I Unintentionally Became Her Kitten

Chapter 1: The Day the Kitten was Found

The warm breeze pushed at my hair but did nothing to move the dirty mats. The sidewalk was firm beneath me but my butt had gone numb to it so long ago. It barely registered that I was sitting on the ground.

This was it. Darkness was falling, a dusky light painting the city buildings in oranges and browns and most people went home. The neighborhood, though, wasn’t a good one and some individuals were just now starting to come out, loitering on stoops and in the light of the corner mart. If I cared, I’d head back to the laundromat down the street. There were cameras so people tended not to linger too long, favoring the anonymity of the streets, and I would be left alone to get some sleep.

But I’d gone so numb, my eyes simply rested on the ground in front of me, not even shifting when people walked by. There was no point in fighting anymore. The best I could hope for was a police officer to throw me in jail so I could at least get three meals a day and some semblance of air conditioning. Summer was in full swing and the sun battered the streets relentlessly at midday.

There was also the possibility I’d get murdered. I wasn’t sure I’d struggle if it came to that. It wasn’t that I wanted to die as much as I felt an indifference to it at this point. The indifference was more terrifying than anything the streets might hide.

An unexpected sound reached my ears. It was the distinct clacking of heels against the sidewalk, making me look up to find a woman scowling fiercely as she passed by.

I pulled my feet in, clearing her path, but perhaps that was my mistake as she turned her head at the small motion and glared me down before stopping right in front of me.

My gaze wandered up. She was definitely a bit out of place here. Her hair was pin straight and bleached a blazing white. The clothes she wore were very clean and wrinkle-free. They were also more akin to business attire: a white blouse and dark blazer.

A man was with her, staying at her shoulder and following her gaze to me. He was more casually dressed, still clean but sporting a simple dress shirt and trousers that could pass as everyday clothing.

“Is something wrong, miss?” he asked the woman. He didn’t look at me much, which was most people’s reactions.

The woman crouched to look closer at me and at her companions anxious shuffle to get closer, waved him off dismissively, just receiving a fierce scowl in return.

I shrank away from them, unsure what they could want. People that got too close didn’t typically have good intentions. I had learned this the hard way. Even if they were friendly at first, there was usually a dagger hiding somewhere.

My head turned and I cast my gaze back to the ground, letting the mess of my hair fall between us so she could see my face clearly.

“You look like you want to die,” she stated. Her voice was calm and entirely neutral, despite her continued frowning.

If this was all life had to offer, I didn’t care much to keep surviving, that much was true.

A smile pulled at a corner of her lips and she looked behind her at the man.  “Could you pull the car around?” she asked him.

He hesitated, not wanting to leave her side, but after some consideration, he nodded. “Yes, miss,” he agreed and continued walking down to the corner. 

The young woman’s gaze shifted back to me and she took an awkward crouched step to be closer to me.

If I ignored them, they’d go away, I thought. The people who thought I needed to be helped by being lectured about the meaning of life and everything tended to leave once I made a point to not engage.

A couple fingers gently picked up a clump of my hair, making me flinch back.

“Leave me alone,” I managed. My voice was hoarse from disuse and dehydration. I’d spent the entire day sitting on my corner here and hadn’t bothered to seek water.

“You’re in bad shape,” she observed. Her fingers pushed past my hair and ran under my chin. She pulled my face toward her, forcing me to make eye contact. Her eyes were a fierce gray-blue that chilled me to the bone. Some instinctive part of me knew they’d seen terrible things, but those things had sharpened her gaze, not dulled it. I blinked a little, wishing that had been what happened to me. But I relented. I was here and dirty and one step away from any number of deaths. Now this woman in fitted clothes and well-applied makeup was trying to talk to me. I couldn’t imagine a benevolent reason why.

A glistening black SUV pulled to a stop behind her, making very little sound for a vehicle that big. The glossy sheen stood out in this neighborhood of old sedans and rusting out work-vans. The woman did too. She was too clean and too neat to belong here. Her hair was in a shade of white that I suspected she paid a lot of money for. Most people stopped at ‘platinum’ but she’d gone all the way to white. Her roots, though, were left black.  Someone who was a skilled professional handled it, I was sure. And probably handled it frequently. 

The bodyguard came around from the driver’s side, and opened the rear passenger door, expectantly.

“I’d like to bring you home,” the woman told me.

I blinked, and stared at her.

She stood, towering over me as she was a rather tall girl, and wearing heels, and I was huddled on the ground. Her hand extended down to me. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

I hesitated. My survival instinct said not to do this. But my survival instinct also had nothing on the massive sinkhole of hopelessness. There was a chance she had good intentions. I doubted it… but my situation couldn’t get much more miserable than it currently was.

I stood of my own accord, still wary of her. Her hand retracted back, seeing I wasn’t going to be taking it.

I held myself a little, wishing I could have the comfort of a nice blanket, but I had lost even that a while ago. I literally only had the clothes on my back and a few dollars cash someone had handed to me wordlessly.

She made a gesture to the back seat of this SUV; a Catalyst Escapade, I saw, which was a luxury SUV. I swallowed and climbed in, finding the step up a bit troublesome. I hadn’t missed the tint on the rear windows that made the glass practically black.

The door was shut behind me as I got settled and stared at the interior a little. It was black and impeccably clean. The scent was also a subtle fresh scent. The seat beneath me was a soft, almost silky-feeling leather. I froze up a bit, trying to shrink into myself as much as I could. I was dirty. I had been sitting on that sidewalk all day, which meant there were probably little bits of dirt and gravel and generally everything that got stuck to the bottom of people’s shoes. I also probably smelled like a homeless person… because I was a homeless person.

The woman got in the front, which seemed to have her guard (driver?) a tiny bit confused, but he made peace with the development quickly and said nothing. 

The vehicle started with a slight vibration and then went back to being almost silent. When the driver pulled away, there was a continued smoothness and quiet to the ride. It became apparent this was the standard for this vehicle. It was an expensive vehicle. I looked across the bench seat. There was no sign of any mess. It was more like this was a brand new vehicle. Part of me believed this, but I also knew the smell of a factory-fresh vehicle. This one was simply maintained like-new.

Golden hues and glints shined off the woman’s hair as the sun hit it. It was quite pretty, to be honest. It made me feel even more poor and dirty.

I realized shortly into the ride that I should try and keep track of where we were going, so I could find my way back if or when I needed to. We were travelling through the city, sliding along the roads with more smoothness. The window glass was pretty dark even from the inside. Eventually the urban streets were replaced with suburban pockets of houses, and then those turned into deciduous forests with occasional houses hiding amongst them.

The SUV turned onto what I thought was a sideroad but once we rounded a bend and I could see around the trees, I realized it was actually a really, really long driveway. There was a house there. At least, I thought it was a house. It was built in a very modern style, with lots of flat walls and the windows had no frames. The material it was built with was… concrete? Plaster? Something that had been smoothed out. The lower floor windows I could see into but there was an upper floor where the windows were opaque looking with a black tint.

I swallowed. This was definitely a very wealthy person. The house wasn’t extravagant or excessively big, but it was definitely posh.

Well… at least I’d die in a nice basement. I didn’t trust this woman’s intentions. There was no reason for her to want to bring me here, unless she wanted to gain something from it. Which maybe could be some twisted satisfaction from murdering me. Rich people were into some weird stuff. She had a particular glare she could cast on things, I noticed, which was terrifying. Even without being subject to it directly, it made my neck hair prickle uneasily.

She slid out of the front seat and came to open my door, offering a hand again. I took it this time, finding her skin very soft. There were questions about why she wanted me here, but fighting at this point would only make my situation worse. The sensation of her skin against mine made a weird, conflicted feeling settle into my gut. When was the last time I’d touched another human being? When was the last time someone willingly touched me with good intentions?

She led me to the front door as her guard/driver pulled the SUV around to the side and evidently into a garage as it slid out of my view.

Like the windows, the front door was glass and felt almost nestled into the wall. She unlocked it and opened it, a gentle sucking sound accompanying the action.

Her guard came around from another door once we were in the foyer area, which was surprisingly small and oddly shaped like a trapezoid. The floor even had my reflection in it, polished to a shine. There were grey brown mats in what was once my blonde hair. My face was similarly tinged with the filth color and my eyes had dark circles under them from the constant stress. I didn’t need to look closer to know my clothes were in even worse condition: torn and smelly.

“Watch the door,” she told her guard, who frowned at the order but he settled his posture to do so.

Then she looked at me.

I didn’t like the way her eyes could pick me apart like that. She was pretty but her gaze had such an edge to it. She felt like an embodiment of, ‘if looks could kill.’

“Come with me,” she ordered.

I hesitated, glancing down at my shoes, but she didn’t bother taking hers off. I shuffled to follow her, folding my arms around me again. The foyer and hall were brightly lit and we passed by a n open doorway into a dining room, which was connected to a kitchen. Most of the surfaces glistened or shined or generally were too clean. My brain was kind of associating them with museum glass; things that should not be touched. She continued past a staircase, with a handrail topping more glass panes that served as its banister, and then took a right into a door.

I followed, seeing her flick a light switch on as she passed through. This was a bathroom, I recognized. But it was a fancy bathroom. The floor flowed straight into the lower part of the wall, made from a clearly expensive kind of stone. Maybe marble, but I wasn’t a geologist. I could just see the bits of sparkling crystal embedded in the tiles, and the feeling under my feet was definitely rock. It would hurt to slip on these floors. Or get pushed down on them.

“Sit,” she ordered. 

I looked around. There was a plush chair set up between two counters, facing a large mirror that covered the wall. She wouldn’t want me getting my filth on the cushions there, so I started to fold my legs up beneath me to sit on the floor.

“In the chair,” she clarified, turning to stare at me from the corner of her eye.

I swallowed and pulled it out a little to get settled, feeling the cushion push back against me as I put my butt down on it.

“What’s your name?” she asked me.

I watched her warily as she opened a glass door into a back area of the bathroom and started running the water in a large tub. It looked kind of like a jacuzzi, there were bubble jets and things in it like that, but there was also a boxiness to it that I didn’t really associate with jacuzzis or hot tubs. It had a more bathtub feel to it. She finally paused to give me an expectant look, waiting for an answer.

I turned back to see my filthy self in the mirror, and instead cast my eyes to the floor, admiring a little, how much the tiles sparkled. I knew it was rude to ignore the question, but I didn’t understand her motives.

What did she want with me? She was running the bath, yes, but was that for her? Or for me? To drown me or to lure me in to assault me?

And the chair? Did she want me at a more comfortable angle to slit my throat or something?

I saw her texting on her phone. Her nails were well manicured but kept very short and plain. 

And then she looked up at me again.

I snapped my gaze away, trying not to set off any anger in her. Then there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” the young woman told whoever was on the other side.

The door then opened and another, older, woman poked her head in.

“Hello,” she greeted and then pushed the door open more to let the rest of her body follow her head. “Is this the darling?” she asked and let a large black bag drop on one of the counters. She then approached me and reached out with her hands. 

My heart raced and I attempted to lean away from her, feeling the entire chair start to tip as I threw my weight too fast and too hard. 

Oh god, the floor was going to hurt to fall on. I started to curl up to shield my head at least, but the young woman’s hand grabbed the back of the chair and with a surprising amount of strength, pushed it upright again, leaving me to hold on to the armrests as she did so.

“She’s a bit skittish,” the young woman explained.

The older one nodded, looking embarrassed. “I see.” this time, as she addressed me, she didn’t try to touch me. “My name’s Stella,” she told me instead. She offered a hand for me to shake. “I’m supposed to be doing your hair today,” she explained.

I stared at the hand extended between the two of us and very slowly took it, settling for a single up and down motion before retracting again.

Stella gave me a friendly smile. “May I examine your hair?” she asked.

I hesitated again, but nodded, allowing this. My hair was indeed quite a mess and the young woman was continuing to scrutinize me.

With my permission this time, Stella picked up some of the mats to examine them. The young woman went about gathering a few items from the drawers and a cabinet in the back. She took out washcloths and towels and a brand new hairbrush which she set on the counter for Stella. 

“I think I’ll have to cut this quite short,” Stella determined. “It’s been matted pretty badly.”

I waited for the younger woman’s input before I realized she’d been talking to me.

“May I cut these mats out of your hair?” Stella asked more clearly.

I nodded again. I didn’t understand why I was receiving this treatment. 

“And then I can give you a pixie cut, if you’d like.”

I blinked, not understanding what that would be exactly. She pulled her phone out and started to tap her fingers against the screen quite quickly before turning it to show me.

“Like this,” she explained.

The style was very… stylish, I supposed. But I didn’t know. It wasn’t the kind of thing I had much experience with. I’d never put much effort into my hair, and I wasn’t sure if I really wanted other people sticking their fingers in it. The mats needed to go, I knew that at least… but…

I opened my mouth but there was no sound that came out.

“Why don’t you just get it clean and untangled for today?” the young woman asked. She had taken to leaning against the counter, phone in hand and scrolling through messages. “We can worry about styling later.”

Stella’s mouth curved downward distastefully. “I suppose…” she agreed. “Something is better than nothing.”

There was still a great deal of anxiety in me as Stella picked up some scissors and a comb and started to try and tug out some of the tangles. I winced here and there as it was aggressive and outright hurt sometimes, but I tolerated the pain. I still didn’t know why these people wanted to do me any favors. Stella started to cut out the untangleable parts of my hair, letting the clumps fall to the floor with some soft plops. I stared down at them. They looked a lot like roadkill and were dead for sure. The filth color was deep in them, and it was hard to tell that they were human hair at all and against the clean stone, the filth looked even more appalling. 

I looked to see the young woman continuing her phone activities. She was doing a lot of scrolling through long blocks of text, based on how her eyes kept moving. There was a bit of a reflection in her eyes, though I couldn’t make out much detail. She was also typing intermittently. I could only assume she was texting.

Stella grabbed a spray bottle from her bag and started to spray down my remaining hair. A smell started to leech into the air as she did so, making me wrinkle my nose. I knew that smell as my own human body odor mixed with mildew and something that might’ve been mold.

The young woman looked up at this, seeing my clumps of roadkill on the floor and Stella aggressively tugging on the snarls still, only releasing more and more of that gross odor into the air.

Stella finally directed me to stand and go over to the sink. The young woman stepped out of our way for us to do so and watched with some amount of curiosity as Stella pulled some gloves on  and guided me to lean back so she could shampoo my hair. The gross smell improved after the first wash, but she repeated the process again, scrubbing even more thoroughly along my scalp  before rinsing it down and then having me straighten myself back out. She put some more product in, combing it through and letting it sit in there a bit as she peeled her gloves off and washed her hands in the same sink. 

I didn’t think my hair had ever been more thoroughly cleaned and after the product had its time to soak in, she rinsed it out as well before toweling my hair until it was only damp.

The young woman gave me another look over as Stella finished up by brushing the now short remains out.

“I think that's all clean,” Stella announced. She put her hands on her hips, looking proud of herself. I found myself staring at my own reflection. My hair was a dark blonde at the moment, but when it was dry I’d probably be back to a golden color. My skin was still gross, though. It was a strange contrast of clean and dirty, not just visually but by feeling, too. My hair felt so light against my scalp, and I didn’t entirely understand why it felt quite so different until I saw the sink. There was a darkish sludge coating the bowl of it, in a very gross color. 

That was what was in my hair? That was disgusting. No wonder it had smelled so bad.

Stella tried to rinse it down with hot water but it wouldn’t budge.

“You’re fine to go whenever you’re ready,” the young woman told her after giving my hair a quick examination. “I’ll pay you the usual.”

Stella scrubbed the sink briefly with some paper towels and removed most of the gunk before packing up her things again.

“Have a good night,” she bid us farewell and slid back out of the house.

The young woman took a deep breath and turned her focus back to me, picking up my hands to examine my nails before getting a nailbrush and scrubbing them. This wasn’t exactly a pleasant feeling, but I saw the dark crescents of dirt and grime coming out so I tolerated the treatment.

She then pulled my shoes off, finding my damp socks reeking inside.

I saw the dry heave, though she hid it quite well and went to find something, a plastic tub for feet and filled it with warm water and a cleaner that smelled quite floral. 

She then put my feet in this water and waited a while, letting them soak.

I wanted to ask why she was doing this, but still couldn’t find my words.

As my feet soaked, she started sudding up a washcloth with more cleaner and turned my face to look at her. She leaned forward, examining my skin. In doing so her shirt fell open a bit and I could see straight into her cleavage.

I averted my eyes. Her breasts were quite pleasing, pale and cradled against her chest in a lacey type of bra, but I didn’t want to embarrass her. Still, my face flushed and I hoped my layer of filth would hide the pink tinge. I pretended I didn’t just see that, and even if I had, that I didn’t like it.

She started to scrub out the less accessible areas of my face, like my tear ducts where quite a bit of crustiness was, and along the sides of my nose. Then she scrubbed every inch of my skin she could platonically clean. Along my hands and forearms, and then she pulled my feet free of that nice smelling water and scrubbed them down with more soap before scrubbing out under my toenails with that nail brush. 

“Alright,” she said and dumped the water into the sink. “You should take a shower,” she explained and pointed to where a shower head was mounted to the wall next to the large bathtub that was still circulating its water around. “And then you can soak in the bath for a while.”

She stared at me as I gave her my blank expression. I wasn’t sure I would understand why she was doing this until it was too late.

“You don’t want to tell me your name?” she asked.

I shook my head.

Her expression softened a little. “Well,” she said finally. “I never did tell you mine. I’m Alisha. This is my home and I want you to make yourself comfortable here.”

I continued to question the motives. A sinking feeling was starting, ever since she had taken an interest in my appearance. Surely not, though. One woman would not sell another into sex slavery or anything like that, right?  But I didn’t know. Humans were such fucked up creatures.