A Kitten Called Cat

Chapter Nine - The Purrfect Pet

It was much too early when he flashed on the light, the next morning, but at least, with the luxury of my duvet, I'd slept beautifully. I was a bit puzzled when he took me across to the lift... surely he wasn't planning on taking me outside when I was starkers. But, instead, we went down to the basement and he took me into his gym.

He set me off on a running machine whilst he started on a cross trainer. Then he moved me across to the rowing machine as he started doing some work with weights.

He had to interrupt his own workout a couple of times to sort out the way I was doing the rowing. It felt a bit funny to have his hands on my naked body - but not as nasty as I'd have thought. By now, I'd got used to being starkers in front of Mr Bossy... at least there wasn't anybody else about!

The session on that rowing machine was pretty tough. There was a little screen in front of me showing a cartoon of a rowing boat being chased by a shark. I guess that somebody thought it was funny but I wasn't laughing. I didn't need him to tell me that letting that shark catch me would not be fun!

But as I struggled to keep that stupid shark off my tail, I kept an eye on Mr Bossy working on the complicated weights machine in the middle of the gym. It looked like he was chucking impressive stacks of ironmongery around.

And when he was done with the weights, he moved across to a punchbag that was hanging in the corner of the room. And, as he started hammering into it with his hands, feet, elbows and pretty much everything else, he looked like a cross between a ballet dancer and a psychopath. I suddenly realised that, even though he'd been really angry with me in that meeting, he'd never come close to losing his temper. In a way, watching with that bag was almost as frightening as the whole knife and finger thing.

But then there was a beep from the rowing machine to warn me that the stupid shark was about to catch me. So, with a bit of a grunt, I set to work to get myself a bit more distance.

At last my rowing fun was over and Mr Bossy took me over to a couple of gym mats in the corner and started me off on some stretching exercises. I'd been in a gym club when I was little and so, without really thinking about it, I slipped into my old, familiar stretching routine. He watched me for a bit and then gave a nod of approval. He could see I knew what I was doing.

When we were done, I was allowed the luxury of a whole ten minutes in the bathroom. Then I had to watch him as he ate his breakfast. I wasn't that bothered about the healthy müesli and yogurt but I was really jealous of his delicious smelling coffee.

Before he left, he warned me that a doctor would be coming in to give me a medical checkup at eleven o'clock and that I should go through to my old bedroom to wait for her... and he even let me wear the polo shirt for the doctor.

Very generous of him.

Then, for the first time that morning, he turned to me and looked me in the eye. "Kitten," he said, "just a little reminder to eliminate any possible doubt: I would consider the disclosure of any personal information about you or me, or about the relationship between us, to be an act of personal betrayal." A shudder went through my whole body at his words. "You do not want that to happen."

Then, of course, I was sent to the tiled room as His Mastership set off for work. At least I wouldn't be sitting on the hard floor this morning... and he didn't even bother to handcuff me.

And when I investigated my kitten bowl, I found that it had been filled with a mixture of chopped pieces of fruit and raw vegetables. It was pretty boring... certainly no mango... and a bit random because I couldn't use my hands... but it was miles better than yesterday's sludge. Hopefully that vile stuff was just a warning about how bad things can get if I'm not a good and well behaved kitten.