C.a.t.: Initiation

You know that old cartoon where a cat gets scared, and it jumps up and gets its claws stuck in the ceiling? Well, it's a good thing I wasn't in felinthro form when I heard that, or I probably would have done the same thing[m/] and the ceiling probably wasn't strong enough to support my weight.

"W- why does the sergeant want to talk to me?" I asked, trying to keep the panic from showing in my voice.

"I don't know," his secretary answered curtly. "All I know is that he told me to come fetch you personally. Come with me, I'll show you the way to his office."

Her tone of voice told me she wasn't happy about being forced to leave her desk to run errands when a page over the intercom would have sufficed, but frankly that was the least of my worries. What were the odds Sergeant Chase would want to speak to me right after I got done having a hot 69 with Nina, and he

didn't

know about it? Not likely, I could figure that much out on my own. Right then, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was follow that lady. Something told me that doing so would lead me straight to the Divider.

Then again, I told myself, running away and hiding is

another

way to get sent to the Divider, isn't it?

Steeling my nerves, I forced my feet to move and went after her. We made our way through the academy with me almost having to jog to keep up with the secretary's brisk pace. Damn, how could a woman with such scrawny legs walk so fast without having, like, rockets stapled to her heels? The hallways were deserted, all the other recruits in training, but the school was so big that it still took us almost ten minutes to get from the dorms to the staff offices.

"Have a seat," she told me when we got to Sergeant Chase's waiting room. She picked up her phone while I headed for one of the chairs set against the wall. "Sir? Michael Arghen is here to see you. Okay, I'll send him in." I sat down, and the secretary hung up the phone. "He says you can go right in."

I stood back up.

"Okay," I said, trying to stay as calm and professional as I could. "Thank you."

With hands that seemed to be moving on their own, I opened the door and stepped into the office. Sergeant Chase was standing behind his desk with his hands folded behind his back and a serious expression on his face.

"Thank you for coming, Michael," he said. "Shut the door behind you, please."

"Yes, sir, Sergeant Chase," I said, doing as he said and trying to sound as respectful as humanly possible.

"Have a seat," he told me, nodding towards one of the chairs in front of his desk. He sat down himself as I approached, and I joined him.

"May I ask why I'm here, sir?" I asked when he didn't say anything right away.

"Oh, I think you know good and well why you're here, son," Chase said, clasping his hands in front of him and leaning towards me.

I tried not to gasp, but I couldn't do anything to stop the sweat from coming from my brow. Shit, he knew. He knew, he knew,

heknewheknewheknewheknewheknew.

"Um..." I stammered, struggling to think of what to say. What

could

I say? "C- could you be a little more specific, sir?"

Damn, I was an idiot.

Sergeant Chase's frown deepened. "I'm your commanding officer, boy. Don't play dumb with me!"

There was nothing for it, then. I hung my head in shame. "Sorry, sir."

Chase nodded. "That's more like it. This is a military base for training superhuman warriors, after all. There's not a single damn room here without at least three security cameras."

I cringed. Of course he was going to find out! What had I been thinking? What had

Nina

been thinking?

"It seems like you're getting rather close to your personal trainer, Michael."

"Yes, sir," I said in a hoarse whisper. This was it. It was all over. "I'm sorry, sir."

"Relationships with your superior officers are normally forbidden, you know that, right?"

I nodded. "If I can, sir, I'd like to take full..." My voice trailed off.

Did he just say

normally?

"Normally," Chase said again, "this would be grounds for dishonorable discharge for both of you, and a trip to the Divider." I tensed up. "However..."

I unconsciously leaned forward in my seat, my heart trying to jump up through my throat and out my mouth. Fuck this bastard, was he

enjoying

building up the suspense? However fucking

what?

"However," he said again, "in this one, singular case, I am willing to make an exception."

I blinked in surprise. Had he really just said...

"Yes, you heard me right. Nina Stukson is one of the greatest C.A.T. agents to ever live, one we can't afford to lose. Lately, though, I've noticing that she's been, eh, off her game, you might say. Her spirits have been lowering, the quality of her work degrading. We think," he paused and gave me a meaningful look, "that it might have something to do with your brother."

I think I must have been in shock, because the only thing that I could think to say was, "Travis? What about him?" A more suitable remark would have been,

"Holy shit, sir, you mean you're

not

going to crucify me?"

"Travis and Nina were very close," Chase explained. "I don't make a habit of listening to rumors, but even I couldn't ignore how many there were floating around that the two were... seeing each other."

I sat up straighter at this. So, I wasn't the first Arghen Nina had dated? Well, not so much dating as randomly hooking up for wild sex, I suppose... but still! What did that mean for me? Was she just doing this because I reminded her of my brother? Was I just her rebound guy?

"Regardless," Chase said, waving his hand, "what's important is how she's taken to you. It's been more than half a year since your brother passed away, but during the time she's spent with you her spirits have been higher than they've been in months."

I leaned forward a little. "What are you getting at, sir?"

Instead of answering right away, Sergeant Chase got up from his desk and walked around to the other side of his office, where he retrieved a file from the cabinet and set it down in front of me.

"That," he said, "is what I'm getting at. Tomorrow, I'm sending Nina on a search and retrieval mission. Something we need has been lost, and she's going to go get it for us. It should be completely safe."

Hesitantly, I reached out and opened the file. It was filled with papers covered with tiny print, which I didn't bother trying to read, and a picture of some kind of machine. It was small enough to fit in my hand, and nondescript enough that I had no idea what it was for.

"That's what we're telling her, anyway," Chase continued when I looked back up at him. "In truth, the device is just an old cell phone wrapped up in a bunch of junk metal. The real reason we're sending her on this mission is so that you can get closer to her."

"Get closer to her?" I echoed as comprehension slowly dawned on me. "Are you telling me..."

Chase gave me a wry nod. "Yes, I'm saying exactly what you think I'm saying. I'm sending Nina on a fake mission, and I'm sending you with her for the purpose of having sex with her the whole time."

Wow. Talk about words you'd never think you'd hear.

"It might not be as easy as I'm making it sound, though," the sergeant said, sitting back down. "Nina knows what her job is and what's expected of her. She's resisting the impulses. She's had her moments of weakness, which you've, ah, experienced..."

My face turned a shade redder.

"... but for the most part she's doing her best to stay professional." Chase sighed. "I can hardly believe I'm saying this, Michael, but your job is to lower her defenses, make her grow even more attached to you, and raise her spirits the way you brother did in the past. C.A.T. needs the old Nina Stukson back, you hear me?"

My head still reeling, I nodded my understanding.

"Good. Any questions."

Did I have any fucking questions? A better question would be, could I please keep my number of questions limited so that we could get out of here by Christmas?

"Do you know why she's acting like this in the first place?" I asked. I'd been wondering that this whole time. "She told me the urges are uncontrollable, and she doesn't know where they're coming from."

Sergeant Chase grimaced a little and leaned back in his chair. "The truth is, Michael, that the procedure doesn't always go completely according to plan. You know this firsthand. Nina... she knew this years before you even arrived."

"Did she break free too?"

Chase shook his head. "No, for her things went wrong a different way. One of the chemicals we inject you with during the procedure actually counteracts the ones that make your body more receptive, just a little bit. It's to keep the feline DNA from taking over too much. Essentially, it keeps you from losing your humanity entirely."

He closed his eyes, as if reminiscing. "Nina's body ended up rejecting that chemical. The damage was minimal, but it gradually became clear that certain parts of her had been transformed more than was usual. Her senses were all a little bit sharper than the other recruits, which helped her climb the ranks as quickly as she did. But there were other things. She began displaying more feline tendencies. We would sometimes catch her licking her fur or skin, and there were a couple of incidents involving, uh," Chase hesitated and glanced away awkwardly, "marking territory."

Oh, shit

, I thought.

"Over time she learned how to control her nonhuman instincts, but it seems that there's one that's never shown itself until just now. Michael, what I think we're dealing with here is... well, I hate to even say it, but I believe Nina is in heat."

All at once, it all became clear to me. In heat...

"It makes so much sense now," I muttered, looking down at my feet in thought. But then another thought occurred to me. "Wait a minute if she's in heat, and you're encouraging me to have sex with her, then..."

Chase waved his hand. "No, you don't have to worry about impregnating her. It's impossible."

I sat up straighter in surprise. "Impossible?"

"You ever see a mule, Michael?"

"Uh, yes, sir."

"It's what you get when you mate a horse with a donkey. An unnatural mixture of the two, and one that can never reproduce. Felinthroes are the same way. The mixture of human and feline DNA makes every single one of us sterile."

I sat back in my chair, absorbing this. "Oh," was all I could think to say.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," Chase said. "If you joined C.A.T., you can't have had plans to start a family anytime soon."

"No, sir, I just..." I shook my head. "Never mind, sir. Thank you for telling me."

Chase nodded. "Any other questions?"

"None that I can think of, sir."

"Good, then you're dismissed. Be ready to depart on your mission at oh-eight hundred tomorrow morning."

"Yes, sir. I won't let you down, sir," I said, rising and heading for the door. My knees shook a little on the way out. I still couldn't believe I wasn't on my way to the Divider. Not only that, but he had given me permission... no, a

direct order

to fuck Nina as much as I possibly could! I don't know if there's such a place as heaven, but if there is I'd probably choose to stay on earth right now.

I made my way back across the school, heading back for the gym. Nina would probably wonder what'd taken me so long, so I needed to think of a suitable lie. As I neared the door, I paused when my sensitive ears caught a strange

thwacking

sound. Stopping, I looked through the window mounted on the door.

Inside I saw Nina. She was dressed in her shiftsuit, as always, and she was facing away from the door while she went to town on a punching bag. What I could see of her skin was glistening with sweat, and when she tossed her head her long hair slung perspiration across the matted floor. She attacked it in a blur of motion, punching it, kicking it, sometimes even slamming her forehead into it.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" she was grunting with every blow.

She was amazing. No human on earth could move the way she was. I watched her in awe, entranced by the hypnotic way her body moved.

"God dammit, Michael!" she yelled. I jumped so high I nearly hit my head on the ceiling, and then froze like a statue. How much trouble was I going to be in for spying on her like that? It wasn't like I was peeping into the girl's locker room or anything, this was the fucking gym! Maybe she was just mad that I...

Wait a minute. Why was she beating up the punching bag?

"Fuck you, Michael!" she was saying now, her punches becoming even more savage. "Fuck you, fuck you! God dammit!"

My heartbeat began to slow down when I realized she wasn't actually talking to me. Nina ceased her assault on the punching bag and stopped to catch her breath. Putting her hands on her knees gave me the perfect view of her ass, but for once I was more concerned with everything else that was happening.

"God fucking dammit," she huffed, still facing away from the door. "Michael... shit. Fuck. Fuck!"

Moving slowly, as if on its own accord, her hand began to wander towards the fork of her legs. "Fuuuuck," she moaned more quietly now. Then she froze, and swung her hand away from her as if it had betrayed her.

"No!" she growled, looking back up at the punching bag again. I don't know how long she'd been at this, but the stuffing was beginning to leak out of it. "No, I can do this. I can beat this! I don't have to..."

She stopped again, and looked down to see that her other hand had reached up and was now groping her breast. For a moment she leaned her head back in pleasure, but then she snapped forward again and started beating the punching bag up again.

"I can do it!" she was yelling now. "I am in control. I am not an animal, I am a human fucking... being..."

She stopped a second time, already out of breath. I could see her struggling not to touch herself. Her hands were trembling from the effort. From my place outside, I was almost rooting for her. This was a part of Nina I'd never seen before. During our encounters, she had always been conflicted, at best, but now I could see legitimate turmoil inside her. This was tearing her apart, and I almost wanted her to overcome it.

But in the end, I still wanted her to give in even more. Call me selfish, but I wanted her. Not just for the sex, but so that she and I could be together, be an

us.

"FUCK!" she finally screamed, backing away from the punching bag in defeat. Reaching up, she grabbed the neck of her shiftsuit and pulled it off of her in one swift motion before throwing it into the corner in disgust. There was a folding chair nearby, and she sat down in it, still facing away from the door. Her hands disappeared in front of her, and her head tilted back to look up at the ceiling with closed eyes.

"Michael... oooh, Michael," she moaned. "Michael... yesss! Fuck me!"

Oh, shit,

I thought, my cock immediately springing to attention inside my pants.

Why am I not doing anything?

I wondered. Sergent Chase had given me permission to have sex with Nina, so why was I hanging around in the hallway and making her pleasure herself? Still, I couldn't tear my eyes away from her long enough to open the door.

With a gasp, Nina stopped fingering herself.

"It's not enough," I could just hear her muttering from the other side of the door. "It's not fucking enough!"

Just as I was wondering if the show was over, she stood up. At first I thought she had figured out I was spying on her, but instead of confronting me she stretched her arms like she'd just woken up from a nap. Then fur began to creep up her backside. She purred in appreciation as the erotic changes washed over her and within seconds she was in her felinthro form again.

"Fine," she was saying. "Fine! If I can't be a human, then I'll be a fucking animal!"

With that, she fell down to all fours. For a moment I was struck by just how much she looked like a real cat in that position. The way felinthroes are built, they can walk just as naturally on four feet as they can on two. It helped for when they needed to creep around. I got the feeling that wasn't what Nina had in mind now, though.

Sure enough, she spread her legs like a tiger in heat.

"Michael," she breathed, "fuck me... like a fucking... animal!"

I had to physically restrain myself to keep from opening the door and pouncing on her. She didn't know I was there. This was all going on inside her head.

With more flexibility than I knew a cat's tail was capable of, she bent it downwards so that the tip was pointing right back at her. Then she drove it forward, right into her pussy.

"Oh... my... fucking... god," I gasped.

She threw her head back in pleasure, yowling like a cat. She withdrew her tail a few inches, and then thrust it back in again. In and out, in and out, she masturbated herself in a way no human woman ever could. I could see the fur on her tail getting matted down by her juices.

"I'm all yours, Michael," she moaned. "I'm your tiger. I'm your kitty. I'm your... your..."

Her tail began moving even faster as her pussy clenched around it.

"Ahh... ahhhh...

aaahhhhh

..." She sucked in a breath, squared her shoulders, and roared. Not a moan, not a scream, a real tiger's roar.

Nina stopped moving, and then fell down onto her side, breathing heavily. With sluggish movements, she pulled her tail out of her pussy. She was completely drained of energy.

I hesitated, and then finally pulled the door open. Nina's head shot up.

"Michael?" she exclaimed. "How long have you... how much did you..."

Instead of answering, I walked up to her and sat down in front of her crosslegged. Nina watched me with wide, uncertain eyes. I looked deep into them, taking in their beautiful shade of green. Sergent Chase had ordered me to seduce Nina, and trust me I was all for that. But that wasn't all I wanted. I looked at the beautiful feline woman laid out in front of me. No, sex wasn't the only thing I wanted from her.

If that was the only thing I could get, though, then I'd take what I could get.

Reaching out, I gently lifted her tail off of the floor. I half expected Nina to stop me, but she didn't say a word. The fur was still soaked with her lubricating fluids. I brought it up to my nose, inhaling her tantalizing scent, and then...

"You know," I murmured, "I'm here for you. You don't have to go through this yourself."

Opening my mouth, I took the tip of her tail inside and began sucking her juices off of it. My tongue lapped at it, and Nina shivered and groaned. Her fur was so soft, and her juices so intoxicating. I sucked on her like a baby nursing its mother's nipple.

"Michael..." she finally said. "Stop."

I took her tail out of my mouth and looked at her as earnestly as I could.

"Why?" I asked. "We can be together. You and me. You just have to stop fighting."

I was tempted to tell her what Chase had told me, but I bit my tongue. Knowing what her higher ups were doing would only scare her even more. I didn't want to push her away. I wanted to be closer to her.

"Please," I said, slowly lying down next to her. "Just let it happen."

Nina's eyes widened, and for half a second I actually thought she was going to give in.

Then she sat up. "No," she said again. "We can't, Michael. Now get up and get ready to spar."

I sighed, but then did as she said. Oh well. If what Sergent Chase said was true, then I'd have plenty more chances to get it right. For now, I'd focus on my training.