Hey everyone! If you don't know what a neko is, it is a popular Japanese idea of humans with cat ears and tails. I have put my own spin on this story, nekos are pets or servants to the upper class, and they are sold at neko "mills" where they are created. The neko Alice in this story is young and naive, struggling with her feelings of love for the one who adopts her. There will be multiple chapters to this story. Rate and review!

APOV

"Get up." I felt a hand grab the back of my shirt and lift me to my feet. My legs felt numb and nonexistent, but I managed to stand at an awkward angle, holding onto the wall with one hand for support. "Stand up straight." The same voice snapped, and a moment later the same hand grabbed my wrist, holding it up so the rest of my body appeared to be standing straight. I held back a scared whimper. These men were my worst nightmare. They didn't care who I was, or how they hurt me. Their job was to make a deal with filthy rich customers and sell us off like prostitutes.

Another man was looking at me. He wasn't wearing white labcoats like the bad men, but he was tall and scary with a mean look on his face. I tried to stare at the ground as he examined me, measuring my height and poking at my skin. He pulled off my shirt and touched my breasts, which were nearly as nonexistent as I was.

"Small, isn't she?" the mean-looking man asked as he measured the width around my tiny waist.

"It's a pure bred." The bad man spoke above me, releasing my wrist from his rough grasp. I immediately fell down without anything to hold me up. "It's young. It will grow."

The mean man gave me a hasty look. "I'm interested in a cute house maid for my home. Do you know how to clean?" It took a moment to realize he was speaking to me. My ears flattened to the top of my head. I didn't.

"No." I whimpered.

"Do you know how to cook?" The man continued.

"No." I repeated, knotting my tail in my fingers.

His gaze shifted to the bad man beside me.

"I'm not interested in something that can't even stand." He said, turning away to leave. Suddenly I reached out and grabbed his pantleg with one of my hands.

"Wait! I can do other things." I pleaded, staring up at him hopefully. He was terrifying to look at, but nothing could be as bad as this place, where I had spent the first few months of my existence. "I can learn, too! Please." The man stared down at me with disgust. I was used to that look.

"Get her off of me, I just got these drycleaned." he snapped. Violent hands grabbed me around my waist and I let out a painful squeal. The bad man was holding me out in front of him like I had some sort of disease.

"We have other subjects for sale." The bad man said gruffly.

"If this is the best you have to offer me, then it would be a waste of time to see the others. Good day." The customer left without another word, taking the hope of my escape with him.

I knew my behavior would earn me punishment. The bad man threw me down to the ground and kicked me in the side, yelling something in a foreign language. I let out another squeal of pain, holding my aching ribcage. There wasn't much skin on my bones to protect me from the hits.

After he took his anger out on me, he dragged me back to the cage. The cage was a large caged room full of others like me. Nekos. Unfortunate souls who's existence was damned upon creation. The room was echoing with pitiful mews. My face hit the concrete floor with a crack and my hand cradled the side of my jaw which had made such a noise. The cage door slammed shut behind me.

Hours passed like days. Days passed like weeks. My health was falling behind. The prettier, bustier females were being adopted. The stronger, determined males were bought up within days of their creation. Some of them weren't pure bred. This frustrated me, because I was a pure bred and no one wanted to adopt me. It was because I was small and weak. I couldn't stand because my legs weren't strong enough. It wasn't my fault.

Eventually the bad men stopped coming for me. They stopped trying to hide my bruises with makeup and brush my hair. They had given up on trying to persuade anyone to buy me, because I was useless. I was going to die here.

One particular morning I was lying on the ground caressing the tip of my matted tail. My clothes were getting dirty and I hadn't been bathed in weeks. No one paid any attention to me. No one acknowledged my existence. Even the other neko avoided me, taking their mournful meowing to the other side of the cage.

No one loved me. I didn't know what it was like to love or be loved, but I knew none of it existed for me.

The cage door screeched open. The meowing heightened, all of them hoping the bad man would pick one of them to be shown to a customer. I was surprised to hear two voices this time instead of just the raspy voice of the gruff man. The talking was inaudible to me, but one of the voices was smooth and accented, like an angel.

"This is our entire selection, Major. The best males and females have been sold out earlier this week, but I'm sure there is one or two here that might meet your standards." That was the gruff voice of the bad man.

"I'll look around. Thank you." That was the angelic voice. I lifted my head off my arm to catch a glimpse of the owner of the second voice. It was rare that anyone was shown the cage room. He must have been important.

I couldn't see well, but I could hear the nekos meowing and trying to catch the customer's attention. He continued to speak in a low southern accent. The sound made my ears twitch.

"Do you have any more females?" he had asked.

"These are the last three." The gruff man grumbled.

"What about that one over there?" I could feel eyes burning into me. My skin tingled with excitement.

"That one's dying." The bad man's words took any sliver of hope I still had and ripped it from my chest. That man wouldn't adopt me now.

"How much for her?" My ears twitched again.

"You don't want that one, Major. It's the runt. You won't make anything good out of it." The bad man continued to argue, but the angelic man brushed off his words.

"Fifty-five." His accent echoed off the walls. Fifty-five? I didn't understand currency very well but that didn't sound like very much. I glanced over at the bad man, who looked like he was considering it.

"Major, I wouldn't sell a dead one for fifty-five bucks. There are folks who are into that kind of thing-"

"Fifty-five thousand." The voice clarified. The bad man choked on his breath, and so did I. "Is that enough for her, or can I offer more?"

"Fifty-five thousand is just fine, Major."

Those were the last words I heard out of the bad man's mouth.

I was lifted up by gentle hands that cradled my head and held me close to a warm chest. Never before had I felt so much affection and happiness in my life. My chest rumbled with a weak purr and I tugged gently on my savior's shirt with tiny shaking fingers. He was looking down at me with the softest hazel eyes I had ever seen in my life.

"Do you have a name?" He asked me gently. I didn't know. We all had numbers carved into some area of our body. It was like having a perminant bar code, in a way. Mine was on the back of my neck; I couldn't see it. "We'll get to that later." He was carrying me out of the cage, away from the meowing and the wailing. Away from the bad men. Away from the neko mill.

After passing through the lobby the man carrying me dug into his pocket for a card, swiping it across a machine and speaking a few words to the lady at the counter. She handed him a few papers, which he folded and put into his pocket while balancing me easily in one arm. He waved quickly and opened the door, stepping outside.

We approached a small vehicle, completely black with tinted windows. There was a tall skinny man with grey hair standing beside the passenger side, holding the door open.

"Ah, I see you have found a companion." His voice was old and reserved. "And a little girl, too. Hello, small one."

I couldn't find the strength to greet him. I was too overwhelmed by everything, and found myself clinging to my savior's shirt.

"We'll need to go straight home and get her cleaned up." The accent spoke again. He got into the passenger's seat and kept me cradled against his chest. "She's hungry, too."

The balding man got into the driver's side and started the engine, pulling out of the parking lot and driving down the road. I had never seen the outside of the mill. The sun was blinding, but it was beautiful. Not as beautiful as my savior.

I kept my eyes fixed on him as we were driven down the road. My savior's fingers were stroking through my hair gently, occasionally brushing against my ears. It was a long trip, and eventually I began to doze off.

"We're here." His voice startled me awake and my entire body jerked involuntarily. He was still holding me close to his chest, but we were standing outside of the vehicle now in front of a very large building.

"Where?" I piped curiously, resting my head beneath his chin.

"Your new home." It was huge. I had never seen a normal sized home before but it was larger than I had ever imagined one to be. My savior carried me inside the large glass front door and into a beautifully furnished room with lights hanging from the ceiling and polished wood floors. "I'm sure it seems big now, but everything will become familiar to you soon enough."

I was carried up a spiral staircase to another floor, although this one had plush white carpet. For the first time, my savior set me down on the ground. Unsurprisingly, my legs gave out and I fell forward, catching myself on my hands.

I expected a scolding or some sort of blow to my body but instead the same gentle hands lifted me up again.

"I should have been more considerate of your health." My savior apologized, brushing his lips over my forehead. I felt instantly calm, and my ears twitched happily. My savior was loving and kind. I was lucky.

He took me into a bathroom that was as large as the foyer. Sunlight danced off the white tile and the marble walls. "Chives will fix you a bath." My savior said as the grey-haired man walked in, leaning over a large white tub. I nodded my head timidly.

As the water began to run loudly, my savior began to undress me. Nekos didn't have a choice of clothing, so my t-shirt was the same one I had worn since my creation at the mill. It was dirty and torn, and I'm sure it didn't smell good. He slipped it off and let out a small breath of air.

At first I feared he was disappointed with my lack of breasts, but then I realized he was looking further down my small chest, where my skin was purple from the bad man's boot. It didn't hurt anymore, unless I laid on that side.

He worked off my loose underwear and tossed it aside with my dirty shirt, leaving me completely exposed. For some reason, I felt embarrassed. At the mill it was common for a neko to be seen naked. But here, in front of such a beautiful man's eyes, I was self conscious and ashamed. What if I wasn't good enough?

My savior made no sign that he was disappointed with me. He set me inside the large tub of bubbling water, which came up to my shoulders and almost to my neck.

"Are you alright?" He asked me as I sat for a moment in the warm, comfortable water. I nodded. "Good. If I hurt you, tell me right away." I doubted that my savior could hurt me.

I watched timidly as he removed his long grey jacket and hung it on a post on the wall. He was wearing a t-shirt with a logo on it, and I realized for the first time my savior was not yet a full-grown man. He was young, probably nineteen or twenty. It was hard to tell, but without his business attire he appeared much younger.

My savior leaned over the bathtub and began to run his hands through my hair again, this time scrubbing out the dirt and grease that had gathered up over time. I sat quietly, letting the smell of rose petals and vanilla calm me and soak into my skin. He was especially gentle with my tail, which he rubbed gently with the special soaps and conditioners until it was fuzzy and soft as velvet.

When I was clean he drained the tub of the murky water, rinsing me once more and wrapping my small body in a towel. I let him hold me in his arms as he rubbed me dry, tending to my ears and my face with gentle pats. I glanced at my hands, which were no longer caked with dirt and grime. They were pale and smooth, without a single flaw. I was pretty.

Once I was dry he set me down on the rug and fetched me dry clothes. Chives, the grey-haired man, had gone to the store to buy them for me. My underwear was plain white, like children's underwear. This was important because the fact he didn't give me provocative undergarments showed that he wasn't interested in me for sexual pleasure. That was good.

He laid out different outfits for me to choose from, and I picked the small white dress. It fit me perfectly and it was loose enough to wear comfortably over my tail.

"My name is Jasper Whitlock." My savior spoke. Jasper. The name echoed repeatedly in my head. "I'm not your owner. I'm not your enemy. I'm your friend."

"Jasper." I whispered, liking the way his name sounded when I said it.

"And according to your paperwork, your name is 8276." Jasper was now looking over the file that the lady at the mill had given him. "That's no name for a little girl."

I looked at him expectantly. He could call me anything he wanted to in that southern accent he had.

"You're a curious little one. And you look lost. Like you're in another world." He continued to watch me for a moment. My tail tapped quietly against the floor. "What about Alice? Like, Alice in Wonderland?"

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I smiled and nodded my head anyway. Alice sounded a lot nicer than a jumble of numbers assigned at creation.

"Alright, well that's out of the way..." Jasper seemed to think for a moment. "Are you hungry, Alice?" My stomach made a loud gurgling noise as if on cue. I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten. My stomach was so sunken in that I felt it had been weeks.

Jasper lifted me up and cradled me in one arm as he walked back down the spiral staircase. The house was gigantic, I felt that there was no way I would ever remember all the turns and levels that he led me through.

"This is our kitchen." He explained to me, stepping through a set of very large double doors. Chives was standing by the table with two large plates of steaming food set out with utensils and glasses.

"Lunch is served." He said with a polite smile, stepping away from the table.

Jasper set me down in one of the chairs and scooted me in so I could reach the table. The food in front of me looked unreal. I had often fantasized about flavorful meals like this. I glanced at Jasper as if to ask for his permission to eat, but he was already sitting down in his own chair. I picked up one of the utensils timidly. It was round and shiny.

"Alice, that isn't how you hold a spoon." Jasper's voice soothed from beside me. He leaned over, touching my tiny hand and spinning around the utensil so the round part was sticking out. "There you go... here, you scoop some in and hold it up to your mouth." He did the first bite for me, holding it to my lips to taste. I took a small bite off the metallic object and began to chew. Of course it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted in my life.

I took the spoon from him and began to eat like he showed me. Within minutes my plate was empty and my stomach was thanking me. I had never felt so full or satisfied.

"You look a lot better already." Jasper smiled. He had already risen from his place at the table and was standing beside my chair. I looked up him cheerfully, reaching my hands up towards him like a toddler. I wanted him to hold me again.

I was scooped up into his arms and cradled against his warm t-shirt. "Chives, will you get the dishes? I'm going to brush Alice's teeth and get her settled in."

"Of course, Major."

We left the kitchen together and returned to the oversized bathroom. After my teeth were brushed and my breath was minty fresh, I sat patiently on the edge of the counter as he brushed his own.

"Jasper?" He looked at me expectantly. "Why does Chives work for you? Isn't that why you bought me?" Nekos were soley created for work and pleasure. I had never heard of another human working for another human before.

"Chives is a very good family friend." Jasper rinsed his mouth from the faucet and wiped it off with a hand towl. He didn't say anything else, picking me up again and carrying me out of the bathroom. My ears flattened to my head. I hoped I hadn't upset him.

We headed down another twisting hallway and into a large room with a high ceiling. Jasper set me down on a very big bed, higher up from the ground that I could reach. It was extremely soft and comfortable.

"This is my room," he told me, "and it's also your room." I gazed around aimlessly. "At least until we get your room finished."

When I looked back at Jasper, he was lying on his back across the velvet comforter. His eyes were closed, and his chest was rising and falling in a steady pattern.

Something in my chest urged me to crawl over to him. My savior welcomed me with open arms, and I curled up against his side. His gentle fingers rubbed the sensitive skin behind my ears. I closed my eyes and purred, happily realizing that I had found my place. My true home. My savior.