I'd kill you if you were actually abusing Cleo, but you're not. I pat my cats on ocassion as well and they have no problem with it. As long as they know that you're not doing it abusively that is and if they felt that you were they would definitely let you know, and it is almost like a massage.

All of my previous cats loved it and when I got the cats that I have now one did kind of freak out when I first did it because I guess he did think that I was being abusive as he was already three years old and who knows what he's been through. Freaked me out too, but then I did it again by starting out not so hard and once he realized that I wasn't hitting him, he loved it. Sometimes they like the rough petting a lot better than the regular stuff. Cleo is quite normal.