The Little Shop

DISCHARGE DAY

Jody's knees hurt. One of the serious downsides about the Kennel's cages was, you didn't get a metal thing to kneel on in your four-foot cage, as animals did. This meant that the cage bars on the floor dug into the Texas housewife's sensitive knees, and she was somewhat arthritic, being fifty-four years old. Her manicure looked like hell after the nine horrid days that Jody had spent kneeling in this goddamned cage, moving around on her hands and knees.

And oh, the repeated oral sex requests! Those huge, black penises in and out of Jody's mouth. What would the ladies back home in the Laredo Junior League think? Jody listened to Paul's snoring in the crate behind her. That was awful, too. Paul really should look into sleep apnea information.

Jody had horrible little bumps in her inner thighs from last night fire ant dousing. She would have to see her specialist when she got home, but what would she tell him? That she'd been to Honduras?

"Having a rough day? Jody looked over at Clarence, in the adjoining cage. He, of course couldn't see Jody, as he was blindfolded, but he sensed her moods. Clarence was a thirty-nine year old investment banker, but he had an old soul, and Jody enjoyed talking to him.

When Soapy had noticed they seemed to get on, he had put their cages together, perhaps to make the time go a little faster. Clarence was on a Code Brown, which was much more intense than her Code Yellow.

He smiled and she laughed lightly. "Hell, the day's just started, Clarence. In five minutes we have our lovely Hydrotherapy." Clarence smiled as well. "Well, Hydro has one comfort, they let me take the damn blindfold off. I've seen nothing since last night when I was licking Master Plato's toes. And Grant isn't coming back for another week at least!"

Grant was Clarence's Master, a gorgeous young ex-forward for the Sonics. Jody hadn't seen Grant since the first day, when the young black man had kicked Grant into the Kennel.

"Take off your crap bitch!" Grant had screamed, and Clarence had ripped off his Armani suit as fast as possible, before Grant had peed in his face and then threw him in the cage proffered by Soapy.

Unlike many of the Masters and Mistresses who dropped their subs off at the Kennel, Grant was not leaving town or going on vacation. Indeed, Grant's entire life was a vacation, as he hung around Clarence's mansion in Middleburg, Virginia. Grant just didn't want to look at Clarence, his submissive benefactor for a month or so. Clarence suspected that Grant had a girl he wanted to come over, and he didn't want the woman to know he was a bisexual.

"I think Grant is really gay, but won't admit it to himself, black guys are like that." Grant had confided to Jody, who had tried to be understanding. She was grateful to Grant, and almost wished she could keep up with him when they left, but the Kennel was like summer camp, situational friends never keep up. It was a shame, because their mothers had both gone to Chatham Hall for prep school, and they both enjoyed watching "The View" though of course on their codes, they didn't get to watch anything, and Grant couldn't even see.

Now, Jody was too tired to talk much. "I can't believe we have we have to get up so early especially after last night's dousing. You know Missy Lonergan, she's in a Code Brown cage over by the wall??

Clarence tried to look at Jody under his blindfold. "Yeah, she and her Master are from Clayton, Missouri, I think. I have clients there. " Clarence tried to lean on his side in the cage to take the pressure off his knees, but it was too small.

"Well, Missy screamed hysterically after she got the ants and the crickets and I don't think she was able to calm down until around four. She sure kept me up. Too high strung for the Kennel I guess." Jody said leaning over, and accidentally banging one of her nipple clamps on the side of the cage.

Clarence began laughing softly--Mirth of any sort was severely punished here--at the idea of a Kennel occupant being high strung.

Suddenly the lights went on and there was screaming and banging. Soapy, the young man who Jody suspected had stolen the Darvons from her purse, pulled out the big hose, and Cato, the huge black, unlocked Jody's cage door and dragged her out by her hair.

The next twenty minutes were incredibly awful, as always. Being set up with the other Kennel occupants against the far wall, amid jeers from the blacks. And all four brothers were there today, Plato, Cato, Myron AND Byron.

Then came the blinding, ice-cold shock from the powerful fire hose, and as Jody was required to wear high spike heels during her baths, she immediately fell over on her plump derriere, though she'd probably lost twelve pounds in the last nine days, eating only gruel and the occasional bread.

Miss Georgette, the nasty vulgar woman who was the domme was off today, but during the times that she'd forcibly peed in Jody's mouth, Jody had vomited up the little she ate, so she should be down to a size twelve by the time she returned home.

After Jody fell down the second time, and the hose charge had hit her full in the face, she was unable to arise until Myron came over with a length of radio antenna. "Up you go, Miz Simms" Jody was having such trouble arising, that Myron decided to help her.

He lifted the radio antenna. WHACK! WHACK! Two nasty welts appeared on Jody's doughy buttocks. SLAP WHACK WHACK! "P-please, Myron?" Jody sobbed. "I'm trying to get up, it's just so slippery.

Myron giggled and grabbed Jody by the ear and dragged up, and sure enough, Jody got to her feet, though the high heels were gone. "You know you got to do yo' treadmill now, Miz Simms." Myron laughed loudly and let go of Jody's ear. He slapped her on her buttocks and she squealed.

"You let yo' shoes come off. Get down and pick them up in yo' teeth, but get right back up again, girl!" Myron's eyes meant business, and Jody sighed and fell to her knees picking up the strap from one high heel, before looking for the other one.

Jody vision was a bit fuzzy as she'd not had her glasses or contact lenses for nine days. But after Myron kicked Jody in the ass in one direction, Jody finally found the other shoe." Now pick them both up in your teeth like the dog you is, Miz Simms!"

This was a bit of an ordeal for the older woman, who had to grasp one loopy strap in her teeth and then drag it to the other sandal so she could get both in her teeth and pick them up. WHACK! WHACK! SWAP! Myron was apparently impatient with Jody's meager efforts and had landed three across her broad back.

Jody grabbed the two straps in her teeth and lifted her head but one of the shoes fell, and as she said "Oh shit!" the other shoe fell as well. Jody surreptitiously tried to pick up one of the shoes with her hand, and felt Myron's foot stomp on it. "No, only your teeth, Miz Simms. "Myron said kindly. "Don't make me get the bullwhip. You is mighty tryin' this morning."

Around her, slaves were getting up and falling down, and Jody could hear Missy Lonergan howling about the ACLU as Cato and Soapy were trying to drag her to the stocks at the far end of the Kennel. Jody watched Clarence getting a vicious thrashing from Byron, and he was so well trained that he didn't make a sound, but it looked very bad.

Finally Jody was able to nudge the two shoes together with her chin. She did a big grab and grasped the straps of both high heels in her teeth. Then Jody stood up carefully, looking to Myron for further instruction.

"Now you gwine to go to the treadmill, and run for about half an hour. Mister Simms called a few days back from his vacation and said you legs too fat, could we jungle bunnies work on you, and you know we will!"

That was just like Jody's husband, Garland-Fitzhugh Simms. He would enrage the blacks with his racism, and they'd take it out on Jody while he and his nasty little bimbo Jillian sunned themselves in the Caribbean.

Not only that, but during Jillian's period, Garland-Fitzhugh had actually sent Jillian's bloody tampons, preserved in ice, for Jody to suck during her snack time...God that was awful!

But, as Jody considered the humiliation and disgusting bloody taste in her mouth, she did get excited...this had been her idea in the first place...

"What do you mean, you want me to spank you, honey?" Garland-Fitzhugh had asked her, thirty-three years before...and she'd created a monster. He went from spanking her to whipping her, and now she was his humble painslut.

As Jody climbed upon the treadmill, Myron dropped the radio antenna and took a small dog-whip off the wall. He set the treadmill in motion at 3.6, and Jody began walking slowly.

She was almost dizzy and still shivering from all that cold water. Clarence, who was a recidivist at the Kennel, said that they always turned the heat off about five minutes before the hosing was supposed to start, even in February.

Myron's long black hand came down and upped the motion to 4.0, and Jody began walking a bit faster. "Thass right you keep goin' on." Jody was really sick of Myron and his brothers, who seemed to have energy for putting her through her paces. She wondered where the hell the proprietor of the Little Shop had found them.

She'd hired a private detective to investigate the Kennel when her husband had proposed sending her there...

Jody had discovered that Soapy, the diffident assistant manager was a seven-time loser in various New England prisons for drug dealing and forging prescriptions, as well as having been in fifty-two drug rehabilitation centers and one hundred and three detoxification units.

She'd not learned much about the proprietor, but that Miss Georgette, the head domme, was his ex-wife and he'd offered her the job in lieu of alimony, which is probably why she was such an angry person.

Suddenly, Jody found herself almost falling on the treadmill as Myron put it up to 7.5 all of a sudden.

Jody began panting heavily. Certainly she had not had any cigarettes in over a week, but the toll of 30 years of Virginia Slims was catching up, and she was having a very hard time staying on the treadmill.

It didn't help that she still had the shoes in her teeth. All of a sudden, Myron turned the treadmill up to 8.0, and Jody began falling back. CRACK!

Oh, the searing pain. He'd just lashed her with the dog whip! Jody tried to run ahead. CRACK! SNAP! Jody screamed, and the shoes fell out of her mouth.

Myron roughly grabbed Jody by her left breast and dragged her off the moving treadmill. "Get on your knees and pick up them shoes!"

Jody bent over to pick the shoes up and Myron beat a tattoo across her buttocks with the dog whip. "Come on, girl, you got to get back on that treadmill!"

Myron screamed, swinging the dog whip so it cut a cruel slash across Jody's left shoulder. "You got some runnin' to do, old thing. I'm turning it up to ten miles an hour, and you're goin' to run it!"

All of a sudden there was rescue. Soapy, the ex-junkie assistant manager, came downstairs. "No, Myron, stop. Today is her discharge day, and Jillian, Mr. Simms's um, friend has requested that Jody have her hair done."

Jody was overcome with happiness, despite the horrible welts and weals left by the vicious scourges of the dog whip. "Really? Jillian said that?" Jody's hair was a rat's nest after a week and a half in that goddamned basement.

She'd been getting her hair set and styled every three weeks since puberty, even during the sixties, when everyone else seemed to be getting it ironed.

Jody breathed exhilaration. Perhaps Jillian wasn't so bad. You'd never know it from the way she'd treated Jody, ever since Garland-Fitzhugh had authorized her to give Jody punishments.

Whipping Jody at own kitchen table with a pancake spatula, making Jody kneel on the jacks that Jody had kept since childhood, forcing Jody to suck the penises of homeless men who Jillian had brought by from her volunteer work at the Salvation Army...

Jillian had been incredibly cruel, perhaps because Garland-Fitzhugh would not divorce Jody...after all, though Garland was Jody's husband, he was also her Master and best friend.

And perhaps this had enraged Jillian. But today she was coming to pick Jody up, Soapy told her, and Jody was going to have her hair styled!

She wasn't going to be going to BriceChristophe, Jody's beloved stylist back in Laredo, or whatever BriceChristophe's equivalent was in the bleak New Hampshire town that housed The Little Shop and the Kennel.

No, Soapy said, a local expert was going to work with Jody's hair according to Jillian's specifications.

"Your-your daughter?" Jody said, staring at the pallid ex-addict.

"Well, yeah, Selma's my daughter by my third wife, and that's what I need to talk to you about." Soapy wiped his nose, which seemed to be eternally running.

They were talking in the Little Shop lounge, and blessedly, Soapy had requested that Myron bring Jody a cloak to cover her nakedness.

Soapy offered Jody one of his cigarettes, which she accepted gratefully. "See, Jillian wants you to have a punk rock haircut—"

"A what? A punk rock haircut?" Jody paled. "Jillian wants me to dye my hair like a—a—freak?" Jody began feeling a bit dizzy. Oh dear. Dear, dear dear.

"Well, that's the point, Mrs. Simms. You're here voluntarily, just like all Kennel residents. You signed a form." Soapy wiped his forehead. "The way the Kennel works is, if any occupant objects to their treatment, they are immediately administratively discharged.

That's because we can't have people dictating what's done to them, as it's the Master or Mistress who makes the decision."

Soapy went through his pockets and pulled out a small pill bottle. He took four of the pills and washed them down with a swig from a pint of brandy. Soapy offered the pint to Jody, who snatched it and swigged, refusing to give the pint back to Soapy.

"So that is usually the way things are handled. The um, sub knows that he or she will be thrown out if they object, permanently, so that way they can decide if they will stay according to their Master's specifications." Soapy groaned.

"I-I hate this job, Mrs. Simms, and I applied at Office Depot, but they claim I failed their urine test. It's not like the urine tests we have here, you know."

Jody nodded dumbly. Soapy's humor was falling flat on this bizaare occasion.

Soapy continued. "So you are actually in a good place, because you can refuse the hairdressing appointment with my daughter as you're being discharged already. If you want, I'll even tell Jillian that Selma couldn't make it."

"No, I am a committed submissive." Jody said woodenly. "I have to obey."

"Okay, if you agree to have the hairdressing done, you really have to make Selma think you're doing it voluntarily." Soapy said earnestly. "She is much too sheltered to understand S&M. Like me, Selma's an ex-heroin addict, but she's nineteen and has been clean of crack and heroin for five years, and only after two treatment centers!" Soapy's eyes glowed as he described his offspring.

' Selma did get arrested last year for kicking her vice principal in the stomach, but it was only because he called her a girl and she's a feminist and likes to be called a woman."

"She-she sounds like a lovely girl." Jody said weakly.

"Yeah, Selma would never give a Mohawk to anyone against their will. She and her rock group, the Puke Piglets, are very moral in their way."

Warming to his talk, Soapy continued. "And this will be a big thing for Selma, she's never done hair for money before, Mrs. Simms are you all right?"

But as soon as Jody had heard the word "mohawk", she'd fallen over in a dead faint.

Three hours later, Jillian Abernathy waited impatiently. She'd purchased a nice leather miniskirt in the Little Shop on her boyfriend's Platinum card, and put it on in the dressing room. Now Jillian was waiting for Fatso, her boyfriend's pathetic wife to come up out of the basement kennel thingie.

"I hope it's a good Mohawk, man." Jillian said to Soapy. "Well, my daughter did it, and I think she did a good job." Soapy said enthusiastically. "Selma's been a punk since she was ten, and her hair's never been the same twice." Soapy leaned over the counter.

"Jody did fairly well when Selma shaved the sides of her head, but there was trouble in the dying, and making the big blue spikes. Jody was afraid that the Elmer's Glue that they use to make the spikes, Liberty spikes they're called, for the Statue of Liberty—Jody was afraid the glue would harm her hair."

Jillian snorted. "Like I care? As if that old hag's hair matters?"

Soapy gave Jillian a disapproving look. "Selma did have to lie Jody down to iron the spikes with a flat iron, it was a little painful." Soapy coughed, and snorted something in a handkerchief. "Jody also was somewhat um, tearful when Selma told her that in order to get rid of the glue and spikes...she'd have to have her head shaved."

Jillian giggled.

The door opened, and Myron, the huge black came up, leading Jody, and she was a sight. Dressed in the taupe blouse and stone washed jeans she'd arrived in ten days before, all looked normal, except of course for Jody's hair.

Jody was bald on both sides of her head, and in the middle were six large, thick spikes, making her look like a Daniel Boone Indian who had just come back from Venus. Behind Jody came a young woman with purple and yellow hair in streaks down her ponytail.

She was saying "—And you can maintain the 'Hawk with gel and regular ironing. I wish my mom would do something this courageous for herself. I'm writing her at the Women's Correctional Center to tell her what you did!"

Jody smiled with courage and said "Thank—thank you, dear."

Jillian began to laugh. She laughed so hard that she fell on her new miniskirt. Jody, on the other hand, burst into violent tears.

Selma looked at Soapy. "Daddy, does that mean I get a tip, or I don't?"

THE END