Quality conversation

*It's not fair,* said Shag as he and Sonic sat idling away time in the basement. *Why can't we go run and play all over the house all the time? I don't want to stay in here all day.*

*Well,* said Sonic, looking stoically at the younger cat, I'm down here because the humans just can't stand that I don't always like to pee in the litterboxes. That and the fact that at least one of the humans in charge won't allow any litterboxes in the general house. So we have to stay down here.*

*That's silly,* said Shag. *Why not?*

*Who knows why humans do anything?* said Sonic. *Most of'em are good for nothing, bumbling old scums.* And he meant it. Sonic felt he had plenty to be bitter about.

*But can't we change their minds?* said Shag. *I go run around the house still once in a while, and I also go into the Room with my parents and the girl.*

*I doubt anything's gonna change,* said Sonic. *Humans aren't out to serve us. Sometimes they really screw us over.*

Shag blinked innocently at Sonic. *But I love when the girl pets me and sings to me. She wouldn't screw me over. I know she wouldn't.*

Sonic fixed Shag with his crooked-face, orange-eyed gaze. *All it takes is one wrong human and you're screwed for life.*

*How?* said Shag.

*Take me, for instance,* said Sonic. *I peed in a few places they didn't like and poof, they brought me to the butcher shop they call the Vet. I went to sleep and when I woke up my testicles were gone.*

Sonic grimaced. *I never even got to trot out the things even once. I'll never be like my old tom...Bizkit, the legend. I knew him when I was a kitten, used to hear all about his conquests from my mother, always dreamed of following in his pawsteps. Not gonna happen now. Humans. And you never know just when or where it's gonna happen, either. They don't give you any warning.*

*The girl would never let anything like that happen to me!* Shag's fur stood on end.

*Just keep your ears and eyes open,* said Sonic. *Especially for what the older humans say. What they say often goes.*

*I say we start a....a....what's it called when a bunch of folks get together to try to change things?* said Shag.

*A campaign?* said Sonic.

Shag purred. *That's it, a campaign.*

*Good luck,* said Sonic.

*We can call it...Freedom in the House!* said Shag.

* * *

That evening the girl came down to the basement to pet, talk to, hang out with and comb the coats of Sonic and Shag. She found quite a few tangles in Shag's coat and wondered just what he had been up to all day.

Shag:

Me, my mom and my dad all lay on the bed together late last night. Dad licked my face for a little while while he lay there. He's really nice even if he can get annoying with the humping sometimes.

There's Dad and me!

This morning I lay in my bed on top of the kittening cage, before the girl went and put me down in the basement with Sonic for the day. She's going to work. I always wondered what work is...so I asked my mom.
*Mom, what's work?*

*It's when humans go away from the house in the morning and don't come back till it's dark,* said Tory.

*Why do they do that?* I said.

*No one knows,* said Tory. *Something great must be out there for them in the Beyond.*

The Beyond is where my sister and two brothers went, too. They went Beyond and never came back.

*~Shag

midnight run

Ace walked about the room quietly meowing to himself. Tory wasn't letting him mate and that always irked him whenever she didn't let him have his way. Yes, Tory was being bitchy with him. So Ace was going to punish her.

Ace saw her by the water bowl and made a dash at her. He chased her under the dresser, where she stayed, glaring at him balefully with her flame-orange eyes.

*Get away from me you pervert.* Tory stared at him. Ace was stronger than she was and if he wanted to, he could chase her around the room. But one thing he couldn't do was have his way with her when she was not in heat and not in any kind of mood for sex. It just wasn't going to happen.

Ace walked away, went onto the bed, groomed himself for a while, humped on Shag and then lay down for a rest. *Mission accomplished.* Ace had shown Tory who was boss--in a little way, at least.


Under the dresser, Tory sighed to herself. She knew spring was coming and her heats would return. She loved mothering kittens, but Ace was such a pain sometimes.

She watched Ace walk his fluffy cream-and-white rear end away and she came out from under the dresser and walked out into the Room once more. The girl petted her when she hopped on the bed. Tory purred her loud, loud purr. It was a purr that could be heard from across the room and one that she had given to her son Shag.

Ace wasn't done yet.

Tonight, I will keep control of myself, thought Ace as he grew more horny by the minute. Finally he couldn't take it anymore. Shag just looked so soft and...humpable...well, pretty much anything was humpable to Aceyboy, but right now, with Tory refusing his advances and the blankets just being so unresponsive and lacking in character, Shag was the obvious choice.

One more time couldn't hurt.

The fluffy tomcat hopped on Shag while he was reclining innocently on the bed. He began to hump on his son.

*Get off me!* Shag swatted at him and Ace, annoyed, stepped off.

Ace sat nearby, looking longingly at Shag. *I'm sorry.*


*You said that all the other times too.*

*I know.*

Shag went back to napping while Ace used the litterbox, which stunk up the room. Ace liked marking in the litterbox so that it stank up the whole room with the perfume of tomcat. He felt much more like he owned the place.

Later on he went back to Shag again.

*Gerr'off me!*

Ace got off and went back to the blankets and humped them for a little while, purring loudly. But he slowly made his way back over to Shag across the bed. Little by little, until he was on him again.

Shag gave him a good kick in the stomach. Ace hopped off. For now he was defeated, but he STILL wasn't done for the night...Ace had one more thing he wanted to do.

after hours

Shag scratched at the basement door. *Let me out!*

Sonic sat at the bottom of the fur-covered stairs and watched the half-grown kitten's antics. *You know what humans say about squeaky wheels.*


Shag stopped and looked down at him, *No...not really.*

The girl came and opened the door. Shag sprang out the door in a little fluffy flood of cream fur. The girl scooped up the Persian kitty and brought him into the Room.

The Room was where Shag liked to be. Here he could be with his mother, even though she didn't really love him anymore, he was sure, or even like him, probably. After all, she always hissed and swatted at him whenever he came too close to her.

And he could be with his father, even though his father often tried to hump on him. Shag found that most annoying.

*Hello there, Shag.* Ace strode over to his son and after sniffing his rear end for a while, proceeded to try and mount him.

Shag swatted him off. *Oh, don't start that again.*

*Sorry.* Ace tried to compose himself. It was so hard, really, since Tori wasn't in heat. What he really wanted was a nice, warm, furry, breathing cat under him. Humping the blankets really got old after a while.

Shag nibbled some food left over for breakfast, then relaxed on the floor by the scratcher and the waterbowl.


Ace climbed up on the bed and relaxed too. He wasn't done for the night.

evening

Sonic was thinking to himself as he lapped water from the white ceramic bowl in the basement. The rotund, fluffy red Persian thought, If I'm going to continue to be the b@d@ss cat in this house, I'm going to have to be a little rougher with the twerp.

Sonic had gone from hating to tolerating to even admitting a little bit of brotherly "love" for Shag. Still, Shag was growing bigger and Sonic hated to entertain the possibility of his becoming the bigger cat. Sonic was the biggest cat! He had to be, he was b@d@ss Sonic.




When the girl came down to the basement and brought out the toy on a string, Shag perked up and played with it. Sonic tried to play too, but Shag was a bit faster and a lot more enthusiastic. Sonic gave Shag a look. *So tell me, where do you get all that energy?*

Shag took another leap and swat at the toy. *I'm a kitten. Kittens have lots of energy.*

*I noticed.*

Shag eventually grew tired of the game and plopped down on his side, in the impromptu way that his father often did. *I wonder if I'm going to get slow and lazy like you when I get big?*

Sonic gave him the look that his mother had always used to put just about any other cat in their place. *Oh shut up.*