Mittens Has Class

Mittens Has Class

Chapter 10 - All Cats are Brats, But Not All Brats are Cats

**Characters and text are protected under copyright law

Lowering the textbook back to the lectern, Professor Young removed her reading glasses and surveyed the class. "So, what do you feel Marvell is saying here? What is the message of this poem?"

Almost immediately, a girl on the front row shot up her hand. "I think this poem is offensive." She said curtly. "Marvell is basically just trying to get laid and convince a girl to let him force himself on her." She made a disgusted sound. "It's really gross."

One of the guys in the class chuffed in an irritated way. "He spent most of the poem going on about how he'd wait for her 'ages', if she asked him to. He's just trying to say he's horny and hopes she is too and won't make him wait too long." There was a subtle spatter of chuckles at this, mostly from the males in the room.

"No, he's saying he wants in her pants and is trying to convince her to let him violate her." The girl persisted. "It's obvious the girl isn't interested in him, telling him no, but he's not accepting it. Just like a typical guy."

"There is nothing in there that even remotely says that." The guy argued back, rolling his eyes. "She's his 'mistress' or whatever, not some random chick. It's supposed to be romantic."

It was obvious the girl wasn't really accepting this version of things, her arms now crossed and leaning back in her chair dismissively. Professor Young's expression was neutral, seeming more glad to see students actually engaging in a dialogue, than worried about what their individual stances were on the subject matter. In the end, the point was to incite discussion, not come to a final consensus.

"Does anyone have a different take?" She asked when it became apparent these two were at logger-heads, scanning back over the class.

After a moment, Mittens raised her paw. There were a few snickers, probably at the odd cat-girl, all done up in a cute tiger-stripe tea-dress and matching thigh-highs, being about to spout some kind of weirdness. The teacher hesitated a moment herself, seeming unsure what to expect, but nodded for her to speak.

"He's giving her permission." She said, grinning a little.

The girl in front turned around to stare at her like she was stupid. "She doesn't need a man's 'permission' to have sex, weirdo."

Professor Young made a sharp sound, drawing the girl's attention to see the stern and unamused look on her face. "How about we let her say her opinion? You certainly got the time to state yours."

The girl just made a disinterested sound, but didn't persist. Professor Young looked back to Mittens. "Can you elaborate on why you say that?"

Mittens nodded. "Sure. The woman in the poem represents someone who is constrained by the social pressures of their time, when women were expected to remain virginal, well-behaved, and conservative until married. The writer of the poem, a fictional suitor, by the way, not Marvell himself, is saying that it is okay to let go of her inhibitions and seek out pleasures. Life is short and youth is fleeting. He's saying that it's okay to give in to her desires."

She picked up the book and read directly from the poem. "'And while thy willing soul transpires, At every pore with instant fires,'." She looked back up. "That suggests, to me, that she wants to let go and indulge in her desires, is aching to step out of the 'proper girl' mask that the social bonds of her time period enforced on her. He speaks of 'our' strength and 'our' sweetness. She wants him as much as he wants her, but society tells her that she is supposed to preserve her chastity. He's not just trying to seduce her; he's trying to liberate her."

Professor Young regarded her with deep interest, seeming intrigued by this perception of the poem. "What makes you so certain that it isn't meant to be Marvell himself writing the poem?"

"Because Marvell's poetry was almost always about allegory and satire." Mittens said confidently. "He felt that traditionalism and 'sensibility' was something that should be questioned. The poem is actually about seizing life while you are still alive, embracing passions, not even really about sex or the actual characters in the poem. It's a statement against dying without having lived. Sex is just the metaphor he uses for embracing passions."

By this point, even the girl in the front row had turned around and was now looking at her with a thoughtful expression. Professor Young looked absolutely ecstatic. "Those are some very interesting points, Miss..."

"Cat." Mittens replied with a smile. "But you can just call me Mittens."

This produced a rather pronounced smattering of laughter about the room. Apparently, they assumed she was making a joke. "Thank you for your thoughts, Mittens." Professor Young said, then looked back out at the rest of the class and asked for any other interpretations.

When the class was dismissed, however, she got Mittens' attention and waved her over to the desk. "I was very impressed by your interpretation of the poem, Mittens." She said, giving her a speculative look. "Most academics agree with you, by the way. That it's meant as a 'carpe diem' allegory. I'm surprised you knew so much about Marvell himself though. Should I assume you took the initiative to do a little research on him?"

"Actually, I didn't need to." Mittens said with a giggle. "My Master loves this poem and there's a framed copy of it on the wall in his bedroom. He's the one who told me about who Marvell was."

"Your...'master'?" Professor Young asked back uncertainly.

"Yep, I's an owned housecat. He ownses me, thus he's ma Master." Mittens flashed a brilliant smile, showing off her extended canines.

The teacher seemed at a bit of a loss for what to say to that. "Did...did he decide..." She started to ask.

"It were consensuable, don't worry." Mittens said quickly. "Actually, it were ma own idea, not his. I wanted to be his pet kitty-cat and he's taken great care of me since. Gives me fresh cream every day." She smacked her lips, grinning a little more when she noticed that the teacher hadn't quite picked up on the double-entendre.

"Well, anyway, I just wanted to say that you impressed me." Young said, trying to get back on track with her original intentions. "In fact, I had never considered the idea that the poem might not even really be about sex."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure it actually is about sex. LOTS of hot steamy sex." Mittens chuckled. "But poetry is what we make of it, right? Poetry's less about what something 'actually meant' and more about 'what it means to you'. Whether we wants it ta be 'bout jus' getting it on or about simply embracing your desires before the chance has passed you by, what we take away from it is the point."

Professor Young peered at her with a renewed interest. "I'm guessing you are a poetry-lover."

Mittens shrugged. "Not really. I suck at rhyming. I much more of a comic-books kind of girl."

Professor Young's mouth opened, closed, opened again, then she just laughed and sighed. "You are going to be a handful this semester, aren't you?"

"Well, if I'm not, I's not bein' a proper kitty." Mittens assured her with a smile. "I'm just glad this was why you had me come to your desk and not because ya noticed I'm not wearing any underwear." She gave an intentional 'unconscious' smoothing of her somewhat short dress. "See ya Monday!"

She made a quick exit while Professor Young tried to recover from that last bit, but heard the professor give a laugh as soon as she was outside of the door. So far, she'd managed to establish a fairly good rapport with three of her four professors. In fact, her Spanish 101 teacher thought she was absolutely adorable from the second she'd walked into the class and he had already dubbed her 'linda gatita'.

Her Botany teacher was the only one who hadn't seemed to have noticed that she wasn't a typical student. And it wasn't even a very large class, so there was no way the woman hadn't seen her yet. Mittens wasn't sure if she was just so wrapped up in her subject matter that she didn't really see anybody or if she simply didn't care. Either way, there was actually something kind of refreshing to have someone regard her as just another student.

Honestly though, while she'd received plenty of stares and chuckles, she'd really not had many instances of people questioning her about being dressed up as a cat. In fact, she'd seen plenty of other students wearing some amusingly questionable attire, ranging from footed pajama onesies to extreme counter-fashion trends. Of course, Krystal's own sense of style stood out as another great example. This morning she'd arrived to class wearing day-glow green slacks and a zip-up hoodie-style shirt that was high-lighter shades of lime and fuchsia. Along with her usual heavy mask of white face make-up with indigo lips and eye-shadow, she stood out even more than Mittens did.

Even better, she seemed a bit less self-conscious about it now, with Mittens complimenting her originality and otherwise standing up for her. Valli had, as she'd predicted, found Krystal's unique brand of looks to be fun and fascinating. She'd even arrived to lunch on Wednesday wearing some exceptionally loud colors herself, just for fun.

Stepping out into the afternoon air, she began making her way towards the campus cafeteria to meet with Krystal and Valli for a bit of lunch. Holly would be joining them a little later and she was looking forward to making some introductions. It was kind of nice to already have 'college friends', especially ones that were fellow freshmen that she could share the experience with. While she had managed to run into Evan and Xander around campus, as well as Holly, they were all far along in college and the wonder of it had long ago rubbed off.

It was still fully sinking in for Mittens that she was really here, going to a university as a student. It felt like a whole other world to her, exciting and new. She'd spent the last few years mostly being at home, so having a whole campus to explore and make mischief in felt liberating. Now she was already making plans to get together with her new friends outside of the campus to spend time. Of course, one of the places that had been brought up for them to hang out was her house.

Valli and Krystal were curious to see how Mittens' home dynamic worked and had both expressed varying degrees of interest to see it. Valli was already excited to get see the whole BDSM experience, but Krystal seemed a bit nervous about the idea. Being generally self-conscious about her own body and unused to even normal social experiences, much less more extreme ones, she wasn't sure how comfortable she'd be if everyone was naked and having sex. Mittens had reassured her that showing off their relationship dynamics didn't necessarily require either nudity or sexual demonstrations, but decided it might be easier to start out with something a bit more normal, like a day at the mall with all of them or just going bowling together.

Of course, while both of them were intrigued by Mittens' lifestyle, neither of them were anywhere near as adventurous as Holly. In fact, she was pretty sure neither of them were all that experienced with even 'normal' vanilla sexual activities. Both seemed more than attractive enough to have garnered interest from potential suitors, but both were rather socially awkward and Krystal was almost cripplingly shy. To Mittens, though, it made them both a bit endearing, in their way.

"MITTENS!!!"

The shout came so suddenly and unexpectedly, that she nearly jumped out of her feet. Whirling around, she looked for the source of the familiar voice. In the next instant, she was nearly tackled to the earth by a hurtling body. It took her a second to realize her 'assailant' was Sally, a fellow submissive in the BDSM community.

Sally had only been in the lifestyle for about a year. She was a bit of an airhead and what the lifestyle termed 'a brat', which wasn't too far afield from the common meaning of that term. The intended difference was the idea that a 'lifestyle brat' acted out with playfully calculatedly 'immature' rebellions for the purpose of earning punishments from a Top or Dominant. Mittens herself had been occasionally labelled as a 'brat', at times, though she always pointed out that she was actually just a 'cat', which is often hard to distinguish from a 'brat'.

However, there were a lot of brats in the lifestyle whose immaturity wasn't so much an act, sometimes coming across more frustrating than fun. Sally was one that kind, often using the label as an excuse to take little responsibility for anything she did and to rationalize her doing anything she wanted. She was still a sweet person and nothing she ever did was mean-spirited, but she could often be a bit exasperating with her brand of childishness. For that reason, she had a tendency to migrate around among various Dominants in the lifestyle, which seemed to suit her just fine.

"I didn't realize you were going to college!" Sally gushed excitedly. "How's Chloe doing? Is she still with you?" Sally had developed a crush on Chloe, as many people tended to do, almost from the first time they'd met.

"I just started." Mittens replied, still trying to wrap her head around running into Sally on campus while unwrapping herself from Sally herself. "What about you? How long have you been going here?" She suddenly realized that she wasn't really sure just how old Sally actually was. She'd assumed her to be over twenty-one, considering that Sally had attended Mittens' twenty-first birthday last year at a local bar and nearly drank herself to the point of a black-out.

"This is kind of like my second or third year, I think?" Sally said, her eyes looking off in thought as she did some mental calisthenics. "I'm not sure. So cool seeing you here though! What are you majoring in?"

"I haven't decided that yet." Mittens admitted. "Figured I'd give it a semester or two to see what I like. This were ma birff-day present this year. From Chloe, mostly. And yeah, we're still together." She gave an amused snort.

"That is really sweet!" Sally gushed, seeming to have only been half listening. "Are you liking it?

"I am." Mittens reported brightly. "Made new friends already and I'm loving ma classes so far. Gots fun teachers an' subjects I like."

"I'll have to tell August I saw you here! She was actually talking about you the other day." Sally said back, apparently having full lost her interest in the previous subject.

August was someone else who had also developed feelings for Chloe and been at last year's birthday party. However, her deal with Chloe had been far more serious, it turned out, than Sally's roving infatuation. August had become a lover of Chloe's, meant to be just a playmate, but who had developed much deeper feelings without Chloe realizing. She'd also become rather jealous of Master's connection with Chloe. The whole situation had culminated in a tense exchange between her and Chloe in the garage, ending with August slapping her.

Chloe placed as much blame on herself for how things went and had later made some amends with August. Mittens' opinion of the woman had permanently soured, however, and she didn't intend to be so forgiving. In an amusing way, she'd considered it just desserts when August had wound up connecting with Sally and her brattiness. As she understood it, the two of them hadn't stayed together long.

"Did you and her get back together?" Mittens asked curiously. "I heard you two had some kind of fight or something."

Sally shrugged vaguely. "I don't think we had a fight or anything. We still play together sometimes. Not sure if we're 'together', just kinda friends, maybe?"

"Well, tell her I said 'meow'." Mittens said, knowing that the two had, indeed, had a rather public argument at the Playhouse early last Spring.

"Are you going to the play party this weekend?" Sally said abruptly, as if having already forgotten the whole previous subject of conversation. Or, more likely, simply not wanting to rehash it.

"Mistress Victoria is having a play party this weekend?" Mittens asked, surprised to hear such news. With Victoria and Master being good friends, they were usually the first to know about any special parties she threw at the Playhouse.

"Oh, no! Not at Miss Vic's. The one at the Red Lion Club." Sally said with a giggle. "It's so awesome there! I had this amazing gangbang there a few weeks ago!" She announced loudly.

"I don't think I've even heard of that place." Mittens said, grinning at the sight of a couple passers-by nearly colliding into each other due to goggling at Sally's previous statement. "Is it new?"

Sally gave another giggle. "I dunno, but I don't think so. Went there for the first time at the beginning of the summer with August. It was someplace she found. Anyway, they are having this big to-do this weekend that is supposed to be pretty savage. You and Chloe should come too!"

"I'll try to remember to bring it up to Master." Mittens said, noncommittedly. While it might be interesting to check out some new place, she'd been well trained by Master to learn more about such clubs first. Some dungeons were not as committed to safety as they should be, more interested in making money off people's delights than nurturing community.

"Who?" Sally asked, looking confused. The question caught Mittens off-guard.

"Master? Mine and Chloe's owner?" Mittens reminded her with an incredulous look.

"Oh, I don't think I've met him." Sally said vaguely, once again racking her mind with more effort than it should require.

"Actually, you've met him more than once." Mittens said, her incredulity increasing. "Over a half dozen times now. You even tried to get him to do a spanking scene with you once."

"Oh? Really?" Sally replied a bit absently. "I'm sorry, I guess I didn't realize who he was."

Considering that he was usually holding chain leashes attached to her and Chloe's collars during most of those encounters, Mittens wasn't sure how Sally could have not. She supposed it went back to Sally's ability to really only pay attention to what she wanted to. As well as a good showcase for her immature tendency to just shrug off having not been paying attention.

"Well, I was actually on my way to grab some lunch with a couple of friends so..." Mittens began, starting to tire a little of the conversation.

"Oh!" Sally said excitedly. "I'm kinda hungry, so I'll come with!"

Mittens opened her mouth, but nothing worth saying aloud managed to come out. In the end, cloying or not, Sally was too sweet of a person to want to hurt her feelings. She tried to remind herself that Sally could sometimes be the life of the party and a lot of fun. However, she was infamous for taking things too far sometimes and being impulsive. She was sometimes a bit much even for people who called themselves perverts with pride. She wasn't sure how shy and reserved Krystal might take her.

However, with no polite excuse not to let her tag along, Mittens lead the way to the cafeteria, inwardly hoping that Sally didn't prove to be more than her new friends could handle. Besides, it would be for less than an hour. What could possible go that wrong in less than one hour?

She silently begged the universe not to be tempted to answer that question.

By the time they arrived, both Valli and Krystal had already grabbed food and found a table. As Sally went to get in line for food, Mittens went over to the table to drop off her books and give them a little forewarning of the surprise guest. As she came up, both girls smiled at her in welcome.

"Hey Miss Kitty!" Valli chirped jubilantly. "How are the eggplants coming along?"