An old cat's new tricks

I read JK's post a few days ago, the second part is about little girls and a much loved evil cat. Here is our story:

Andy is not an evil cat. Well, not to me, or at least not to me often. Well, maybe that's because I'm good at reading his mood and getting out of the way. He's the kind of cat that gets really into being stroked and rolls over to show his tummy but if you touch it you'll have sixteen claws embedded in your arm. He plays fast and dirty; he just watches when you wave a toy in front of him, watches with every nerve in his body then suddenly springs and bites the hand holding the toy.

I was worried about having two naive, trusting, soft, slow, wriggly, defenseless animals around him. Fortunately he found babies about as off putting as kittens and avoided them. As they got older K and him worked out a relationship quite fast: they are both prickly characters who like respect. H found it much harder. She loved Andy, he was soft, furry and beautiful. She wanted to hug him soooo much. Very occasionally he'd let her but then the next time she'd assume too much and he'd bat her away and she'd cry every time he went near her. No claws though and that is a pretty big deal.

Now H & K are older Andy has slowly grown to tolerate them. He mostly puts up with being inexpertly stroked, patted and having toys ride him. When it is too much he just makes himself scarce. I am very grateful for his forbearance.