If cats, as the cliche has it, are mysterious creatures, then it's partly due to circumstance: Their nocturnal natures, slinking walk and an ability to vanish at will can make them tricky for humans to read.

Dogs, on the other hand, may have their secrets but seem transparent in their needs and desires: Pet me, throw the ball, call in sick from work today and take me to the beach.

That's why I've always considered "the mysterious cat" more a matter of image than reality. We give them a home and love, we pet and feed them, and they purr, sit on our laps and occasionally shred the sofa. Where's the mystery in that?

But there is one feline mystery I've never solved, and it was about one of my own pets.

Jezebel was the kitten of a pregnant stray I found in the street back in the early '80s, and she was a rough-and-tumble little hoyden of a cat. And like a lot of cats, she tended to be a "kneader" when she was happy, working her claws in and out of my leg or arm when I'd pet her.

But while most cats grow out of, or at least, learn to moderate this behavior over time, Jezebel instead became more methodical in how she used her claws. She began inserting a single claw into one spot on my body, sitting and staring intently at the spot while she did it. She would "puncture" odd locations, not just the arms and the legs. And she'd always sit and squint and purr while she was doing it.

I really had no idea what to make of this weird behavior until I developed a severe sinus infection. It hit me while I was on vacation, and I went to three doctors before finally coming home, only to find my own doctor couldn't seem to get anywhere with it, either. My friend Kelly was an acupuncturist and he offered to treat me; since we were friends, he made a house call.

As soon as Kelly walked in with his bag full of needles and herbs, Jezebel came flying from the back of the house. Her eyes were huge, and she escorted him into the living room and then nosed around his case when he put it on the floor.

He laughed, and moved her aside so he could get out his needles. She came back up to the case, and touched every needle packet with her nose as he pulled it out.

After he lay them all out on the table, she jumped into my lap and sat there, purring. Every time Kelly inserted a needle in my face, she nudged the needle with her cheek, her purring getting louder. After he was done, she sat on my lap, her eyes squinted, while purring more loudly than I'd ever heard her, touching her nose or cheek to every single needle. Kelly said he'd never seen anything even remotely like it.

A few minutes after he'd inserted the needles, I felt my sinuses shift and open, and my nose started to run copiously. I laughed and tried to shift Jezebel off my lap, but she refused to go, burying her face in my armpit and cranking the volume on her purr even louder. Kelly handed me some tissue and I sat there, face bristling with needles and nose running, my little furry purr machine making my whole body vibrate.

Because acupuncture was the only thing that seemed to help my sinuses, I decided to have Kelly come back a few more times. Every time was the same: no matter where Jezebel was when he got there, she'd come running, tail high, eyes bright, eager to help him get those needles in. This was before I began keeping my cats indoors, and she'd even come in when she was outside and couldn't possibly have heard him at the door.

Kelly, who was of a considerably more mystical bent than I, firmly believed Jezebel had been an acupuncturist's cat in a past life. We used to tell each other stories about "the acupuncture cat" while he treated my sinuses that spring, Jezebel purring and squinting and overseeing the process.

One day I got a phone call that Kelly had died. He'd been struggling with AIDS for weeks, back in the time when there were no treatments and survival time was sometimes counted in days. After the call, I was standing at the closed bedroom window, crying, when I saw Jezebel appear on a fence five backyards away; her eyes were fixed on where I stood.

She flew across the fences, went through the little cat door to the laundry room, and a few seconds later came running into my bedroom. I scooped her up and held her next to my wet face.

She pushed her little nose behind my ear, and purred as hard as she could.

I don't know what was behind Jezebel's mysterious relationship to acupuncture. Maybe it was something as mundane as the smell of the herbs in my friend's little black case, or the heat given off at the acupuncture points. Maybe she was just glad my sinuses were draining; I certainly was.

After Kelly's death I kept getting acupuncture, but I had to go to an office for my treatments. Jezebel kept up her own practice of cat-claw-puncture her whole life, but she never did manage to tell me what it all meant.

Maybe cats really are as mysterious as cliche has it, after all.