The Very Bad Dog Ch 03

I go home late, in no rush at all. In the cage, he has made a mess. But he's been in there all day and I am not unreasonable.

Troy follows me into the bathroom, all but nipping at my heels, watching me fill the bath with steaming water. He resists his urge to nuzzle my hand as I unfasten the collar from his neck. The bathroom is bright and ivory tiled, a haven of humanity and beyond. It is not the realm of a dog. He waits to be invited into the water.

At this, I feel the slightest twinge of satisfaction. I unbutton my silk blouse, unzip my pencil skirt. Troy tries to keep his eyes downcast but he is looking upon me. He is an animal, after all. Driven by baser lusts and urges. The revelation of my form beneath my outerwear makes him struggle. It is harder for him to contain his reaction when I say, "Unfasten the dress."

He nevertheless begins to unhook the corset dress at once, trying so very desperately not to linger.

I test him further by stepping from my shoes, so that his nose is assaulted by the scent of my hair. He gets the last hook and spreads the dress from the back. In the mirror, I see him bite down hard on his lip when his eyes catch sight of my bare backside.

My skin is left red with ridges from the corset dress. I want to suck in a relieved breath at my freedom, but this is still performance. This stage of things with Troy is precarious. Even a breath of relief at being freed from a corset is more familiar than I would like.

He is being so careful to hang up the dress on the back of the bathroom door and avoid looking upon me that I find I am slightly more than satisfied.

"Into the bath, little dog," I say, and in he goes, letting out the slightest whimper at the level of heat he is being forced to endure.

"To your knees."

He drops forward and I reach over the edge of the tub, my bare breasts brushing the porcelain, to feel for the soap and wash cloth. He is fixing his eyes on the faucet to keep from looking at me, at my nakedness leaning over him. But it is no use. Troy's cock is hard and straining. Even before it sinks into the water the fat pink tip is glistening with his desperation. They call them animal urges for a reason.

Troy freezes again, utterly unmoving and seeming to will himself not to react when I run the soaped-up washer between his thighs and then up his cock. I dip the washer in the soapy water and then lift it out, running it all along his ass, his thighs and his balls, returning it to the water, watching his cock grow harder the more I ignore it.

His eyes remain fixed on the faucet.

When I am satisfied Troy is clean, I sit down on the edge of the tub and swing my legs inside, blocking his view of the faucet with one arched, size 7, perfectly shaped and manicured foot. I run the arch of my foot up and down the stainless steel, curving and straightening my toes. I move my other foot to the faucet, capturing it between both feet as he stares at it, unable and unpermitted to look away. The arch of one foot rubs hard against the top of the faucet and its spout and, finally, Troy lets out a soft cry of anguish.

I have not deliberately touched his cock, with my feet or anything else, since he moved into my house more than four months ago.

I pull the plug from the tub and let the water drain around him as he crouches, shivering, naked, and shamefully hard.

"Sometimes little dogs wish for things that are above and beyond them," I whisper. "Even very good dogs do it. And you are not a good dog."

I swing my legs back out of the tub and stand, going for a fluffy peach towel. I drape it over Troy, drying every part of his body except the part that wants it most.

I throw the towel over Troy's head and roughly dry his hair back and forth till he's near senseless, still crouched. I wrap the towel around the back of his neck and pull him toward me.

That blue bolt of eyes. Troy makes eye contact with me, his mouth opening as if to speak. I press my finger to his lips, then I surprise myself, reaching for his hand to help him out, then wrapping arms around his shoulders, the towel still between us, when he is beside me on the tile. "You may hug me back, Troy."

His sigh of relief is loud, and it bothers me that I am glad to hear it. Troy wraps firm arms around my waist and inhales the scent of my hair.

"You may leave any time you wish, you understand? You are not a prisoner."

He pulls back to look at me. "I don't want to leave. Why would you say that?"

"Knowing you have a safe word and using it are two different things."

"I want to stay with you," he says, his voice taking on the first hint of firmness I've heard in this house. "If you want me to go, you'll have to tell me."

"Very well."

I release Troy, resuming the task of drying him off.

His erection, neglected and straining, keeps bobbing in my face when I bend to dry his legs.

My face flushed, I stand. "I think I'll order in tonight."

"You don't want me to cook, goddess?"

"No. And I think it would be best if you returned to the cage tonight."

"Yes, goddess. Thank you, goddess."

Sometimes I think if I hear goddess just one more time I will go stark raving mad.

#

I do not lock Troy in the cage overnight. It is as much about keeping him away from me as anything else. At two o'clock in the morning, I wake and find myself in need of water, and, in the kitchen, I hear it.

Glass in hand, I walk to the laundry, to Troy, casting my eye to the crack in the opened door.

Troy is jerking off in the opened cage, onto the corset dress that went into the laundry basket this evening. His hand is wrapped tightly around his thick, swollen prick as he pumps it furiously. The light in the laundry is minimal. The window is high up in the room but wide along the wall, and bare, bringing in the moon and starlight. Even so, I see the pre-cum glistening on the tip of his cock.

A great deal of it. I mentally slap away the urge to crawl inside the cage and lick it off his cock.

And I hear him. Not just his panting, his animalistic grunts, the slick sounds of his hand working back and forth, wet from pre-cum and his own saliva as he spits on his own hand. No. His murmuring to the corset dress. A specific thing.

"Fuck," he groans, onto it, onto the me he imagines on the fabric. "Goddamn it, Selene."

I back away from the door as he ejaculates, spurting ropes of cum onto my six-hundred-dollar underwear.

I lock my bedroom door and slide between white cotton sheets. I roll onto my stomach, slipping my hand between my thighs, feeling for my awakened clitoris. I'm not surprised, but am dismayed, to feel how slippery the terrain is between my labia. Pressing my fingers together, I lie flat on my hand, working my hips to rub my clit against my firm, locked fingers, digging my face into my pillow.

My nipples are erect and dragging agonizingly against my sheets. This has to stop. Throwing a hand above my head, I press it to my headboard to better control each thrust of my clit against my slippery fingers.

I'm frustrated, not quite there, trying to avoid letting my mind go there.

It ignores me. It goes there anyway. My unrepentant dog jerking off, disobeying my orders to use my given name as he jacks off onto my most expensive underwear. A groan escapes my lips.

He's the worst dog I've ever had. And I want him anyway.

The moment I let the thought come into my conscious mind, it ignites a fire. I feel for my nightstand, blindly, to the second drawer, looking for the largest dildo I have. My hand shakes as I pull it back and thrust it under me, plunging it violently into my cunt, still flat on my stomach, ramming it hard and fast, bucking up onto my knees while I fuck myself, feeling it collide with my cervix and brutally batter me with almost as much force as an invading cock.

All the while, I keep my face pressed into the pillow, sweating out each grunt. The dildo becomes slippery in my hands, rife with the vile evidence of exactly how much I want my worst dog, and the bedroom ripens, overpoweringly, with the scent of my neglected cunt.

My nipples are now like raw skin scraped over sandpaper on the sheets. They need pinching, biting, squeezing, sucking, clamping, piercing, so they will just, for the love of god, shut the fuck up. But I do not have the hands for that. I do not have enough time. This is urgent masturbation, beyond civility. I am the filthy derelict pervert jerking off on the street corner after seeing a pretty girl because he cannot help himself.

I fear my own volume even over the pillow, through the locked bedroom door. The hand not holding the giant dildo works its way around my throat, squeezing hard, almost of its own volition, as I force my face into the pillow.

The harder I slam the phallus inside my slick cunt, the tighter my hand squeezes, as though it runs on some cunt-controlled choke chain. I squeeze until I see bright spots through my closed eyes. The endorphin rush rears up and releases some clawing anxiety, the only thing holding me back from a vicious come.

I squeeze my thighs together, my clit so flooded and erect with arousal it only takes three swipes of my inner thighs together before I clamp down, my mouth opening as I roar into the pillow.

I release my own chokehold as the dildo butts up against my cervix and my cunt spasms hard against it, as if I could strangle it into disappearing. Strangle it into pretending I haven't just done this.

"Goddamn it, Selene," is what repeats on loop in my head the entire time I fuck myself. My orgasm is loud, wet, and shuddering, as violent and dog-like as I have ever been.

I roll onto my back, pulling the soaked dildo from my cunt. My forehead feels sticky with sweat.

And I'm overcome, for the first time in years, with shame.

This can't possibly go on.

#

The following morning, I'm exhausted and sleepless. I have no instructions for Troy. No will to decide what to do with him.

I shower without setting foot into the laundry, without checking on him in the opened cage. I'm willing him to leave.

When I ride the elevator up to work, Troy is not there.

I have a meeting with Damian and Troy today, and Troy is not there. Damian gives me a snide look.

"This apology you've convinced Troy is a terrific idea," he says, "You think it's really going to work?"

"I don't think thumbing your nose at the people you've offended is the right way to go. You nixed the first two suggestions and went your own way, and it backfired, and here we are, six months later. And I didn't convince Mr Stevens to do anything. He makes his own choices."

"You would say that, wouldn't you?"

I arch an eyebrow at Damian. "Excuse me?"

"His forwarding address. His mail. You didn't think I'd notice he moved in with you?"

I feel a low rumbling of irritation in my gut. "Your point being?"

"He'll do anything you say. He's been pussy-whipped by a man-hating, know-it-all bitch. This whole thing was his idea because he wanted to get in your panties, I'm sure. I'm sure they're very nice panties, but you've got another thing coming if you think I'm just going to lie down and take it."

I smile at Damian. "When you have sex with Mr Stevens' assistant on Mr Stevens' desk, is that because you want to BE him, or because you have latent romantic and sexual feelings for him with which you are unable to come to terms?"

Damian blushes red from his neck all the way up to his forehead.

"Or is it some degree of both?" I drum my fingernails lightly across my desk. "You know, that's the charitable interpretation. In the less charitable interpretation, you're doing it because you have absolutely no respect for the man who owns 51% of your company and are desperate to make your mark on something that belongs to him. It's sad. What's sadder is that, for all these years, Troy has been quietly letting you shit all over him to avoid upsetting your delicate baby feelings."

Damian leaps to his feet. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Don't I? You still fundamentally don't get what was wrong with your ad campaign. Troy did. He knew. But you're emotionally fragile, Damian. He lets you get your way all the time because he thinks you would fall in a heap and cry if he did not. This kind of man is not weak. He's selfless. He could do with being more selfish and being more concerned with his own self-preservation, certainly, but he's not weak. He has been in charge of you all along. You just haven't seen it. But you don't see the forest for the trees, do you? You're a textbook narcissist, and everything is someone else's fault. If you looked closer at your own self-image, you'd have to admit that deep, deep down, you find yourself utterly lacking. You know you're a piece of shit. All the assistants, hookers, strip clubs, cocaine and finger-pointing in the world won't save you from that."

The moment Damian starts charging towards me, Alberto sweeps in my office door, tackling him to the floor before he so much as rounds my desk. I hear Alberto whispering to Damian, "Calm the fuck down before you do something you can't take back."

Alberto has to hold him down for a good two, three minutes before he calms.

#

After Damian leaves, Alberto comes back into my office, sitting opposite me. Alberto is my assistant as much because he makes a stellar bodyguard as anything else.

"So," he says, eyeing me curiously, "You and Troy Stevens?"

I clap my hand across my forehead. "You heard?"

"Well, the office door was open. I did see him charging you. And Mr Bennett helpfully informed me that you'd used your feminine wiles when I was escorting him from the floor."

"I see." I lace my fingers together carefully. "I don't know that Troy and I will be ... continuing."

After a while, Alberto says, carefully, "You do seem fond of him."

"How do you figure?"

"You defended him at length to Damian the Dick."

"I'm not sure it's wise," I say, evenly. I stand up from my desk and go to face the windows.

Alberto stands beside me, pressing a hand to my shoulder. "Selene, it's alright to like someone."

I bristle. "Thanks so much for your permission."

He says, softly, "I realize you have this aloof, remote-"

"-they mean basically the same thing."

"-attitude going on, but you don't have to wear it all the time. It's wearying."

"Again, Alberto, thank you so much for your permission."

The smug prick wears a smirk bigger than his head. "I also know you're a kind person, so stop pretending that you aren't."

I fiddle with the cuffs of my silk blouse to avoid looking him in the face. "Please leave."

"See? You kick me out of your office and say please."

"Manners, not kindness."

"Selene, you've had many, shall we say ... close personal friends in the time I've worked for you. You've never taken one this close to the business before. Nor have they lasted this long. And whatever's going on with him is upsetting you. You're all out of kilter."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I say, looking up at him in surprise.

"You're wearing a dark-colored bra beneath a sheer beige blouse. There's a run in your stockings. You have a chip in the nail polish on two fingernails. There's a bruise on your throat. And, to put it plainly, you antagonized a client on his account. I couldn't give, quite frankly, two shits about Damian Bennett. But you need to sort out what's going on at home. I assume Mr Bennett was correct, and Mr Stevens is living in your home?"

My throat feels as though it is closing up. "He is."

"Go home. Sort it out. Get rid of him, have crazy passionate sex, whack each other with paddles or whatever freaky shit it is that you like getting up to. Just sort it out."

#

When I leave the office, I stop at a lingerie store to change my bra and stockings. I see myself in the mirror. Exhausted, plainly.

I have my father's wavy Greek locks, flowing and long on me, but my mother's milky Irish visage. Hazel eyes. It takes upkeep. It takes effort. Selene the Moon Goddess. It began as some kind of joke. Then it paid heed to my dominance over all lovers. I couldn't stand being called mistress, mother or queen. But goddess? Goddess felt inevitable. I'm thirty-four years old and I don't remember the last time a lover called me Selene. Until Troy.

It's amusing, in a way, the name Selene being a variant, theoretically, of Helen. Helen of Troy. Selene of Troy. But it shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't even be Troy of Selene, but Troy of Goddess.

Why I brought a jealous dog into my home is beyond reasoning. I thought he was quite something. His bright blue eyes charmed me. His open ardor. At every red flag that told me Troy could never cope with my boundaries - my one rule: this would never be a romantic, monogamous attachment - I proceeded anyway.

I'm a terrible, terrible fool.

#

At home, I open the door to the aroma of moussaka and realize at once that Troy has cracked open my grandmother's cookbook.

He has donned an apron, boxer shorts and slippers while he cooks very seriously in my kitchen.

And I stare at him very seriously for a moment before going to the bedroom and locking the door. I haven't had a panic attack in years, but I feel one approaching now.

His timid knock on the door interrupts the anxiety winding up within me. "Goddess?"

"Yes, little dog?"

"Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes."

"Very well." I pull off my silk blouse, my pencil skirt, these stockings that feel increasingly like falsehoods. "Thank you, little dog."

I hear in his voice the warm rush of joy at my gratitude. "You're welcome, goddess."

I am unraveling.

#

I step out of my bedroom experimentally, clad in loose cotton shorts, an ancient Columbia University t-shirt and with my hair piled up on my head. No shoes, no socks, no stockings. No make-up. No artifice.

One doesn't need artifice to dominate. But boundaries, you see. We create them, maintain them, in so many ways. My clothes, my shoes, my never being out of character in front of my dogs, my lovers: these are among my methods of keeping that boundary intact.

I did love a dog once; I threw myself into the relationship wholeheartedly, fully; I gave it my all. But I was no more, no less, than a means to end to him. The personification of his fetish. A woman who would control him utterly, cage him, fuck other men in front of him, ignore him, shock him, sissify him, collar and leash him. To be crass, a fetish-shaped glory hole.

When the veil - because it is far more than just a mask - slipped, when I relaxed, when I dared expect give and take, I was reminded just what this was. He needed to be a dog at the hands of a mistress who was a goddess without flaw at all times.

My humanity only got in the way. Dogs teach their owners lessons, too. My lesson was clear: my role is goddess. The power of their kink typically outweighs any desire my dogs have to genuinely know me. So they never do.

I was unraveling the moment I allowed another person to overhear a phone call with one of my dogs. I can't explain my motives in allowing Troy, that day, to hear me speak to Adrian. I do not know them. But they were suspect. My therapist has tried unpicking them with great amusement, and little success.

So when I step out of my room without my armor, it's the first time I've felt fearful in front of one of my dogs since the one I loved left me.

I pad into the dining room, passing by Troy in the kitchen on my way. I feel his eyes locking on me, far more impertinently than usual. He steps out of the kitchen, a little absurd in his apron.

"You look beautiful, goddess."

Troy's compliment flays me by degrees. "Thank you, Troy."

I blink, realizing what I have just said. Realizing it is not the first time I have said it.

"Perhaps you should ... dress for dinner."