Chapter 16

Raven woke up feeling different. It wasn’t something she could put a finger on right away since she was still hung over from the sedative the man in the lab coat had given her. The substance still seemed to be playing tricks on her because something about the way her legs touched the table and the shape of her mouth seemed off. It wasn’t until she shifted around on the table and felt fur rubbing the wrong way that she realized something was seriously wrong. And when the red lights flicked on and she looked at herself in the suddenly bright light, she heard herself yowl instead of scream.

“As you can see,” said Dale Myers to Lana, “the subject is initially traumatized at its altered state. Jenkins, please help it calm down.”

Lana watched the lab geek click a few buttons on one of his screens and the commotion in the other room immediately ceased.

“Level one neural control confirmed,” he said.

“You wouldn’t believe how long it took to get just that far...” Dale mumbled under his breath. The Bobs, seated to Lana’s right, chuckled quietly to themselves.

“Increasing restraint range of motion and moving to neural control stage two,” said Jenkins as he clicked around on his workstation. In the other room, the cat-girl’s arms and legs raised and lowered robotically, the restraints still tight around her limbs but now paying out short lengths of chain to allow for movement. Testing went on for over an hour, each time introducing slightly more complex movement or combinations of movements. Some of the stages caused her to make various noises, from droning vowel sounds to cat-like meows to purrs. This last noise was something Jenkins thought of on a whim, wondering just how much feline anatomy had been introduced into the subject. He had to call it “stage 29b” to insert it into his list.

Sometimes the subject’s reactions would cause Jenkins to get a slightly worried look on his face but all the tests did seem to be passing. Once he mumbled, “that’s not quite as expected...”, but after Myers’ barraged him with questions, he kept any further comments to himself.

“ ... stage sixty-nine...” whispered one of the Bobs, and they both chuckled again.

“Did not copy that,” said Myers forcefully, “could you repeat gentlemen?”

They looked at each other slowly, trying to keep their faces straight.

“Bob here was engaged in speculation about, uh...” Bob faltered.

“I was positing that neural control stage sixty nine would permit me to have sexual relations with the subject,” the other Bob said, daring everyone else in the room to be embarrassed.

Jenkins kept his gaze fixed on his screens but turned a shade of red. Myers swiveled his head and looked at the geek with genuine curiosity. Lana looked out through the one-way mirror and said nothing. The cat-girl was still forcibly relaxed, breathing slowly, her breasts rising gently up and down.

“What about it, Jenkins, do we have adequate control over the subject to enable that behavior?” Myers asked.

“I think from a physical standpoint we don’t have that fine-grained level of control,” he admitted.

“Well not yet,” sighed Myers. The Bobs shrugged.

“But,” Jenkins continued, and then men all turned their heads in unison, “we should have adequate emotional control to make the subject amenable to ... that.” Out of the corner of her eye Lana could see he had turned an even brighter shade of red.

The Bobs high-fived.

“Excellent!” said Myers, turning toward the Bobs. “Proceed!”

There was a pause as everyone in the room tried to figure out if Myers had just said what everyone knew he was saying. Jenkins made an effort to close his mouth. Myers was looking at the Bobs.

“This will be an excellent demonstration of our capabilities, wouldn’t you agree?”

The Bob with the bright idea pointed at himself. “Me, sir?”

“You, him, both, what’s the difference? Get in there. Or are you not up to the task?”

Lana’s ears were on fire but she said nothing. If she was honest, she was wet at the thought of the Bobs in there with the girl. There had been something in the air since the transformation had completed. Even lying prone on the gurney, her every move was effortlessly powerful and sexy and all of their minds had been wandering around the same place. It just took a lunatic like Myers to walk right up to it.

“What guarantees do I have that the subject won’t eviscerate me?” asked Bob, no doubt thinking of the silvery glints they’d all seen at her fingertips.

Jenkins demurred. “Given our recent progress and the tests we’ve conducted, I feel fairly confident that--”

“Fairly--” the other Bob interrupted. Myers stared daggers at him.

“May I have a moment to confer with my partner?” said Bob.

“Granted,” said Myers, through his teeth.

The Bobs turned their backs on the others and whispered briefly. They turned around with stoic looks on their faces, inscrutable behind their sunglasses. They nodded.

“I should add, gentlemen, that we are performing a completely scientific experiment. As such, be advised that you are not to force the subject physically in any way. Verbal instructions and encouragement only. Is that understood?”

“Understood,” said Bob, and they exited the observation room.

Myers turned to Jenkins. “Do it,” he said.

Jenkins, visibly sweating, pushed a few buttons. Then he reached over to the wall toward the one-way mirror adjustment, but Dale snapped at him.

“Get your hand off of that control, Jenkins! I plan to observe their behavior very closely.”

With that Myers unzipped his fly and sat down in one of the chairs.

“I suggest you all do too,” he added.

Lana already had her hand discreetly in her pants and didn’t need to be told twice.

Raven’s shock didn’t wear off by itself, instead she had found her mind yanked away of this unfamiliar body. She became an observer, unable to control her movements or voice. This wasn’t entirely a bad thing, because it prevented her body from going in to a full-on panic attack and the crying, gasping for air, and loss of consciousness that might have followed.

Not being in control of her limbs or even her breathing, Raven started to feel like she was floating off the table and into the air. Her perspective receded upwards and she watched as her arms started to raise and lower themselves.

Her sense of calm was unnerving. Without a body to react, her emotions couldn’t rise to the level her brain knew they should be. Instead she was forced to just think. She had no idea what had happened after she was knocked out. (And was that hours before, or was it weeks ago? How long had she been gone?) The thing she was looking at, now, from ten feet off the ground, was roughly the same height as she was, but it was hard to find anything else familiar. Maybe her brain had been transplanted into a new body? Or perhaps she’d been hit with a powerful magical spell. The room’s decorations weren’t anything a magician would choose, though. She just didn’t have enough pieces of the puzzle.

Raven found herself gliding downwards toward the body, like being lowered on a rope. She was starting to regain conscious control of herself again. She found she could wiggle her head slightly and tried lifting her right arm gently. She succeeded, but suddenly she was yanked away again, back on the ceiling. As the experiments continued so did this pattern, drifting down and then getting pulled back up.

Jenkins adjusted the various hormone and cognitive parameters that he hoped would correspond with sexual arousal. It wouldn’t take long for the parameters to take effect. There was no need to fully detach her conscious mind as he had done during the testing stages. Simple violence-avoidance and submission rules would be enough. If anything went wrong he could run an emergency-stop macro that would halt any undesirable behavior.

The girl had passed all the physical tests with flying colors but he’d noticed some wear-off effect with the mental parameters. Every five minutes or so her brain patterns started drifting back toward normal and he had to keep reapplying the desired settings. He made a note to automate the process later. He also saved a copy of the entire parameter set. With any luck he could convince Myers to let him “evaluate the subject” too.

Raven blinked and found herself suddenly back in the feline body again. No gentle glide back this time. She also was starting to feel warm and anxious. Her ears pricked -- something they had never done before -- as she heard a motion in front of her. There was someone outside the door.

Before, when the door opened, it had clanged, but with her large new ears the metal boomed like a canon as the lock released. She tried to remain calm but she was starting to hyperventilate. Her arms started pulling at the restraints at her sides, her new claws scratching lightly at the material. She jerked back and forth on the short lengths of chain, glancing around the room at the corners, vents, obstacles, anywhere she could run and hide. Raven heard herself making a weird, low-pitched yowling noise.

The wedge of light appeared as it had before and two linebacker sized men in suits walked through the door. Raven’s body tried to contort into a shape it had never taken, her back trying to arch and her mouth stretching open impossibly. She heard herself hiss at the men and felt all the fur on her body stand up on end.

One of the men’s eyebrows twitched slightly upwards, betraying his surprise. Raven was still hyperventilating but she wasn’t feeling lightheaded at all. Her mind felt clear and aware of everything in the room at once. She locked onto the man’s eyes with an unblinking stare. He whispered in to his wrist but Raven could hear him clearly. The other man moved around behind her where she couldn’t see him.

“You sure she won’t bite, kid?” he asked. He glanced briefly at the other man as he got the response. He didn’t move for a good minute, probably listening for more information, before he crossed the room and approached the side of the gurney.

Raven felt a surge of energy as her right arm ripped out of the restraint, shredded from her involuntary scratching. It whipped out farther than she thought possible, heading straight for the man’s face. His head jerked back with a surprising lightning-quick reflex, but she still grazed his nose with one claw. A small line of red appeared. The man put on a show of looking calm, but Raven could smell him sweat. She liked the smell.

“Impressive, kitty.” He said, grinning. The smile didn’t look forced. “But are you sure you want to kill me? The lab geek informs me that kitty is coming up on her cycle shortly.”

Raven swung at the man again but he was well out of reach. At the same time she scratched furiously at the other restraint and tried pulling at it, but it suddenly seemed impossibly tough. She felt herself slowing down and began to feel lethargic. Her fur was no longer standing on end and her spine had relaxed. She lowered her arm and continued staring at the man. Raven wasn’t sure because of their sunglasses, but she suspected this was the man she’d serviced in the cafeteria. She dwelled on the memory for a moment and found herself admiring his hulking appearance.

“According to him,” the man continued, “cats, unlike humans, go in to heat periodically, at which time they become very ... receptive.”

He unzipped his fly and pulled out his dick. Raven heard him hold his breath, and he took a step closer to the gurney. She tried to swipe at him again, but all she could manage was a lame, clawless flick. He started stroking his cock, leaving his pants on, and she watched, enraptured, as it grew. Like the rest of him, it was thick and powerful.

“Rather than waiting for this period to occur naturally, he can induce it on command. Is pussy wet already?”

Raven knew the answer, of course. Her body was sending out signals and even her brain was beginning to listen. She knew her best chance of escape was right now, while she had an arm free and the man was vulnerable. A simple swipe of her claw and his guts would spill all over the floor. Escape just didn’t seem ... quite so urgent anymore. She stared at his cock, growing by the second and already dripping precum. She wouldn’t be able to break out of their control now. Maybe their control would wax and wane as it had before and she could find an opportunity when it was at its weakest. For now it was easier to submit to the growing ache between her thighs. She let her legs open as much as the restraints would allow and arched her back. She made a low sound, more like a human moan than the cat sounds she’d been making before.

The man’s head angled down slightly. “Now, are you going to be a good kitty?”

The cat’s head nodded, but it was Raven who said, “Yes.”

The man smiled wider as he removed his glasses. His eyes were dark, piercing, and knew what they wanted. She heard another zip as the other man undid his own pants behind her.

The man put his glasses on one of the moveable tables and began to undo his tie. His movements were methodical and unhurried.

“I know you want to be a good kitty because good kitties get their catnip.” His dick bouncing slightly when he said it. “But even though you’re being a very good kitty we need to get that arm back in the cuff.”

Raven felt herself meow in complaint.

“No cuff, no catnip!” he said, sternly, and nodded to the other man behind her.

The other man grabbed her right wrist but Raven didn’t even flinch. His grip felt oddly weak. Or was she stronger now? Her eyes were locked on the first man as he removed his shirt and pants, revealing the chiseled physique she’d been hoping for. She barely even noticed as the second man refastened the cuff to her arm, discarding the ripped section.

One he was done he moved around to the front, keeping his hand wrapped around her wrist, and she was able to get a look at him for the first time. She hadn’t heard it through the fog of her lust, but he had already stripped completely. He wasn’t quite as hulking as the first man and his cock was not quite as thick. But it was long, and Raven enjoyed watching him as he stroked his long cock. Long Cock and Thick Cock, that was the best she could do for names. That made her giggle in spite of some small part of her brain still devoted to logic. It was an exotic, musical sort of laugh.

“See?” said Thick Cock, “She likes being tied up, don’t you kitty.”

Long Cock moved his hand from her wrist up her arm, exploring the sensation of the fur. Moving upwards went against the grain and raised the fur, downwards smoothed it out -- a heavenly, silky sensation. Raven’s tail started spasming in response. It was really starting to get uncomfortable back there, hopefully they’d let her turn over eventually. Long Cock continued stroking her, petting her, moving his hand over her stomach, feeling the tight, defined muscles under black fur.

Thick Cock was more up-front and cupped her breast forcefully, discovering the circular whorl the fur created there. Her nipples were already just visible where the fur thinned at the peaks. Raven groaned and twisted towards his hand, her spine twisting in unexpected ways.

“Damn, with flexibility like that I bet she can eat her herself out!” remarked Long.

The hand on her stomach had moved to her thighs and Long stared intently at her cunt as his thumb stroked closer and closer to her wet lips. Using his other hand he started moving her ass toward the edge of the gurney. Thick played with the other breast and started moving his cock towards her face.

“You’re a good kitty, aren’t you?” asked Thick. “You know what’ll happen if you do anything bad...” Raven didn’t understand what he was worried about. She wasn’t going to try to escape until at least after he’d gotten her off.

“Because you got a lot of sharp teeth in there so you better be careful...”

“Is that a good idea?” asked Long, looking up. His fingers didn’t miss a beat, rubbing right next to her pussy lips now, and her ass strained for him to put his fingers in her even as her upper body still pushed her breasts against Thick’s hand.