A Dog/slave Weeend

31

"Oh!" Valerie screeched at the shock of seeing Manuel right in front of her path.

"You want me to put your dog/slave away now?" he asked.

"No, no, Manuel. No," she said. "I've got this Manuel. I'm fine..." Valerie stepped around him to retrieve the water hose one more time.

"He is not a threat to anyone like that."

"He's quite harmless. You know that." She pulled the hose over to John and let him swish his mouth out. "On the lawn, Frisky. On the lawn!"

As John swished his mouth clean he hobbled over to the edge of the concrete and spit into the grass.

"Yes, he's harmless," Manuel agreed. "And helpless."

Valerie swung around after putting the hose back and shutting off the water flow. She made her way back to the lounge chair with a smile and sat back down. "Who are you worried about, Manuel? Him? Or me?"

"The household."

"Frisky's not harming a thing, barely been here a week. Everything is fine."

"Is it? Then why do you hide it?" Manuel said pointing at John.

"I told you Randy and I will work this out at the right time."

Manuel remained silent after that. This made Valerie uncomfortable. She said, "Besides, it's just a matter of time until Ashley comes to get him."

"You sound like you don't want her to."

"I'm just doing my sister a favor. Dog sitting. Dog/slave sitting. She couldn't come this last weekend because she was the only one at her work that didn't have overtime due to her absence earlier in the week. So she had to work the weekend as well. She can't say no. She's needs the job."

Well, now John knows why it looks like Ashley abandoned him to the brutal hands of her sister. Of course Valerie didn't tell him what was going on. It's none of a dog's business.

Valerie stood patting Manuel on the arm. "Things are going just as I thought they would. Relax." She gathered up the things from the table to take back in the house. "Randy and I will be fine, Manuel. I'm just having some fun. He wanted to be a dog, so I'm making him a dog." She opened the door. "C'mon, Frisky. In the house. Let Manuel get back to work."

John looked up at Manuel then past his brown trouser pants on his way through the open door.

"So now you know why Ashley didn't come down this weekend," she said closing the glass door behind her and taking her grooming items into the master bathroom. John followed her in through the master bedroom. He wasn't sure why. He was just following his instincts, his dog-like instincts.

Valarie put each item hurriedly onto the bathroom counter top then raced to the toilet with her pants half way down by the time she got there. She began to relieve herself the moment her butt cheeks hit the toilet seat. "Ah, Manuel... I had to pee so bad but I didn't want to leave you outside with Manuel, all alone." The splashing of urine echoed out of the toilet bowl. "But he's so worried about Randy not knowing about you. Like a kid afraid his parents are going to get divorced or something."

Here he was, John found himself like a dog that follows its Master into the bathroom. Should he lay down and wait? Or just stand there looking stupid?

She leaned forward for a moment unrolling a wad of toilet paper for it's inevitable use. "Keeping you for another week after picking you up wasn't what I had planned. It was all a rush job getting you into character before Ashley picked you up on Saturday. Seems I get another week to finish the job."

Finish the job... That sounded ominous to John.

She wiped, stood up and jerked her pants back up around her hips without a care in the world that John was there watching her. A quick hand wash later she pulled the counter drawer and started putting the grooming items away, then she said, "Want a treat, pet?"

A treat? In the bathroom? No.

Between her thumb and forefinger she pinched a red gummy bear. "Open up."

Why does she have gummy bears in her bathroom drawer? John opened up. Valerie deposited the candy on his tongue. He chewed it enjoying the flavor since such things had been withheld from him for the last week.

She palmed two more before leaving the bathroom heading for the kitchen. John followed without being prompted to.

John sat just outside the kitchen tile boundary while the beautiful woman began to make herself a salad on the kitchen counter top. "You know, I always wanted a pet that could talk. Know what I mean..?" she said as she licked her finger clean of a drop of salad dressing. "I give you permission to talk, Frisky."

John said nothing.

"Nothing to say? All this going on around you, to you, and you have nothing to say?"

"What do you want me to say?" he said around his canine teeth. His first words all day.

"I want to know what you think."

"You want to know what a dog thinks?"

"Well now, you're not exactly all dog. You're a dog/slave."

"Thank you for clearing that up."

"Damn it, Frisky! Don't push me!"

"I think," John said, "I think that you're gas lighting me."

"What do you mean?" Valerie asked as she scooted to a chair at the dining room table with her salad bowl.

"The shot, the dog/slave contract... Hell, I'd probably be dead or have sever reactions if that had been a real vaccine shot for dogs."

"You don't know."

"And you know that a dog/slave contract can't be upheld in court. This is all a mind game."

"Is it?" she said between bites. "The dog/slave contract was just a preliminary. There are many other documents you signed giving me power from different angles in your life. Financial, medical, durable power of attorney... I don't know. I just told my lawyer I wanted every angle of your life covered. In court, she said, much of this is as legal as a marriage contract." Valerie took another bite, chewed, then said, "Besides, I don't think you want to try me in court. It's not like you can even afford legal counsel."

"You wouldn't do that to your sister."

"No. I'd do it to you."

"So, you don't own me..." John lamented. "You just... own me."

"Pretty much," she said with a full mouth, nodding her head. After swallowing, she hovered her fork over the salad bowl as if searching for her next bite, or an elusive condiment she decided she wanted next. "Yeah, so, say the whole dog/slave thing doesn't work for me. In street language, my lawyer said that I could drag your ass into a hospital and have you transitioned into a woman if I wanted."

"I could fight you in court."

"You don't know my lawyer. She would make every one of those documents you signed stick. But i really need only one. Which one doesn't matter."

"There's got to be..."

"These days, you can only get as much justice as you can afford."

That shut John up. It was true. How many crooks have gotten away with murder because they could afford it? Now, without even a job, he and Ashley would not be able to afford rent, food and a car payment each.

Having caught her next bite on a fork and holding it up to take a bite she looked down on him sitting on her kitchen floor and tilted her head. With a dry voice she said, "How much can you afford?"