by Jack Truxton
Now that would absolutely be an ironclad, irrefutable denial under Katsukami’s programming. There would be no way Annie could countermand it, not unless the cure had definitively worked.
It was Annie’s turn to freeze, her tail drooping a little as her ears fell a little. For a long moment, I feared the worst, as her blue eyes widened and dulled, something weird and wild going on inside her head. But then, the shine returned to her eyes, her tail recovered as the white tip began to shake, and her ears popped back forward attentively. I was about to ask what happened when suddenly, Annie leaned forward, her hands cradling my head as she planted a deep, warm kiss on my lips. I couldn’t stop myself as I pulled her into it, and we melted into each other for a long moment.
When we finally parted, I let out a long, contented sigh. “Wow, Annie, that was … amazing.” I arched an eyebrow as I grinned. “I guess we can be pretty sure your programming is broken now, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes!” she cried triumphantly, actually pumping her fist a few times in the air before settling down. “Milk and cream, I’ve been wanting to do that all day, Jake! But when you asked me to sit away from you this morning, something kept … shutting me down every time I thought about pouncing you,” she explained, staying right up next to me as if she didn’t want to be apart. “It was that nasty Katsukami programming. It inferred that you didn’t want me to kiss you or anything like that, but now …” She leaned forward, a seductive purr at the back of her throat. “I can … and there’s quite a bit more I want to do with you if you’d like.”
Well, it didn’t get any more conclusive than that. No matter how I wanted to analyze it, Annie had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was cured of Katsukami’s genetic limiters. She had not just countermanded my precise orders, but the more subtle, insidious controls that the company had put into place at the subconscious level. Our little gene splice had worked like a lucky charm. No, better than that, because you can’t put stock in luck, can you?
“Well, Annie,” I whispered back softly, “I’m not your Master anymore, so you’re in charge.” I smiled as I kissed her on the forehead, one hand sliding from her shoulders to scratch behind an ear. “Right now, I’m at your service, so whatever you want …” I meant every word I said and that I left unsaid. Annie was made to be a tool, a slave to the whims of her owners, and in this first moment of true freedom, I wanted her to have whatever she wanted.
“I want two things, Jake,” she said with a soft purr, her tail quivering like a plucked guitar string. “One can wait, but the other …” Her blue eyes caught my gaze and bored into me with mutual need. “I … I want to know love, real mutual love, not just a toy for my Master. You can give me that, can’t you?”
The want in her voice was strong, almost desperate. I didn’t know what else had happened to Annie with her old owner, what he might have done to her beside throw her away over the color of her hair, but it had left a hole in her heart. While I felt a growing desire to see old ‘Master Brenton’ and deliver him some solid payback for Annie’s sake, right then, I knew I could try to fill Annie’s needs.
Fortunately for both of us, those needs linked up very much with mine.
“I can,” I said with a nod. “I think I might have fallen for you the moment we met, and if I had any doubts about how much I cared, I think I got rid of those when I risked my life for you.”
Annie giggled, so close to me I could feel every shift of her soft body against mine, spiking my arousal. “I only hope I’m worth the trouble.” Though she was joking, I could tell that there was an edge of seriousness to her tone. “Just for being willing to do what you did for me, you deserve a happy life.”
Shifting my hands to let one rest on her hip as the other cupped her perfect chin, I raised her face towards mine. “You are, and we’re going to have a happy life, free and together.” To cut off any more worrywarting, I kissed her, not some quick peck or a smooch on the forehead. It was a burning, passionate kiss, and she melted against me under the fire of it. She tasted as she smelled, like sweet chocolate, and I knew I would never grow tired of it.
There wasn’t any need for more words. Everything important to that moment had been said. No, from there, it was roaming hands, fumbling buttons, and a surprisingly graceful dance of tangled bodies towards the bedroom. By the time we fell through the doorway, Annie had somehow managed to peel off my turtleneck, I had done the difficult work of getting those Daisy Dukes off (tails complicate some bedroom maneuvers, trust me), and the AutoHome sensors had decided to slide the bed back out.
Contrary to popular opinion, Wonder Kats don’t always land on their feet, especially when they have their hands full of a lover. Still, we landed on the bed safely, and neither Annie or I voiced a complaint, far too busy with getting the rest of our clothes dealt with.
I took a little work and coordination to get Annie’s button-up off, even though I’d have been content to get it open to free her magnificent breasts, while she had an easier time pulling my own pajama bottoms down so that I could kick them the rest of the way clear. My erection was throbbing, and I could practically feel the heat wafting off of her as I straddled the Kat. It was the first time I had seen Annie completely naked, so I took the moment I had to truly appreciate her beauty.
Now, I wasn’t unfamiliar with the female form. I’d had my share of college flings, though not as many as I would have liked, and I’d designed several Wonder Kat models, but none of that practice and theory matched up to Annie. Her flawless skin accentuated every perfect curve of her hourglass figure. The massive rise of her breasts, anointed with hard, pink nipples, sloped down into a lithe stomach before blossoming out to wide hips and long, sexy legs. Her tail curled beneath her and through her parted legs as her shining eyes looked up at me, a low mrowl building in her throat.
“Is … is there something wrong?” she mewed up at me, her hands curling into paws in front of her, a strange fear in her voice. “Is there a flaw you didn’t see, like Master … Mister Brenton?”
“That’s the craziest thing I have ever heard in my life,” I said firmly. “You’re absolutely perfect, Annie.”
Relief poured over her face as her hands darted upward, catching around my hips as her tail twined around my right leg like a third hand. “Then take me, Jake, take me now!”
As if I needed further prompting, she pulled me down towards her with hands and tail, and I went with the moment, lowering myself as I let her guide me home. Thrusting down as she arched her hips upward, I slipped inside of her, filling her up in one easy pump. It was almost like we were made for each other, her moan of pleasure music to my ears as I kissed her neck.
Our bodies moved in rhythm as I pumped my hips, Annie’s nails dragging down my back, leaving burning trails in my skin that only made my passion surge. Cupping one of her huge breasts in a hand, tweaking the nipple between my fingers, I cradled her head with the other, peppering kisses up from her neck towards her lips.
“Thank you,” she gasped out between yowls and moans, her breath hot on my face as her silky-soft tail stroked along my legs. “Thank you, Jake, for giving me this.”
My lips hovered just above hers, a grunt escaping me as I felt her tightening around me. “Think I should be thanking you, Annie, for sharing yourself with me, but let’s call it even.” Before she could object, try to thank me again unnecessarily, I pressed my lips into hers as I thrust as deep as I could go inside of her.
As her lips parted, the tips of her cute fangs scraped across my tongue deliciously, and her body tensed along with mine as we worked towards our mutual climax. There was more to the fire in my belly and my desire for more from Annie than her gorgeous body. She worked with me, met every thrust of my hips with her own, her near-tireless biodroid stamina matching my own newly enhanced endurance, and that only redoubled my pleasure.
It not only was the best sex of my life, but it also made the next best sex feel like I had been banging my penis flat between two hot rocks.
I really don’t know how long it took before first Annie and then I finally orgasmed, both of us doing our very best to hold it off for as long as possible, to enjoy every possible moment together. Finally, panting and sweaty, we pulled apart, flopping next to each other.
For a moment, all I could do was stare up at the ceiling with a stupid grin on my face, Annie rolling to press herself against my side. Her ears were drooping in content as her tail happily lashed through the air. I curled an arm instinctually around her, pulling her that much closer to me.
As the sweat cooled and our breathing slowed, her hand crept over my chest, tracing a line of heat up and down my body. “Jake?”
“Yeah, Annie?” I replied, twisting my head down so that I could see the top of her head, her cat ears perking back up with excitement.
“Would you be up to going again?” she mewed, her hand curling as it drifted down to my dick, which certainly seemed to be recovering gamely.
I grinned and took her up in my arms, turning towards her in the bed. “I thought you’d never ask!”
9
I would have thought it was a dream if I hadn’t woken up once more with Annie by my side, curled up more like a cat than a person, a little ball with her tail wrapped around herself. Smiling softly to myself, I sat up, rubbing my face as the faint night lights of San Francisco shone through the cracked blinds. Unfortunately, the spell was broken a moment later by the thing that had woken me up, the incessant chimes of the telephone app on my computer out in the front room.
I froze at the sound. To the world, I was supposed to be dead, so who the hell was on the phone? Had Katsukami found us? Would some of their goons in their SECURITY jumpsuits and Thunderbolt tasers be at the door any minute?
And then my rational brain kicked in. It was probably nothing, a telemarketer or bill collector that hadn’t received the news of my supposed demise. The dumbest thing to do would be to answer it because that would add another clue I was alive, which I had left enough of as it was. Sure, the supply purchase had been necessary, but …
I let the call ring through to voice mail. It wouldn’t hurt to check the app’s caller ID, see who it was. Also, I needed to get started on planning that safe future I had promised Annie. Thankful we’d grabbed some showers after round three, I slid out of bed, grabbed some fresh clothes, and got dressed. The cuts, the broken ribs, all that was gone save for some faint scars and some aches. I was healing as fast as a Wonder Kat, and that already got me to thinking about what to do about that larger problem.
Annie was still snoozing comfortably as I silently slipped out to the main room of my apartment. She needed her rest. After all, she had to have been in Reprogramming’s lock-up for at least a day, maybe more, and I somehow doubted she was well taken care of. While I didn’t have much in the material sense, I could give her a proper bed, real food, and the elixir of life, coffee, so I was going to let her indulge while I could.
Speaking of coffee, I started a pot before wiggling my mouse, waking up the workstation monitor. It came to life, the Wonder Kat Show wallpaper bright and happy in the background, and a list of missed calls in a prominent window along the right side of the screen. God, we must really have been tired … but considering what we had done before crashing, who wouldn’t be?
A few of the calls were innocuous enough, either from the ever-popular ‘Unlisted’ or a few local businesses that had done ad calls before. One call was from Mrs. Patrusky, no doubt to confirm the news report that I was, in fact, blown to a billion pieces so that she could gossip it around the neighborhood. The rest of them, though, worried me.
No, they weren’t calls from Katsukami or anything like that. It was four calls, each exactly an hour and a half apart, from a rather innocent sounding caller named Mario Romine. Most people wouldn’t even blink at that, but I sure did. See, Mario Romine was the full name of the cutthroat loan shark I had leveraged quite heavily for my student loans. The same loan that I had planned on paying with the paycheck that would normally be deposited this very day, well, if my job hadn’t exploded.
My first instinct was to freak out. Mario Romine was as legal as a three-dollar bill and would sooner break both your legs with a baseball bat as give you a loan extension. If he had called this many times and not gotten his money, I was going to get a visit from his collection crew. But then I got a handle on myself, sucking in a deep breath and refusing to panic.
The fact of the matter was, like Katsukami, as far as Mr. Romine knew, I was dead as a doornail. No doubt he was doing what Mrs. Patrusky was doing, calling to see if I was actually dead. I don’t care how much of a Godfather wannabe you were, you couldn’t squeeze a dead man for cash. Still, it reminded me that Annie and I needed to get out of here, find a new situation and a way to support ourselves under the corporate radar.
First things first. I pushed back with my feet, rolling my office chair over to the coffee machine. A mug of coffee and another quick push back to the computer followed, and I found myself marveling by the subtle boosts to this new body. Every movement was powerful and graceful, without a slip or spilled drop of coffee, even with my jittery office chair and uneven floors.
Taking a nice, long sip of that sweet bean, I brought up the genemod program and the saved formula for the Wonder Kat cure. I had bought enough raw materials for five attempts, just in case, which now meant that I had the makings of four doses of the cure. With all the hard work done by Annie and me earlier in the day, it was just an assembly line process now. Refilling the workstation’s material vats and loading a fresh injector, I set the program to work. With an hour, we would have the first doses of freedom-in-a-needle ready to roll.
I’d have to come up with a catchier name. After all, if I wanted a revolution, peaceful or not, it needed some snappy names and some good marketing. That was just the right way to get the world’s attention, right?
The bedroom door sliding open to give way to a very bouncy Annie shook me right out of my revolutionary dreaming.
“Good morning!” she cheered, any semblance of fatigue, worry, or anything else completely overshadowed by happiness. Ears up, eyes bright, and tail swishing merrily, she skipped right over to me, opting for a T-shirt that was way too tight in all the right ways and an altered pair of my boxers riding low on her hips.
I matched her smile, even as I filed away yet another need in the back of my mind. We both needed clothes, as my wardrobe just wasn’t going to cut it for the both of us.
“I think you mean good evening, but honestly, I don’t think it makes much difference.” Pointing with my own mug towards the coffee machine, I added, “Get yourself a fresh hot cup, and then we can try to figure some things out, now that you’re one-hundred percent more awesome than before.”
“Ooo, I do love a good cup of coffee,” she mewed with a feline grin, sashaying over to the kitchenette. “Are you hungry yet?” She blushed just a hint as she picked out a mug of her own. “Because I know I certainly worked up quite an appetite before we napped!”
“Well, you aren’t wrong about that.” My stomach seemed to come alive at the mere mention of hunger, so I nodded as I switched one filled freedom needle with an empty. “I’d love to have some of your cooking, assuming you can put something together with my pretty lackluster pantry. You mind if I chat at you while you work?” I shrugged a little, swiveling my chair to face her as she fixed her coffee. “I know some people really hate being yammered at while they work.”
Annie fixed her big blue eyes on me as she smiled sweetly enough to give a kid cavities and put a hand over her chest. “Oh, Jake, that is sooo thoughtful of you to ask! You know, the second I saw your eyes through that crazy hood thing, I knew you were a good person … not like my old Master. Not like Mr. Brenton”
“I’m not going to do the false humility thing, but still, thanks, Annie.” I raised a finger. “But that didn’t answer the question.”
“Milk and cream, how silly of me!” she said with a giggle, her tai
l twitching with delight. “Please, feel free to talk to me about anything, any time, except when I’m working on a patient! Then I need total concentration. That’s the Nurse Kat way!”
Programming or not, there was obviously a lot of Annie’s training and ‘education’ that had the patented Wonder Kat charm built into it. I didn’t mind, that’s for sure.
“Okay then,” I replied as Annie started to rummage through my cabinets, even though she knew every bit of my kitchen better than I did by this point. “You know, earlier, you said there were two things you wanted. We did the first.” I fanned myself a little with a grin. “Oh boy, did we do the first … but what was the second?”
Her back was to me as I asked that question, and my words made her tail stiffen just a little. The tenseness passed in the blink of an eye as she pulled down some canned goods. “I … Jake, this is going to be a lot to ask, but …” She looked at me over her shoulder, her expression pensive. “I want to do what you did for me … for my sisters. You know, give them a chance to be free, be safe.”
Before I could respond, she started gesturing a bit goofily, spinning her hands in front of her and occasionally waving at me as she rambled on. “Like, I know I’m asking for a moon made out of cheese here, and it’s not fair to ask this of you. But who else can I ask? You’ve already stood up to Katsukami once, and you seem to have Kat powers now, and you can break their programming. And you’re amazing at making love, which doesn’t really factor into this question except it hopefully makes you feel so good about yourself that you say yes!”
The phone app had started chiming sometime in the middle of her speech, but I muted it without a second glance. Another call from Romine, so I didn’t care two bits about it. Instead, I couldn’t help but sort of stare at Annie as every word spilled out of her mouth. Near the end of her impassioned speech, I managed to make heads and tails of it.