Residents of the upper floors of the condominium paid a high price for the security they enjoyed. Only through the use of a specially designed elevator key were they allowed access to their individual floors. Uninvited guests were unheard of. Yet, the sound of the tone announcing the arrival of the elevator at their front door shattered that sense of security for Akemi and Koneko.

"What is the meaning of this?" Koneko heard her Mistress shout from the other room. "Edward! What have you..."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am! They forced me to, oww! Fuck!" Koneko recognized the voice of the man who had shown them into the conference rooms earlier. It sounded as though he had been struck. Hard.

"Shut the fuck up!" a man shouted. "Listen, lady, we'll have that dagger now. Hand it over and we'll leave you unharmed."

"I told you earlier I don't know what item you're talking ab..." a loud smack could be heard from the bedroom and Koneko gripped the door in fear. Had her Mistress just been slapped?

"Don't fuck with me, bitch," the man growled.

Koneko could hear movement and the sound of her Mistress in some sort of distress. She wanted to run out and help her, but she wasn't sure if she should, and besides, she was still naked. She sprinted silently over to the closet and found another one of Akemi's robes and slipped it on. There was more movement outside the bedroom and then suddenly the door burst open and one of the men that Koneko recognized from the auction entered.

"The other one is in here!" he shouted down the hall. Moments later, four more men came down the hall, pushing Akemi along with them, and crammed through the doorway.

"Nice!" the man who had talked to them in the auction room said. He looked at the disheveled bed, and said, "Having a little party in here, were you? A little lesbo celebration after scoring a big payday?"

The man walked over to where Koneko was standing and grabbed her roughly by the hair. To his surprise, her blonde wig came off in his hand. "What the...?"

In that moment, Akemi's right leg flew upwards with incredible speed and her foot landed squarely on the jaw of the man in front of her, knocking him backward. This action prompted Koneko to rotate quickly on the man behind her and land an elbow on the side of his face. She swung her foot around in an arc and knocked his leg out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor. One of the other men rushed in to attack Koneko, but was tripped up by Akemi as he passed. Koneko regained her balance in time to land a hard kick into the falling man's stomach. He dropped to the floor, landing awkwardly on top of the man she had just drop kicked. She kicked that man again in the jaw and it looked like she may have knocked him unconscious.

Koneko's quick actions momentarily surprised her. Where had she learned to do that?? In the seconds that she was distracted one of the men still standing rushed her and drove her hard into the wall. Her head hit the wall with a resounding thud, and she sank to the floor.

"Koneko!!" Akemi shouted. The man turned on her but was met immediately by Akemi's foot between his legs. He dropped to the floor, clutching his crotch.

Akemi rushed to where Koneko sat, dazed, against the wall. "Are you okay, darling?" she asked, holding her pet's head between her hands. Koneko's eyes were closed tightly and she was grimacing in pain. When her eyes opened she looked up at Akemi, clearly dazed and somewhat confused.

Akemi's concern for her pet was obvious. "Are you okay?" she repeated, just as she heard a sound behind her. She turned to see the last man able to stand was directly behind her and about to bring his fist down on her head. She had been caught completely off guard, but Koneko reacted in time to protect her. Her leg shot out and struck the man squarely on his kneecap, resulting in a loud snap and a cry of anguish.

"I'm okay, Akem...Mistress," Koneko replied as she began to lift herself off the floor. The man with the crushed testicles began to rise but rather than continue the attack, he made a hasty retreat from the room.

More noise came from the front room leaving Koneko to wonder if there were more intruders out there, but moments later five armed Security personnel from the high-rise cautiously entered the room, weapons drawn. They quickly subdued the beaten men and hauled them from the room just as the building manager arrived.

"I'm so sorry about this, Miss," he said. "We were alerted to the situation by Edward's security beeper. He set it off in the elevator."

Akemi glanced towards the hallway door. "How is he? Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine, don't you worry," the manager replied, reassuringly. "Of course, the police will want to interview you."

"No!" Akemi blurted out, and then more calmly, said, "I don't think it's necessary to involve the police in this little drama, do you?" She subtly changed her stance to allow her bare thigh to be revealed in the slit of her short robe. Her voice was as silky as her robe as she continued, "It wouldn't look good to have police cars with their light flashing parked in front of our building, now would it?" The building manager was already shaking his head while trying not to be obvious in his glances towards Akemi's bare flesh. "Besides, I doubt those fools would be so stupid as to come back here."

This brought a smile to the man's face. "I doubt it, too. But to be safe, I'll post extra security at the elevators and building entrances. The safety of our residents is our primary concern."

"Of course, of course," Akemi cooed as she gave Koneko a wink and walked towards the elevator with the building manager. Koneko followed at a distance, watching how her Mistress flirted and coddled the man, all to ensure that the cops weren't called to investigate the home invasion.

The auction earlier was not the first time Koneko had seen the bounty that her Mistress had stored in her secret closet compartment. She had asked her once where it all came from and was told not to concern her little kitty brain with it. Akemi obviously had a day job, and a well paying one at that, but that was not the source of her collection of artifacts. The items seemed to appear on nights when they played bondage games; when Akemi had tied her up and left her hooded and helpless. She was never gone for long, and the sex afterwards was always hot and steamy. She had come to realize that whatever her Mistress was doing to obtain the items excited her immensely.

But now...now there was no doubt in her mind that Akemi was a burglar. The question was, did that really matter to her at this point? Conflicting emotions were tugging at her consciousness but the image that crowded out all of the others was that of Akemi cradling her head in her hands after she had been pounded into the wall. The look in her eyes...the concern...the emotion of seeing a loved one hurt, touched her deeply. And her own reaction as Akemi was nearly blind-sided by that asshole; she had acted instinctively, protectively. He was not going to hurt her Mistress!

Standing at the end of the hallway, observing Akemi escort the building manager to the elevator, Koneko considered how her love for her Mistress had been based on a presumed previous love these past months. The difference now was that she felt it deep inside, and she also knew that it was a love beyond any she had ever known.

As the elevator door closed, Akemi turned to see Koneko watching her. She hesitated briefly, and then smiled. But it was an odd smile; a smile one puts on as a cover.

"Kon'nichiwa, Koneko-chan," she said curtly, her lovely eyes squinting slightly as she watched for her kitten's reaction.

Koneko paused for just a second and then sank to her knees. She leaned forward onto her hands and moved forward to rub against Akemi's legs.

"Come, kitty," Akemi said as she set out down the hallway towards the bedroom. Koneko obediently followed closely on her Mistress' heels. Once in the bedroom, Akemi pointed at a spot in the center of the room and said, "stay!"

The tone in Akemi's voice was unsettling. What was it?

The oriental woman went to an armoire against the wall and opened the doors. The interior of the large cupboard held an assortment of fetish gear, most of which Koneko was acutely aware of. As much as she wanted to look up to see what Akemi was doing, she resisted, instead keeping her head and body motionless. When next she saw Akemi's legs and feet, she also saw the dangling ends of one of her floggers.

"I don't recall giving you permission to wear my robe. Are you just doing as you please now Koneko?"

Fuck! That would explain the change in Akemi's mood alright. Koneko opened her mouth to apologize, but of course what she said instead was, "Meow, meow!"

"You agree that you should be punished, right?"

"Meow."

"And the punishment should be severe, right?"

"Meow!"

"Good! I'm glad we are thinking alike on this matter. Let me just help you with this first..." Akemi lifted the hem of the short silk robe towards Koneko's head, worked it over her brown hair, and down her arms. Koneko obediently lifted each arm to allow her Mistress to pull the robe free.

Naked, on her hands and knees, Koneko awaited the sting of her Mistress's whip, but was surprised when she felt the woman kneeling next to her. Koneko felt something cold, metallic, being laid on her back and then inhaled quickly as her bare back was massaged by Akemi's warm hands. Those hands wandered aimlessly from her shoulders to her butt, and then down her legs. One hand came up between Koneko's legs and traced along the kneeling woman's sex while the other reached under her to palpate her breast.

Moving from one breast to the other, Akemi was not gentle as she mashed her pet's flesh roughly in her hand. The fingers of her other hand entered her pussy and pressed inward.

"You enjoy this rough treatment, don't you, pet?"

The truth was, Koneko did enjoy it. She liked the rough sex that Akemi administered. She liked being fingered. She liked being tied down and forced to orgasm, and to pleasure her Mistress while bound. She liked it all.

"Meow," was all she could say in response, though.

Akemi leaned over and wrapped her arm around Koneko so that she could grasp her breast from the other side of her body. Her fingers worked their way down to her nipple where they held Koneko's stiffening bud. With her other hand, Akemi released the spring loaded ends of a clover nipple clamp.

Cringing from the sharp sting, Koneko remained still and silent. She knew a second one was going to be used on her, and moments later a tightly gripping clamp hung from her other nipple. 

While the clamps held Koneko's nipples firmly within their grasps, it wasn't overly painful. Akemi seemed determined to change that as she hung three small round weights on the rings attached to the ends of each clamp. The additional weight pulled on the clamps, causing them to tighten slightly.

"There you go, you naughty kitty," Akemi said as she stood up. "Now don't be moving too much or you know what will happen..."

Yes, she knew. The clamps would tighten on their own. The additional weight would magnify any movement and assist the butterfly mechanism in tightening its grip. Koneko steeled herself for what was to come, but still twitched a little when she felt the weight of the suede flogger tresses resting across her back.

"Anything you'd like to say, kitten? Speak up now."

Speak up now? Like...talk...with words? Or meow? Koneko knew her Mistress would expect to hear meows. So what was she after? An apology, most likely. Would that avert a whipping? Probably not.

"Meow! Meow!"

"I'm not convinced," Akemi said as she swung the flogger handle downward to deliver the first blow.

Whap! The flogger's thick tresses made for a heavy strike. The suede was rough, which would cause Koneko's skin to redden quickly.

Whap! Whap! Two more strokes and then the kneeling woman felt Akemi's free hand touch her back where the flogger strands had landed. Her fingers traced downward towards her waist and then back up again. She was feeling the warmth of her skin to determine if her strokes were landing completely where she intended. Even when she was being punished, Koneko knew her Mistress would not injure her by allowing the flogger to strike in the area of her kidneys. Whether or not she would flog her long enough for her endorphin level to build up she would have to wait and see. This was a punishment, after all.

Having determined that her aim was good, Akemi began laying on a methodical flogging of her pet's bare back. Koneko could see that Akemi's feet were set, and felt the intensity of the whipping increase. The heavy stresses stung as they struck her, and made her jerk involuntarily each time. She tried to control her reaction to reduce the effect that motion had on the weights suspended from the clover clamps biting into her nipples.

Whap! Whap! Whap!

As the flogging continued, Koneko's mind began to wander. She first considered that should Akemi ever want to cease being a burglar, she could make a good living as a Dominatrix. Then she wondered which career Akemi had first: burglary, or whatever she did during the day. Which career path was supplying her with the most income? Which was more fulfilling? Oh god! The constant stroke of the suede straps across her back, along with the pinching of her nipples, was making her so hot!!

Koneko noticed Akemi shift her feet a little and then felt the flogger land in a slightly different spot, a little higher up on her back.

Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! The beating continued anew. The strokes were hard, but still not so painful that she couldn't take it.
           Thoughts drifted likes clouds through her mind. She wanted to take it!
                       She wanted to accept whatever punishment Akemi wished to deliver.
                                  I trust my Mistress, I love my Mistress, I trust my Mistress...

It almost seemed silly to be reciting her mantra now, but it came to her, and she began to repeat it. Maybe it helped keep her mind off the swinging weights pulling punishingly at her tender nipples. Maybe it kept her mind off the heat that was building between her legs.

Whatever the reason, it allowed her to zone out to the extent that she didn't realize when the flogging had finally stopped. Her mind was overwhelmed with the euphoria the secretion of endorphins had created. In fact, she wasn't aware that Akemi had thrown her whip on the bed and had sunk to the floor to guide her to a supine position.

"Nekorobe, Koneko-chan," her Mistress' gentle instruction to roll onto her back filtered through. Feeling Akemi's hands directing her movements, Koneko complied, sinking slowly to the soft carpet, her head coming to rest in Akemi's lap.

It took several minutes to come down off her high, and having experienced Akemi's special means of punishment several times in the recent past, Koneko knew she would no longer be in the mind-set of a cat at this time. She realized, for the first time, that it was Akemi's greeting that caused her to react as she did, and that it took the command to stand up, or some physical trauma such as a punishment, to return her to a "human". Bit by bit, things were starting to make sense to her, including the real purpose of Dr. Ito's visits. 

Akemi sat and stroked her pet's hair for a moment and then reached down to release the clover clamps that still hung from Koneko's nipples. She gently massaged the flesh around her areolas to assist in circulating blood into those sensitive areas.

"Are you with me again, kitty?" Akemi asked, looking down into Koneko's eyes.

She was with her, and with her more surely than ever before. "Yes, Mistress," she replied softly. The clarity of her mind was giving her lots to think about, and she lay quietly on the plush carpet turning those thoughts over in her mind. Her thoughts were interrupted by the 'ding' of the elevator arriving on their floor.

"What the hell? Again?!" Akemi lamented. "I don't believe this!" The irritated woman gently scooted out from under Koneko's head and rose to her feet. "Stay here, Koneko," she said as she picked up her robe and slipped it on. She turned back towards her pet and put her finger to her lips in a sign that she should be quiet, and then pointed her finger at the floor and jabbed the air, making it clear that Koneko was to stay put.

Seconds after Akemi left the room, Koneko heard a man shout, "Police! Hands in the air, now!"

Police! What do I do now?!  Several scenarios of obvious choices flashed through her mind as she quickly analysed the consequences and strategies of each. What outcome did she really want to see play out? The police were sure to find her in the bedroom at any moment, whatever she was going to do, she needed to act immediately. It really only came down to two choices, and she made her decision as she ran to the armoire to rummage it's kinky contents.

Less that a minute later, two members of the Criminal Apprehension Bureau pushed their way through the doorway with their weapons drawn.

"Shit!" one of them exclaimed as he saw a naked woman, bound, on the bed. "In here, Agent Conners!" the man shouted down the hallway.

Moments later C.A.B. agent, Miles Connors, rushed into the room. "It's her...my god! Jade!" The agent motioned for the two officers to step back as he pulled up the comforter to cover his fellow C.A.B. agent. He went around to the other side of the bed to work on removing the handcuffs from Jade's wrists and ankles. He winced when he saw the red stripes across her back and realized how badly she had been abused by her captor. He hurried to free her wrists and then went for the gag when Jade began to try and speak to him.

"Oh, thank god you finally found me, Miles!" Jade said. "Give me the key...I can do the rest." Jade Vesta, one of C.A.B.'s top operatives took the key from her partner and unlocked the cuffs from around her ankles. Slipping off the bed, she ran, naked, to the large walk-in closet. "Give me a sec, Miles, I think she has my clothes in here somewhere."

She had, indeed, seen her uniform in the closet, only at the time she didn't remember that it was hers. She took her time getting dressed, trying to calm her nerves after having rushed to gag herself and click the handcuffs around her limbs. The choice she had made upon hearing the police announce themselves would require her to make it appear that she had been held a prisoner right up to the end. That was not the case, though, as Dr. Ito's special programming had been disrupted when her head had been rammed against the wall during the intrusion earlier.

Several minutes later, Agent Vesta strode out of the closet in the form fitting green latex uniform she was wearing when Maneki Neko, aka, the Lucky Cat, had turned the tables on her and kidnapped her. She finished buckling her utility belt around her slender waist as she walked and checked a few of the pockets to see if things were still where they were suppose to be. Nothing appeared to be missing.

More men entered the room, including Captain Owens, the commander of C.A.B. Investigation Division. "So it is you, Vesta," the man said. "Don't tell me...you almost had the Lucky Cat, that is, up to the point where she captured you instead?" His disdain for Jade was evident in his voice. Even though the woman had the highest arrest rate of anyone in his department, he could not condone her unconventional methods for achieving those arrests. She was a rogue agent as far as he was concerned, but he had yet to gain the support of his superiors to boot her out of the Bureau.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Owens?" Jade shot back in her usual "disrespect for authority" manner. "I didn't even get close to Maneki Neko."

"Wait a tic," Miles said. "You're saying that's not the Lucky Cat out there?" He pointed towards the living room.

"Hell no. She's just a lackey who runs the auctions. Is that how you found me? You found out about tonight's auction?"

Miles shook his head and looked at his boss. "Um, no, well...we didn't know anything about the auction until we interviewed a guy at the hospital who had a broken knee cap. He had a warrant out for his arrest for a prior offense and I was able to lean on him to find out where he had been and how he had been injured. He figured he had nothing to lose by revealing the details of his evening. With the description of the items that had been sold we quickly put two and two together and got a search warrant for this penthouse."

"It's hard to believe the Almighty Jade Vesta couldn't overtake a mere lackey, and get away," Captain Owens said sarcastically.

"Sure, I had my chances," Jade said, not letting the Captain's tone set her off. "But this lackey was about to lead me to the Cat. I have little doubt that the two would've met up after this sale. I was going to collar the Cat when that happened."

"Oh, bullshit," Owens said. "So who's this broad out there?" He nodded towards the other room. "What's her name?"

"I was only allowed to call her Mistress," Jade said with a wink to her partner. "Maybe we can get more information out of her at headquarters."

Jade headed towards the door, and was followed by Miles and the Captain. As they left, the Captain instructed the two officers to search the apartment and report back to him when they were done.

Upon walking into the living room, Jade found Akemi sitting on the sofa surrounded by C.A.B. officers and Mounties. She stared at Jade in disbelief when she saw her.

"Ah, there you are, Mistress," Jade said as she reached down and grabbed a hold of her cuffed hands and pulled her to her feet. "You're going to take a little trip downtown with my friends here, while I go home and rinse the stink off of me." Turning to her partner, she said, "She's all yours, Miles."

"Really?" Miles said in surprise. "You don't want the honor of booking her yourself?"

Jade, who was already heading towards the elevator, turned and said, "Well, if you can hold off booking her for two hours, I would like to be the person on record for the bust. I was just hoping to avoid the Press that's always camped out at the station. But...if the emergency stairwell in back is still not alarmed, I'll use that."

Agent Connors laughed. "No, they haven't fixed those doors yet, so we'll see you in two hours?"

Pressing the call button for the elevator, Jade replied, "Sure, two hours, sharp." Staring directly at Akemi, she said, "It'll be my pleasure to take care of you personally, Mistress." The elevator door opened and Jade looked inside, hesitantly. It was difficult for her to take the step, but she did. Pressing the button for the ground floor she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She knew it would take time to completely rid herself of Dr. Ito's programming. Since her bell had been rung during the fight she hadn't had time to truly concentrate on the 'therapy' she'd been subjected to. But now her memories were fluid, swirling around in her head, waiting to be organized and analysed.

It wasn't until she was safely inside a cab, heading towards her house, that she was able to relax and think back to the night she had captured Maneki Neko at the Metropolitan Museum and had bundled her into the trunk of her car for the short ride to her house. There, in the 'special' room she had in her basement, she had been questioning the Lucky Cat, trying to eek out some information on where the burglar was hiding her stolen treasures. Bringing in the allusive thief would have been great, but bringing her in with all of the stolen antiquities would have been even greater.

But she had been careless, and her prey had become the predator. Somehow, Maneki Neko had slipped her leg out of the rope that held her ankle to the chair, and that loosened the rope that was wound around her wrists. Suddenly, her neck was caught between the Cat's strong thighs, choking her. She tried to buck her head loose, but the woman had grasped a handful of hair and she couldn't budge. 

The next thing she knew, she was strapped to a table in a clinic of some sort. A short oriental man in a white lab coat and coke bottle glasses was looking down at her. His assistant, a lovely young woman in her early twenties, stood next to him, holding a tray. On the tray were long thin pins which the man, who Jade would come to find out was Doctor Ito, began to poke into her body. She tried to resist, but found that she was completely immobile. Paralyzed. The pins were placed carefully all around her head, and her breasts, and down her body, even in the most sensitive areas. On the tip of each pin was a tiny clear bulb.

Unable to move, Jade heard the doctor speaking softly to her as he positioned the rolling table under a large tubular frame. His voice was soothing and it was putting her to sleep. It was an odd sleep, though, and her dreams were even odder. She realized now that he was putting her into a trance of some sort, maybe some kind of hypnotic trance.

And the dreams were not dreams at all, but images seen on a large monitor mounted on the frame above her head. She had been instructed to watch the monitor and as she did the ends of the little pins would glow different colors, causing her to experience sensations ranging from extreme pleasure to extreme, gut wrenching, pain.

Behavioral suggestions were repeated over and over during several sessions like this while images of Akemi were flashed before her eyes. The ends of the pins glowed red and pain gripped her body when it was suggested that her Mistress was not pleased. Pins concentrated in erogenous areas glowed a light blue when it was suggested that her Mistress was pleased, making her feel incredibly aroused.

After two weeks of this treatment she was no longer Federal agent, Jade Vesta. She had no recollection of her identity or her past. She was a blank slate. She 'woke up' in her Mistress' condominium and learned about the accident that had never really happened.

The taxi pulled up in front of her house and Jade paid the driver with money that was still in one of the little pockets on her utility belt. Walking into her house, there was a feeling of serenity, yet somehow it didn't seem like home to her. It didn't matter. She was only there to take a shower and freshen up before heading back to C.A.B. headquarters.