but another experience of life which I have learned much from.