Family Pet

Part Ten

Déjà vu, that was the expression, wasn’t it? French for being there or having done it before, or for undergoing a similar experience. There was probably a fancier or more precise way to put it if he'd had the means to Google it, but he had no cell phone, iPad, or computer. Nor was he ever likely to own or have access to such things again. Besides, even if, by chance, a cell phone became available, what the hell could he do? His arms, like his legs, were doubled up in tight, restrictive leather sleeves that reduced him to an oversized dachshund waddling about on elbows and knees, while his betters and superiors strode about on two legs, high above him.

He had no fingers to tap on such devices either. They were also enclosed in sleeve-like pouches that clamped his lower arms to his upper arms in a mercilessly tight grip. The wretched things around his knee and elbow joints reduced him to his ‘gimp’ status, the term his owners used to describe his helpless, lowly state as the human family’s pet. Besides, the consequences of being discovered committing such a…a heinous crime were…well, not to be contemplated! He’d tried once, and only once.

He should have known better, but desperation breeds desperate, ill-thought-out, impulsive acts. Miss Susan had left her phone on the coffee table, which was unusual, as, like most teenage girls, her cell phone was as much a part of herself as her arms and legs. He’d spotted the oversight, hesitated, and when she hadn’t immediately reappeared, waddled over and shoved it to the floor, side-swiping it with his chin. Hence, it bounced once on the carpet and then, fortuitously, landed right side up and came to life automatically.

He’d thought out what he’d do next, after long months of boredom, locked in his basement cage while the family were out at work, school or university. Unfortunately, like thousands before him, what had seemed simple and easily achievable in the planning stage… failed miserably in execution, no matter how simple. Just as the military says, no plan, no matter how good, survives contact with the enemy, or words to that effect. In his case, the phone itself proved to be the enemy rather than an ally.

He was unsupervised, ungagged, and, with his voice unimpeded, he knew exactly where he was being held captive: the road and house number. All he had to do was dial 999, the UK emergency number, and within ten minutes he’d be free. Not just free, but a man again, standing upright on two legs! Simple, the work of mere seconds, or so it had seemed at the planning stage. Now, if Miss Susan had been using an old-style Nokia or equivalent phone with a physical keyboard, maybe?

Unfortunately, she wasn’t, and while her smartphone wasn’t the latest model, it of course used touchscreen technology. Plan A failed at that point, and there was no backup Plan B to compensate. While not impossible, pushing the #9 button three times with the tip of his nose might have been possible on a tactile keyboard, at least in theory! Trying it on a modern flat touchscreen was impossible.

For a start, he’d have to bring up the phone app before he could even attempt to dial the number, and trying to do so under duress, terrified of Miss Susan’s return, didn’t help. Likewise, the growing realisation that his escape plan was going ‘pear-shaped’ by the second only added to his panic. It was an impromptu, off-the-cuff exercise on his part, with little thought for the practicalities. Despite having several minutes, he’d not even been able to bring up the phone app before his young Mistress returned, and then promptly went into instant orbit, so far as her anger went! Pet shivered at that memory and the thrashing she’d given him, not just once. Her wrath at his ‘silliness’ lasted for the next few days, with several severe beatings!

He’d learned his lesson that time, or rather, one lesson, for the bastards who claimed ownership of him had given him many such lessons over the long months he’d been held captive. Back in those dark and excruciatingly painful early days of his so-called schooling, his training, his lessons had been damn near continuous! He’d virtually given up all hope that this hideous existence of his, if you could call it existing, what he endured day to day, would come to a happy end! But hope is a small spark that can seemingly survive almost every terrible situation. Thus, despite his abject misery, his ears pricked when he first sensed a change in the air. Perhaps that chance, that fleeting moment he’d virtually given up on, would present itself. A window of opportunity he could open, walk through, and be free, truly free, and above all, be free of this evil, fucking perverse, sadistic family forever!

*****

Pet was excited, or rather, had been excited in a way he hadn’t been for months. The family - his family, or rather the one that claimed ownership of him - was going on holiday. Better still, they were taking him with them. His ears had perked up, or would have, had he been a real pet like a dog, when the subject was first mentioned. At first, he’d assumed their absence would mean a long week locked in his basement cage with several water bowls and a week's supply of dry food. A week free from their horrible sexual demands on him and worse. Now that, indeed, would be a holiday… of sorts.

The downside, of course, would be having to share his cage for a week with a stinking litter tray full of his own piss and shit. A whole week! They’d left him on his own for a couple of days on previous occasions, but a whole week- seven days- did that include travel, or would those days be extras? Maybe they’d add a second litter tray, or even a third, but would they? His well-being wasn’t exactly top of their essentials list, was it? Hell, he probably wasn’t even on the damn list at all if such a list even existed!

His excitement stemmed from the moment he’d realised they’d be taking him with them this time. Finally, out of this damned house, somewhere different. A holiday cottage they’d hired for a week, somewhere on the coast, a four-hour drive away. Near one of those small seaside towns that were hardly big enough to be called a town, and that he’d never been to, nor could he have accurately put his finger on it on a blank map. Not to within fifty or so miles, anyway!

Anyway, that was all irrelevant. The key point was that he’d be out in the real world, the world of normality and normal people who were not evil, sadistic perverts. Oh yes, the bastards would undoubtedly take all sorts of precautions with him, but still… surely at some point… some time… an opportunity would arise, either en route or at this cottage. To escape… no, probably not with his limbs so restricted. Hell, the hundred-yard sprint, or what was it these days, the hundred metres, would probably take him half a day at his best speed! But there was always the possibility of somehow drawing attention to himself and his absurd predicament; that would be even better!

As the day drew nearer, his excitement hadn’t diminished, unlike his expectations, which had begun to fade. This cottage must be one hell of a big one, since they were sharing it with his Mistress’s younger sister and her family. Pet knew she also had two older teenage kids, plus a husband who was ‘big’ in computers, whatever that meant. But what would they make of him? They must know about him; otherwise, his ‘owners’ wouldn’t be taking him with them. Still! He was hardly a typical furry friend, was he? In fact, he’d no ‘fur’ left on him, except his eyebrows! Then again, perhaps they didn’t? Maybe his owners had something else in mind, some other arrangement, but one he could turn to his advantage. That possibility rose to the top of his mind.

That other aspect was distinctly worrying, but… he didn’t know. Maybe he’d spend the entire week locked in another cellar or an outhouse. Perhaps, in their own bizarre way, they were being kind to him for once and didn’t want to leave him alone for an entire week. That seemed doubtful, knowing them, but it was still the journey to get there, wasn't it? Presumably, the bastard who claimed Mastery over him would take his big swish company car, and maybe the fat bugger would put his foot down too hard and get stopped for speeding. Hello, hello, hello… what's all this then, sir? What do we have here then? What have you got there then, sir? Police officers were always curious and slightly suspicious, weren’t they? Ultra-polite but always on the lookout for the unusual, and boy was he unusual!

Yeah, that comforting thought, once he’d gathered more details about the forthcoming ‘holiday’, had kept his mind occupied throughout a long, uncomfortable night in Master Rogers' bedroom, when the horrible youth had been in an unusually energetic mood! It wasn’t that he’d become immune, no… inured to being regularly fucked and sodomised by his masters, senior and junior, and ditto with his two Mistresses. He hated it every time, but what choice did he have, being so restricted and helpless? Being excused from duty with a headache was never an option for him!

He’d never been a union man, being more than a little suspicious of such organisations and their political connections. He came from a Tory family and had always voted for the Conservatives, not their socialist counterparts. Still, they’d given a voice, especially back in the day, as they said, to those faceless masses who had slaved in Victorian sweatshops and the like for a weekly pittance. They’d played their part in forcing positive social change and awareness upon society, hadn't they? Unfortunately, he was a one-off, and going on strike, withdrawing his labour, downing tools…was not an option. Hell, he couldn’t even scratch his own damn nose, let alone do anything else, and no one in this accursed household was likely to down tools on behalf of ‘Brother Pet’s’ abuse!

He’d watched as the suitcases were carried out to the car, along with the usual family arguments and sarcastic comments about why the female members needed to take so much for a mere week away, chiefly from his Master, who seemed in an excessively grumpy mood that morning. The bastard had already kicked him twice, savagely in the ribs before breakfast, for getting in his way! Hell. It wasn’t as if he, Pet, was the most mobile thing in the world; more the opposite. Now he was waiting in the hall by the stairs, on the end of a leash, the other end held by Miss Susan, while the cases disappeared one by one through the front door. Pet noticed the door was carefully closed each time, presumably in case any nosy parker wandered around and saw him.

Now, that didn’t bode well for his hopes, did it, if they were already that damned security-conscious about him, assuming he was the reason they were closing the door all the time. Maybe it was just out of habit, although 139 Rosemary Avenue was right at the very end of the road and abutted the old railway embankment. There was no through traffic, and apart from the postman and the occasional dog walker, no one ever wandered down that way. At least, so he’d gleaned from family conversations. The doorbell hardly ever rang. Even their Amazon and similar deliveries were left in a special box to one side of the front door, presumably the big green plastic thing he caught a glimpse of each time the door opened.

Ten minutes later, they were off, not that he could see a damn thing, and worse, no one would be able to see him! A minibus, or two, could pull up on either side, loaded with cops, and they wouldn’t see a thing! The big BMW Gran Coupe had tinted windows, for one thing, and for another, they’d put a blanket over him. He’d half expected to go in the boot, but presumably that was full of suitcases and other bags, and two of those cases had been pretty damn big for a mere week away in what was clearly to be a very informal setting!

Worse, security had still been on the agenda for that big car. It had been manoeuvred as close as possible to the front door. Then, with his Mistress blocking the view from the road, Miss Susan had swiftly dragged him outside, seated herself in the left-hand rear seat, and he had been half lifted, half dragged, with his stumpy little legs scrabbling, through the open door and across her lap. The back seat was quite spacious, so he was partly on her knee and partly in the space between Miss Susan and Master Roger on the other side, already engrossed in his Nintendo Switch even as the big tartan travel blanket descended to cut off his view.

It had all happened so fast he’d seen little at all: a brief flash of sky, the faded yellow bricks of the house diagonally opposite, and then the car's plush leather rear seat. His face down against the leather cover, his bottom across Miss Susan's lap, probably used as a rest for the iPad in her other hand. No doubt reading her Kindle app or something, having warned him to be quiet and lie still. Quiet! Yeah, what did she expect him to do, start screaming for help, singing coarse songs like drunken football supporters heading to an away match! Like… well, given the girl had stuffed a huge red rubber ball gag in his mouth and strapped it tight, keeping quiet wasn’t going to be all that difficult. Now breathing, yes, that might be another matter!

Four hours, or about that, his Master had said, depending on the traffic and possible roadworks. Four hours in his not overly uncomfortable, if slightly cramped, position under the heavy blanket Miss Susan had spread over her lap and over him, the stuffiness already adding to his misery. Nor would there be a break, not for him, anyway. His Mistress had filled a big thermos with coffee and said they could stop in a lay-by halfway for a quick break. Master Roger had immediately argued for a stop at a McDonald's, but he’d been overruled, three to one. Besides, as his father had said, they’d mostly be on secondary A roads, and the best they could hope for was a petrol filling station with toilets and maybe a coffee machine. He wasn’t even sure whether the place they were heading for had a McDonald's in the nearby town. There’d almost certainly be a few fish and chip shops, though, as well as a couple of burger and kebab shops! Master Roger had remained sullenly silent, no doubt contemplating the horror of spending an entire week cut off from his Big Mac life-support backup!

Pet had dozed for much of the journey. Apart from the ball gag, he wasn’t all that uncomfortable, and Miss Susan's lap was warm while the leather upholstery was soft and yielding. They stopped for about fifteen minutes for coffee and wrapped chocolate biscuits, Coke for Master Roger and water for him from a bottle in Miss Susan's hand. There had been a brief moment of daylight when, after a severe warning about what she’d do to him if he didn’t behave and keep quiet, the blanket was lifted to allow her to undo his ball gag. Then the spout of the feeding bottle was thrust into his mouth, and the blanket was flipped back over him.

A blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment, in the unlikely event that someone had been walking past and had the curiosity to peer in through the slightly tinted windows. Not that Miss Susan would have watered him if anyone had been wandering about in the vicinity! Including the break, he must have spent at least four, maybe five, hours under the heavy woollen blanket, the scent of expensive leather upholstery filling his nostrils and red rubber filling his mouth. Yeah, some holiday, and not a hell’s chance of anyone seeing him and his predicament, but had he really expected anything else? He’d dozed, only to be awakened a couple of times by his young mistress's hand absently stroking his lower back and then his buttock cheeks. That he didn’t mind, for it was, in a way, soothing. What hurt and returned him to full consciousness, making him wince, was when one of her fingers lightly traced along a recent raised painful wheal of bruised flesh, then another.

He’d relaxed as he realised there was no ill intent behind that wandering hand, and the girl probably wasn’t even aware she was doing it. Once she picked up a book or her iPad to read, very little distracted her. Yeah, that was the… the… just one aspect of the entire bizarre scenario that had become his life. A pretty teenage girl was absently fondling him, a fully grown man many years older than her, and she most likely wasn’t even aware of what she was doing. What a fucking horrible life he led. Despite his hopes, expectations, and dreams, his day started at the bottom of the scale, as it usually did, and it seldom improved. Why should he be surprised by the girl’s wandering hand? Besides, it was the girl’s other hand and a swishy bamboo cane that had caused those painful contusions in the first place!

Unable to regain restful repose after the refreshment break, his mind drifted back to earlier in the day; he found himself once more in the kitchen. Breakfast in the kitchen had been about as normal as it got in that horrible household, and then the running around had begun. Miss Susan and his Mistress were the chief ones, packing the final bits and pieces, while Master Roger had been packed off on some errand down to the little parade of shops at the other end of the road, grumbling like hell, of course. “Because once we set off, we’re not stopping, that’s why! So run there and tell them or I’ll get cross. I told you yesterday you had to do it, so don't pretend you didn’t know!”

Who needed to be told what? Pet didn’t know, but the lad had sullenly slouched off on his errand, muttering expletives. Then his Master rose from the breakfast table, stretched noisily, looked in his direction, and snapped his fingers. “Here, boy, follow! All this bloody fuss and bother, typical woman stuff! Let's go relax with a bit of man stuff before the off, a bit of après-breakfast fun, eh, boy?”

Christ! Relax and man stuff, now, and straight after the bastard had scoffed his bacon, egg and fried bread. Pet knew only too well what his Master meant by ‘relaxation’. But what choice did he have? Of course, he’d immediately risen from his basket and obediently waddled after the fat bastard into the lounge, where his Master promptly plonked himself down in his favourite chair, which squeaked in protest at the sudden weight. The bastard ought to spread himself around, Pet thought as he followed; otherwise, his Mistress’s expensive three-piece leather suit was in danger of becoming a two-piece! He also knew what was expected of him even before he heard the sound of his Master's trouser fly zip being tugged down. Christ, he’d always tended towards travel sickness, and what effect would swallowing this bastard's spunk have on him for the forthcoming journey, when mixed with his less-than-delicious, recently consumed pet breakfast!

Thus, while the two females of the household whizzed about doing last-minute packing and other tasks, they obviously felt essential, and Master Roger was presumably slouching slowly along the road on his errand; he, Pet, had sucked cock yet again. Not that he had a choice! The taste of his Master's heavy, salty cum had lingered despite swallowing the usual copious amounts of the foul stuff. He hadn’t even had a chance to get to his water bowl to drink and rinse his mouth out because Miss Susan was in a hurry.

The girl had appeared in the lounge doorway, brandishing his leash, and immediately indulged in a brief bout of tut-tutting, more Pet had suspected due to her father's lack of involvement in what was going on with journey prep than for having his cock fellated by the family pet. I mean, what was new there? Pet was long past the point of feeling embarrassed by what he was doing in full view of the attractive teen. Anyway, she was one of the terrible twosome that had trained him to use his mouth thus down in the basement. ‘Slower, slower, press harder with your tongue’, accompanied by painful strokes of bamboo cane or wooden paddle as he sucked and slobbered upon a huge plastic phallus!

“Excused duties, Honey. I’m the driver, remember. Conserving my energies for later. Don’t you stop, boy, unless you want to feel bamboo across your lazy backside again!”

“We are ready to depart now, Daddy dearest, or would you rather mummy drives?”

“Managed to wedge the kitchen sink in, have we? Or an extra suitcase filled with another dozen or so spare pairs of knickers or whatever else the two of you can’t do without? You should take lessons from Roger, the pair of you.

“Oh, very funny. Ha fucking ha! Yes, I’m sure I could get through the entire week with a Nintendo Switch, a dozen games, two multi-packs of Snickers, and fuck all else. Not so much as a spare pair of socks, and we know what his feet are like! I told him it's ridiculous that Mum has to pack his bag for him at his age. Do you want me to back the car up so we can load and…”

“NO!” Pet was startled and choked for a moment as his Master seemed to leap from his chair without leaving it. The guy's cock had speared down his throat, but only for a second before he recovered himself. The sudden movement did have the ultimate effect, though, as the organ began to pulse and squirt its usual load of creamy goo. Pet promptly jerked his head back a couple of inches but didn’t dare let the squirting organ out of his mouth. It had to be orally milked of every drop, and then it would be his Master, not him, who initiated its withdrawal.

“No bloody way,” the man growled through his orgasm. “Only I drive the fucking thing, even if it's just a couple of feet. Oh God, he’s bloody good, isn’t he…? No, I’ll be there in a minute, phew!”

“His oral skills are acceptable, just!” his daughter replied, somewhat contemptuously, and left, calling out to her mother. Pet didn’t hear because a hand was slapping the side of his head, urging him to finish his odious task. Five minutes later, Pet waited at the bottom of the stairs, his leash looped by Miss Susan over the bottom bannister post next to the growing pile of baggage as the family's exodus began once Master Roger had returned to be verbally castigated by his mother for taking his ‘own sweet time’ about it!

By the time they finally set off, they were already an hour or so behind schedule, and that was a false start. By Pet's reckoning, they’d hardly gone a few yards when they stopped because his Mistress insisted on going back to check they'd locked the back door and turned off the electric water heater in the airing cupboard. Five minutes later, Master Roger was in trouble again. When his attention could be dragged from whatever game he was playing, he admitted to his mother that he couldn’t remember whether he’d closed his top bedroom window as she’d asked. At that point, his Master cut in, saying he was not stopping or going back to check. If burglars wanted to call, a) they’d need a long ladder and would thus look somewhat conspicuous, and b) they’d need to be damn skinny to get through that narrow aperture anyway. His exasperated tone was final, and even his wife knew him well enough not to challenge him further.

The journey continued in a slightly strained silence. Conversation didn’t break out until the halfway point of the trip, while he sweated in silence, caught between the soft warmth of Miss Susan's leggings and the two thick layers of blanket covering him. His fanciful hopes of rescue faded with every mile.

*****

‘Harmony Cottage’ wasn’t, and nor was it likely to be very harmonious, at least not for him. Pet realised this soon after being dragged from the vehicle by his Mistress so her daughter could get out. They’d parked on a gravel patch, evidently provided for that purpose, marked by a big weather-beaten sign on a green board. Parking reserved for Harmony Cottage guests. Please don’t drive on the lawns. A big people-carrier-type vehicle was parked nearby.

“Lawn! Call that a lawn?” His Master had laughed, looking at the sizeable area between the car park and house, which was chiefly dirt, sand, and patches of sun-browned grass. " I can’t see anyone wanting to play bowls or… what's that other game they play with hoops and mallets at posh country houses?”

“Croquet,” his daughter supplied, taking his leash from her mother and giving him a dig in the ribs with her foot for no reason he could discern. Probably an automatic, unthinking gesture. I’m holding the leash, I’m in charge, so behave! Hell, what other choice did he have?

“Here comes the welcoming party, Hi!” His Mistress called. Cheerfully.

Pet had been taking in the scenery, which wasn’t encouraging for one anticipating escape. A slate-grey sea breaking sluggishly upon acres of empty beach in either direction, with not a single tree in sight, just a few scrubby bushes atop low sand dunes and a solitary wheeling seagull that abruptly emitted a raucous squawk, changed direction and flew low over the cottage that wasn’t, then off into the distance.

His Master had commented on the name a few days previously, “Why Harmony if it’s that close to the sea and the beach? Why not Sea View or Beach View; those are the usual names people give to such places? Harmony sounds odd!”

Historically, cottages were small buildings, with one or two bedrooms and perhaps only one or two rooms downstairs. They were the sort of small buildings where farm and factory workers lived years and years ago, raising large families in cramped, crowded and often slum-like conditions. House agents had long since adopted and enhanced the term for their modern modest equivalents, or for the originals now so heavily modernised that the interiors would have been unrecognisable to those who’d dwelt in them a century or two back.

The cottage, house or whatever was damn big. More like a small mansion, size-wise, built of grey, weathered stone and standing totally isolated, with not another building in sight bar a couple of small outbuildings. It looked like the solid solitary keep of some twelfth-century Baronial castle whose walls, gateway, and defensive towers had long since crumbled, and whose masonry the local peasants had carried off for other use. No wall, no fence, no cultivated gardens or pristine green lawns. Nothing but a couple of stunted trees leaning to one side, their twisted branches showing which way the local prevailing winds blew.

A sturdy telegraph-type pole carried several wires to a similar pole, and others led off along the rough, stony track they must have been driving down for the last five or six minutes, bumping along. Electricity rather than phone lines, Pet decided, straining his neck to peer up at the top of the post. Jesus, but that track had been bumpy and evidently terminated at the house?

Definitely not a cottage by any definition he knew. As for harmony? Pet’s heart sank immediately, along with the little hope he’d had of rejoining the world as a free man. That hope had died the moment the little group emerged from behind the house to wave excitedly at the new arrivals. Pet took one horrified look, then twisted his head almost subconsciously to stare at the top of that big telegraph pole because he didn’t want to see what he’d just seen! Wasn’t that ostrich syndrome? The equivalent of sticking his head in a hole and pretending the threat didn’t exist!

He didn’t know much about this other family. His Mistress had a younger sister; he knew that, but her family lived in the North of England, and this would be Pet's first meeting with them. The two families lived some distance apart, and contact was somewhat sparse, so that in all the time he’d been held captive he’d only heard his Mistress on the phone to her sister a couple of times. Maybe she phoned at work or at times when he hadn’t been around to listen, but did it matter?

Oddly, he’d hoped that… well, how foolish can you get? He told himself bitterly, now feeling like an idiot. What a fool! Foolish. Why would they have taken him along if… but yes, he had considered that, and he’d hoped that somehow, they might be different, normal even, like real normal people who’d be massively shocked to see someone like him. Or, more likely, they’d somehow keep him separate and isolated, and a chance might arise to make himself and his horrible predicament known to them. Hah, fat chance! Some fucking hope, and the very fact that he was being taken along on this week’s holiday should have alerted him, shouldn’t it? What’s that phrase… Hope springs eternal? Yeah, like fucking hell!

Reluctantly, as though his eyes were on autopilot and beyond his control, he shifted his gaze back from the top of the tall wooden pole, hoping he was wrong but knowing he wasn't. An icy foreboding chilled him to the bone, and he shivered despite the day's warmth. The last vestige of hope was cruelly wrenched away; reality, or in this case, unreality, was now confirmed. There would be no week-long hiding away for him, no damp, dark cubby hole where they could keep him hidden for the week, brought out at night in secret to provide the ‘usual’ and all too familiar revolting sexual service the bastards required.

He got the impression there would be nothing harmonious about his stay in Harmony Cottage, and that there was zero chance of revealing his miserable existence to a shocked audience, whose common humanity and sense of decency would be so outraged as to transcend any family loyalties and thus… but no. One glance had killed every similar silly hope. Six figures had emerged from behind that big grey house, but only four waved a cheerful greeting to the new arrivals. They were the ones walking on two legs; the other two didn’t have that option, for they were waddling on four legs like him and were on the end of a leash… and like him, they were clearly human!

JE-fucking-SUS! His Mistress’s sister's damn family - should he have expected anything different! Yup, Déjà fucking vu with knobs on!