Family Pet

Part three

He put that image, that first time, out of his mind. That monstrous fleshy stalk that had…had….no, he wasn’t going to think about that.

"It’ll be ready when it’s ready!” How many times had he heard Miss Susan say that? Half a dozen times at least, and probably more, and he’d never paid much attention to it. His grandmother had said the very same thing many, many years ago when he was a hungry little boy rather than an adult man, or rather a pet. Only this time, he hadn’t fully understood that it wasn’t food Miss Susan was referring to. Then again, when a pretty teenage girl less than half your age is mercilessly turning your bottom into a raging bonfire with a cane or paddle, not much tends to register other than the agonising pain you’re enduring.

Humiliation no longer came into the equation, only pain, and pain that certainly wasn’t mind-numbing, far from it! Even fainting wasn’t an option for those awful smelling-salts swiftly returned him to agonising reality. He was the full orchestra, reaching the highest notes as Miss Susan or her mother wielded whatever horrible conductor's baton they’d chosen to conduct his symphony of agony. By this stage, he’d been reduced to a blubbering, screaming wreck, and the fact that those inflicting such inescapable pain were female and one of them quite young hardly registered; he was beyond feeling humiliated by that fact.

Pet watched that same pretty girl sitting at the breakfast bar a few yards away, munching toast and marmalade while scrolling on her cell phone as if oblivious to his watching eyes. But why shouldn’t she be? He was nothing in her eyes, a mere thing to be used for her amusement and pleasure as the mood took her, and if she were in a bad mood, then the worse for him. Being screwed by the evil young bitch now that was humiliating, and yet he could not, indeed dare not do a thing about it. Indeed, he’d reached the point where even allowing himself to think about rebellion scared him!

Pet often wondered just how the young girl saw him. Did she see him as a man, a broken and helpless man,  but still a living conscious thinking being or just an object, a living sex toy! Probably a bit of everything, not that she’d probably care one jot. She must see many other guys out there in that world beyond the walls of this evil house. How did she see them? Did she contemplate plunging a giant strap-on phallus into their helpless rectums while her clit tingled with pleasure as the smaller hilt at its rear end stimulated her girly sex bits while she savagely raped them?

He’d never thought much about that sort of thing before, never considered that a woman would or could do such to a man, let alone a slip of a girl. Even male rape hadn’t been on his radar other than maybe in prison or similar! His innocence or naivety, if you want, had been abruptly terminated one afternoon down in that horrid cellar when Miss Susan had laughed and said, “Okay, I think he’s about ready for the boys, you’ve been very patient. Daddy first, I suppose?

That’s when he realised, with shock, that finally pierced through his pain-sodden, dumb mind that it hadn’t been food they’d been talking about. No, he was the one on the menu. The tasty morsel they’d been cooking—and now about to sample! It took a few moments, and it wasn’t until she giggled and waved the pot of Vaseline, ‘pussy lube’ they called it, in his face that the penny finally dropped with an almighty mental clang. The gate of doom clanging shut!

The two ‘boys’, as they called them — father and son — had been occasional visitors and spectators in his basement prison and torture chamber. He had initially tried silently appealing to the older man, but that had proven futile. By the time young Master Roger took an interest, he was far too gone to feel embarrassed or even aware of the boy keenly observing his mother and older sister inflicting cruelties upon him. Usually, he was too occupied with screaming and clutching at whatever remnants of his sanity remained. Freedom, pride, and dignity had long since vanished.

The Vaseline tub was familiar to him, as was its greasy contents. It had been on what was likely the third or fourth day in this hellish house when Miss Susan introduced him to the stuff and its perverted use. Back then, he was still baffled, confused, and utterly bewildered — not to mention fucking wild with rage, anger, and every other relevant adjective you could think of! He was still a man then, not a pet. He was also stark bollock naked, trussed up, and utterly helpless, and on top of all that, the wicked bitches were torturing him as if it was no big deal to them. Worse, he had no idea why. What did they want from him?

In films and books, it’s always some kind of information. But what had he got to tell them? He was a deputy manager several levels below the main one at a large supermarket, part of a nationwide chain that held a significant share of the UK market. His responsibility was dairy products, plus fresh fruit and vegetables. If they were agents of some foreign power, they were wasting their time with him big time! He’d tried to tell them that, but communication was a one-way process, and not even that. Every time he opened his mouth, the pain worsened, and they weren’t pleased. Sometimes, a big red ball thing was wedged in his mouth for a while.

He had no money, no family, and it was ludicrous to imagine that the company he worked for would pay a ransom. Hell, not on the wages they paid and quibbled over every penny of overtime. Besides, why the hell were they doing what they were doing to him if that was the case? None of it made sense! What did they want from him? It was only later that he realised they already had what they wanted and he would be the one paying!

He’d screamed, shouted, protested, raved, and everything else at them, but the two women or woman and girl ignored him as though they were deaf to anything that left his mouth except his screams. Not a single explanation came his way as to who they were, where he was, and why they were doing such terrible things to him. The screams, however, seemed amusing, and they seemed to find them satisfying.

They completely ignored him, regardless of anything he said or shouted. They talked among themselves, but he was ignored—or rather, his verbal protests went unheard, and not much else. He felt like a piece of meat on a butcher's slab being dissected and dispassionately carved up; however, he wasn’t dead, and they seemed more intent on tenderising than carving joints out of him! Pets were to be seen, used but not heard—a rule he had yet to learn at that time, but one he would learn, slowly and painfully.

Maybe it was later, perhaps the fifth day or night, he’d no way of knowing when he was introduced to the ‘pussy lube’ for the first time. He’d soiled himself in that low, cramped cage they kept him in like a human rabbit or hamster. How prophetic that thought would prove to be! They’d dragged him out, then hosed him down in the ‘wet’ corner of the room where he was imprisoned and tormented. He didn’t know it was a cellar back then, but he suspected it was underground from the lack of windows, and that they came and went through a door with wooden steps leading up.

They wore blue washing-up gloves but didn’t bother with any other protection, even though the water was stingingly cold as they scrubbed the filth his body had produced off him. Miss Susan had first mentioned the stuff when they hauled him upright and laid him upon that dreaded whipping bench. He’d lain there helpless in his bindings as nimble fingers secured yet more straps securing him upon that horrible piece of furniture he would soon come to hate, loathe and fear. This time, wet and cold, more like a fish on the fishmonger's marble slab than live meat, but feeling just as helpless.

“That was tedious,” the older woman said, peeling off her gloves and shaking the drops off them.. “Once a week is more than enough; we need to start its toilet training.”

“Spot on, mum, couldn’t agree more. The sooner we get that particular ball rolling, the better. I’ve nothing on that, can’t wait this afternoon, so leave it to me. I’ll see to it, set things up, clean it out a few times, and then plug it”.

“Sure, you don’t need help, sweetie?”

“Nah, I used to help you with Fuckslut, remember when I was younger. I know what to do, and trussed up like that, it’s no threat. Anyway, you said you needed time to do some baking, a cake, wasn’t it?”

“I promised Maya at work I’d bake a birthday cake for her little girl, Nina. She’s super cute and will be four next week. Maya’s brilliant, of course, with Indian food, real Indian food, not the crap they serve in the local restaurants and curry houses, but says she can’t bake for toffee. I said I’d make her a proper cake with all the trimmings, well, the sort of things a four-year-old would appreciate, chocolate bunnies, Smarties, and so forth, plus candles to blow out. I’ve still got a packet in the cupboard from Roger’s last one before he grew out of such things.. My, how time flies! You sure you can cope?”

“Easy peasy, you run along and make little Nina happy while I ensure this big thing is not quite so happy! I think I’ll do three, and leave the third one inside until after supper, then maybe we could give it another taster with the paddles and see how it handles it with a bloated belly”.

They’d both laughed at that, and he’d lain helpless on that fucking awful bench listening. Not only had he been subject to the humiliation of being handled and washed down by them, but he was also threatened with being paddled again. He still had to learn the horrors of the bloated belly back then, but he’d already experienced the ‘taste’ of the paddles and hadn’t enjoyed it one bit!

He hadn’t enjoyed anything so far in this bizarre, nightmare world he was in. He couldn’t even remember how he’d got here, wherever, ever here was. His mind was a complete blank, going back to when he’d left work and fancied a beer at the usual pub. He remembered heading into that narrow alley, taking the dubious shortcut instead of the long way around, but that must have been days ago or was it? It seemed like days ago, but he had no way of knowing, no reference points or anything.

Pet lifted his head from the rim of his basket as his Master thumped heavily into the kitchen, casually tossed his briefcase, jacket, and tie onto a spare stool, and sat at the breakfast bar with a deep groan, reaching for the coffee pot. Miss Susan nodded in greeting, then pushed a dish towards him.

“What's that?”

“Breakfast, a DIY toasted bacon sandwich. There’s the bacon, well crisped like you prefer, toast on the plate, ketchup next to it, and leave some for Roger. Fruit juice in the carton”

“I wanted Cornflakes, bacon, sausage, egg and beans, then toast and marmalade?”

“You’re on a diet, remember, so it’s crisp lean bacon and wholemeal toast, and if you so much as look at the butter dish, I’ll report you to mum!”

“Bitch!”

“Aren’t I just, and remember, half that bacon is for Roger. Don’t go getting greedy”

Miss Susan smiled sweetly in response to the look her father threw at her, then returned her full attention to the cell phone in her hand and her slice of toast. Pet lowered his head and tried to shrink down into his basket, making himself smaller. There was a degree of tension suddenly in the air, and he was far too convenient a whipping boy when one of them was in a foul mood. He knew better than to draw attention to himself. He cowered, his mind returning to where it had left off.

Back then, as now, listening to them, it all felt so normal, so bloody utterly normal. Family chit-chat, small talk and yet… yet there he was right smack in the middle of it, the bloody elephant in the room that seemed non-existent, yet unfortunately for him, it did exist, and he was it. They even referred to him as the bloody it!

It, it and bloody it! No name, no acknowledgement, no explanation, rhyme or reason for their crazy, sadistic actions, or so it seemed. He was just an ‘it’ to be tied up, abused and beaten, and they were so damn casual about it. So impersonal and uncaring, and didn’t even acknowledge him as a man, a person or even a fellow human being. He was merely the nameless, non-entity ‘it’ to the two terrible women.

Women and girl, to be precise, and under very different circumstances, some aspects of the entire farce might even have been enjoyable with a little more flexibility! After all, he was single and uncommitted despite his age, and they weren’t unattractive by any means, far from it, with figures to match. His Mistress might be in her early to mid-forties, but she hadn’t let herself go, unlike the obese slob she shared the marriage bed with. Pet had seen her a few times in full makeup, and she was quite a stunner when all glammed up. Still more than capable of catching and holding a roving male eye, including his own under other circumstances.

The daughter, Miss Susan, was an even more likely cock twitcher. Slim, firm-breasted, long, honey blonde hair, blue-eyed, with all the lithesome, nubile sex appeal of an ultra-pretty girl in her late teens. Every boy next door's wet dream and then some, yet… angelic of face and figure, maybe, but no fucking angel, at least not to him, and to Pet's mind, the worst, the most fearsome of the whole family.

Pet watched her from his basket's edge as she flicked her finger up and down her phone, just as he‘d observed her do countless times before. Like any typical teen, he’d seen her laugh, chat, and giggle at the latest teen drama — but Miss Susan was no ordinary teen. Not with him, anyway! Could those on the other end of the call even imagine what she had captive and trussed up a few feet away, awaiting her ‘pleasure?’ No, of course not.

It had been the same in that bloody cellar during those Early days of relentless abuse and torment. Like... like the Middle Ages, the Spanish Inquisition meets bloody Barbie or something! Pink bloody Barbie! He had a memory of the first time he’d temporarily played second fiddle to… to whoever had been calling. Laura, maybe, or Heather, Jodie, Anita or maybe… but what the hell, it was irrelevant, and there were so many of them to giggle and gossip with while he was temporarily ignored.

Her evil mother wasn’t always there, presumably at work, just him and the younger bitch, but that didn’t spare him, for she was just as sadistic despite her youth. Initially, he’d been contemptuous, disbelieving, defiant, especially to her, but that hadn’t lasted long. Bravado and toughness had gone long before the end of that first day, beaten out of him as much by the younger as the senior of his two tormentors! They were both equally cruel, callous and totally indifferent to his confusion and suffering.

He hadn’t been in his horrible ‘pet bindings’ back then, whenever that was. That restrictive, crippling ‘pleasure’ still lay ahead, but he was still helpless, naked, and vulnerable. A heavy-duty leather belt cinched his waist tightly, with wrists secured on either side by thick cuffs, and ankles cuffed and hobbled by a short chain. He was worn out and weak from screaming, shouting, and the abuse he’d endured. He’d been dozing in his cage when Miss Susan opened the door and dragged him out. Despite the size difference and his weakness and handicaps, the girl had easily pulled him over to the whipping hurdle despite his feeble attempts to resist.

Still somewhat dazed, he was bent over the thing, secured with a strap across his lower back. Then, one ankle was freed from the hobble chain and quickly secured to the left rear leg of the hurdle, followed by the other ankle to its twin. He made a half-hearted attempt to kick out, but she was far too strong for him and in a much better position, so he had no chance. The irritated sound she had made also suggested it was unwise.

Not that it would have made the slightest difference to what followed. He’d unthinkingly tried to make the usual verbal protest, and the young girl had immediately stopped that in the normal, or abnormal, way. Talking was forbidden, not that he’d been told that directly; they never told him anything. Like every other bit of information, and the supply was meagre, he’d pieced together from conversations between them that talking was not to be an option for him, and they had a simple but effective method of silencing him, at least as far as verbal communication was concerned.

He’d barely gotten three or four words out when Miss Susan repeated that noise of exasperated irritation and stood before him. A slender female hand raised his chin to look directly at her pretty but emotionless face, then he was viciously bitch slapped into silence. One, two, one, two—front and back hand six times—then she paused, her hand still raised, watching him with the same steady look as if daring him. He didn’t dare, though, because his face ached terribly and he could taste blood on his lips.

Once the preliminaries were out of the way, the real session had started, and as usual, gone on and on and on. He could scream and bawl and shout, and he did. He could writhe and wriggle on the hurdle, but there was no escape from its secure but straightforward bindings. He could also faint, but unfortunately not dead away, as in gone forever, because the pungent smell of salts swiftly restored him each time to the living hell he now inhabited, and the female demon who patiently awaited that return so that she might continue her evil task!

He’d been in agony as usual, and yet the strange thing was they never truly hurt him, did they? Well, yes, they did, but it was never severely damaging, never crippling or maiming—no bullet to his guts, no limbs cut off, no toenails pulled out with pliers, etc. The sessions with the dental pliers came later, and he didn’t even like to think about them! But they never did anything that made him useless or unable to carry on the next day. Of course, he didn’t recover immediately from certain things and would carry scars to his grave, probably, but there was never a rest day, a day off, no sickie day when he wasn’t fit enough for them to press on towards whatever terrible end goal they had in mind, if indeed there was one!

The pretty teen had alternated the lengthy session between using several different paddles on his bottom, a thick tawse and then amused herself with a vicious cattle prod. He’d no idea what the things were called at the time, only that they hurt, but he’d been held captive long enough to know what they were by now and worse, their various painful bites. Oh yes, he was very familiar with those!

Her phone had rung at one point, and he lay there groaning in agony, gasping for breath from screaming when the girl, calm as you like, had said, “Wait one, too much background noise my end. Then she’d gaged him with that red ball, picked up her cell phone and carried on with the call as if he didn’t exist!

Surreal—that was the only word to describe it. He’d been held prisoner for what, two weeks possibly? He couldn’t be certain, but it was probably longer than a week, always locked away in that damned cellar where he was ultimately doomed to spend months. It wasn’t until they finally allowed him to shuffle out in his ‘pet’ role and bindings that he saw the date on a combined kitchen calendar and wall clock. But that was long after that session with Miss Susan, the pink Barbie session, as he thought of it.

Most days, the horrors and humiliations were, well, if not forgotten, then at least faded from active memory. Some, like the dental pliers session, never would; they burned like a searing brand into his memory. Others, like the pink Barbie one, he remembered from time to time when something triggered them—those trainers she was wearing this morning — like the pink ones, or a similar pair.

The girl was as sexy as hell in her tight pink crop top and skin-tight ripped jeans of a matching shade, plus trainers of a similar hue as was her Alice band and Apple Watch strap. A colour that dominated her ‘girlie’ bedroom, but he wouldn’t see that for quite a while yet. He’d already begun to think of her as the Barbie Brat, a name he’d long since dropped in favour of Miss Susan simply because he dared not think of her otherwise.

Back then, he’d only just begun the learning curve, a very painful, lengthy, and utterly demeaning process that in many ways had effectively destroyed him forever, at least as the man, the person he’d been. It hadn’t been the first session he’d endured alone at the teen’s hands, but it was the first time she’d shown such blatant indifference to him as a man, which had shocked him almost as much as what she was so casually doing to him.

It had been unusually hot in the basement that afternoon for some reason. If it were indeed afternoon, her mother might not have been at work or could be fast asleep in bed upstairs if it were the middle of the night. He had no way of knowing, so perhaps it was that time, and the Barbie Brat was a bored insomniac as well as a juvenile sadist!

He’d no idea how long she’d been working on him with those wooden paddles interlaced occasionally with that meaty leather tawse. Slow, measured, but always intense and mercilessly applied, no matter how he screamed and begged her to stop. First one buttock and then the thigh below a little, and then she’d move around and repeat on the other side. Back and forth, slow, unhurried, measured, unceasing, while he abandoned all dignity, maturity and masculinity beneath the remorseless onslaught.

Early on in the proceedings, very early on, when Pink Barbie had barely got going, he’d embarrassingly found himself with a hard on. She was pretty darn sexy after all, and he couldn’t help himself, crazy as the situation was. Well, as much of an erection as that first cock cage had allowed, and that was probably because it was larger than its cramped successors. Worse with his legs spread apart and his private parts on view, his indiscretion hadn’t escaped her notice. The paddle ceased, and there was a long pause. Then she came around the front to face him, lifting his chin once more to look him full in the face, her eyes fixed on his, holding them for a long moment, her face still expressionless. Then she let his chin drop and disappeared from sight.

She was back almost immediately, and her slender hand, tipped with shocking pink nails, briefly lifted his chin again. A pair of sparkling young blue eyes held his gaze for a moment, then her head moved in a barely perceptible shake, as if reproving him. She then released him, taking several steps back. He saw what she was holding: a long, thin, bamboo-like cane. She flexed it between her hands, and it bent easily. Her cold eyes remained fixed on him, now filled with a sneering contempt that truly terrified him.

If he thought the paddles were bad, then that cane gave him his first taste of the excruciating agonies to come. The girl sauntered behind him and, after another long pause, struck five times in quick succession. They must have been upward strokes, but that was irrelevant; what did matter was the target. The pain where she caught his cock head and balls exceeded anything so far, and the shrieks rebounded around the room, deafening him with their intensity, seemingly detached and unrelated to him in a strange way.

His first taste of the cane, and Jesus, how he’d shrieked — yet not a flicker of emotion or compassion was stirred in that evil brat. He watched, moaning and sobbing in both pain and frustration as she calmly walked back into view to return that horrible thing to its proper place without even a glance in his direction. A moment later, having quelled his impertinent ardour, such as it was, her paddle resumed its relentless work on his bottom.

The next time she decided to walk around in front of him was to use smelling salts on him. He awoke to find her bitch slapping his face again, but these were more light taps than hard slaps, encouraging him back to the land of … of pain, humiliation and terrible despair. She bent down and peered at him rather than lifting his chin, her face near his, neither anxious nor worried. Slightly curious, maybe, but not overly concerned as she surveyed him. Her face was damp and sweaty, and her blonde hair was awry. He could smell her feminine presence, her nearness and a whiff of some perfume.

Having confirmed that he was back with her and fully conscious, she disappeared from view. He heard a door open, followed by footsteps on a wooden staircase. He was familiar with that sound and had already learned to dread it whenever they came down those stairs. He had hoped not to hear it for some time, but soon she was back. He heard the door close, followed by the pop and hiss of a drink can being opened. It was hot, and he suddenly felt very thirsty. He recalled that once back in his cage, he had drunk his water bowl to the very last drop for the first time. It was a big, brown earthenware dog bowl and he’d sucked, lapped and licked it dry, ignoring the dust, dead flies and other detritus soiling its surface.

Miss Susan had sauntered past him to the far side of the big basement, swigging from a can of Diet Coke. Without any pretence at modesty or anything like that, she promptly divested herself of her crop top, jeans, and even her pants, keeping only her white ankle socks and pink trainers. Her back to him, she briefly wiggled in a manner that was part shrug and part stretch, then turned and fanned her face with one hand for a moment. A movement that set her pert teen breasts bobbing enticingly, not that the erotic sight had any effect on him. The memory of that cane being freshly imprinted on his mind and those parts that were no longer private!

The girl might have been undressing in the privacy of her bedroom for all the attention she paid him; she was not the least bit bothered, embarrassed, or concerned. She took another swig from her can and took a step towards him, then stopped, picked up her panties, and appeared to consider them. He realised why a moment later when she sauntered unconcernedly towards him, stroked his head for a moment, he still had hair then, before she bent forward and arranged the flimsy garment over his head like some bizarre hood.

His eyes peered out through the leg holes, and the crotch covered his nose as he inhaled for the first time that now familiar smell of hers. Similarly, for the first time, he saw that cluster of frizzy, unshaven pubic hair before his eyes, which his nose, mouth and tongue would come to know so intimately, along with what lay in the cave behind. It was also perhaps, looking back, the first time he realised with a jolt that the girl didn’t see him as a man at all but something entirely different! Then the paddling resumed till her phone rang again!

The kitchen door opened again, bringing Pets' thoughts back to the present as Master Roger slouched moodily into the kitchen, grunted at his father, then sat in his usual place, surveying the breakfast bar with a sour expression on his chubby face, and demanded, “Where’s my Coke?”

“In the fridge”, his sister replied, not looking up from her phone “, and that’s where it’s going to stay till tonight. You know what mum said about you and dad. Juice over there at your elbow. Coffee in the pot, tea bags by the kettle,  milk in the carton, water in the cold tap. Help yourself”.

“Mum's not here!”

No, and neither is the coke bottle, and don’t think I won’t tell her if you open that fridge door.

Pet watched with detached interest, wondering if the boy would fly into one of his temper tantrums. He didn’t, knowing better than to try that with his older sister. His father, yes, maybe at times with his mother, but never with his sister. Master Roger was perhaps not as fearful of her as was pet, but the boy wasn’t daft. Instead, he just glared at her, but since she was concentrating on her phone, that wouldn’t be very effective—not that Miss Susan would have been bothered anyway.

“Don't you have an exam or something to get to?”

“Had one, been cancelled” Miss Susan looked up and waved her phone. “Text message, some problem with a water pipe and flooding they discovered early this morning, so no rush”.

The boy muttered something inaudible, then reached for the milk carton and a glass, followed by the plate of bacon. The three of them continued with breakfast and exchanged occasional small talk while Pet sank deeper into his basket, trying not to make the wickerwork creak too loudly.

It was Miss Susan’s turn to have him tonight, and he was overdue, well overdue for a vigorous session on the end of her strap-on. It had been tongue and more tongue recently, but that wouldn’t last; those phases never did. Her boyfriend was away on holiday in Spain with his parents for a fortnight, which might have contributed to the situation. She wasn’t getting fucked, so maybe by association, neither was he. Unlikely pet decided.

That grim thought took him back to where his gloomy musings had begun, that moment he’d been left with the Barbie Brat while her equally wicked mother had vanished upstairs to bake a cake of all things. Mundane normality and maybe the first sign he hadn’t been abducted and whisked away to some third-world nightmare country where such horrors were routine for the locals. He considered it later that night and decided it was improbable, since his female captors seemed quite ordinary, very much archetypal English or maybe British middle class. Probably the former, since neither had a noticeable accent, and he should know. He’d spent several years as a sales rep, travelling extensively. He was familiar with local and national accents from the four home countries and the Republic of Ireland, part of his vast sales territory.

Then there was the sheer normality of it all, well, if you discounted all the crazy abnormality of it. Listening to the mother/daughter conversations, so normal that he might have been sitting in Starbucks or a similar place, half listening to the muted conversation at a nearby table. Shopping, boyfriend trouble, birthday presents for friends' kids, dieting, what to cook for dinner, reality television programmes, etc. Baking cakes for a work colleague's cute four-year-old! All a million miles away in one sense from the crazy reality he was enduring, and yet not so. It was that same world, a world where was introduced for the first time to, ‘pussy lube’.

Naturally, Miss Susan didn’t deign to explain what she was going to do or why she would do it. He’d noticed that the girl hadn’t removed her rubber gloves, unlike her mother, nor, apart from a sharp slap to his bottom by one of them, had the usual torture session commenced. He’d still been somewhat groggy with heavy morning sleep, as was inevitable after a largely sleepless and uncomfortable night, when they dragged him from his cage and then hosed him down with near ice-cold water. At least that’s how the water had felt, and they’d not been gentle with the scrubbing either, and he’d screamed as they rubbed at his bruised and tortured flesh.

Between that and his feeble attempts to fight them, and him mouthing obscenities until the girl popped that giant bloody red ball into his mouth, not much of what they said registered until that final part. After that, it was mainly incredulity at the cake part. Incredulity mixed with a certain amount of indignation at… at…at how fucking blatantly indifferent to him and his plight, his suffering they both were.

He watched Miss Susan busying herself at the cage, his cage, sweeping and scraping the sawdust and wood shavings out along with less savoury items. He could smell that damn enclosure from this side of the room until the strong smell of disinfectant replaced it as the girl used a spray bottle to liberally douse his cramped ‘bedchamber’ and then a damp mop. Not once had she looked around at him as she diligently performed her task.

Satisfied, she disappeared through a dark opening, a narrow doorless doorway in the far corner that he had hardly noticed before, and dragged out two plastic sacks, spreading the contents around the cage's base—more sawdust and wood shavings. Deluxe carpeting and bedding combined, but not to a very generous depth, pet noticed. That horrible cage was firmly bolted to a concrete floor, and the stuff she was spreading hardly made for a comfortable mattress!

The girl disappeared again, returning with a large, open-topped rectangular plastic box, which she dropped on the floor near his cage and pushed into place with one foot. Then she twisted around to look at him briefly before nudging that shallow black—not quite a box, more like a big black plastic—oversized, but no, it wasn’t a bowl, another few inches with her foot. The shape was familiar, but he’d frowned, staring at it—a shiny black plastic thing about 60cm long by maybe 40cm wide. It was approximately 15cm high, featuring a low, extended cutout along the front edge, with some symbol embossed on the plastic on either side.

It was only when the girl, Miss Susan, emerged from that darkened opening with two smaller plastic sacks, tore them open, and began pouring their contents into that Pet realised he was looking at a huge cat litter tray; that’s what it was and why the shape seemed familiar. The embossed symbols were paw prints—crude but unmistakably paw prints! That thing was meant for him; he was supposed to use it, wasn’t he? His toilet! They expected him to... to... he gagged and swallowed a mouthful of saliva, silently choking on it for a few moments, his distress obvious even to the girl, who quickly abandoned what she was doing and came over to peer at him. Curious but unconcerned, she swiftly unbuckled the straps holding the big, horrible ball in his mouth, removed it, and delicately held the wretched device between her finger and thumb while he coughed, spluttered, and wheezed as he recovered from his brief paroxysm.

The young girl regarded him coldly for about a minute. Then, as his spasm subsided along with his heartbeat—he’d frightened himself—she reached down and pinched his nose tightly. He bucked helplessly against the strap holding him securely to the bench and tried to turn his head away, but her grip was as unyielding as the strap across his lower back. She kept him like that for around two minutes, and gradually he realised he was being forced to breathe through his mouth, drawing lungfuls of air to calm his heaving chest. The brief ordeal had frightened him, showing just how vulnerable and helpless he was. If that had happened, say, overnight in his cage, he might have choked to death, suffocated by his own drool!

The choking panic attack over, he was so relieved when the finger and thumb released his nose that he opened his mouth without thinking —a not unnatural act, given that he hadn’t been there all that long, certainly not long enough to have learned the basic rules anyway, or had them beaten into him!

“For God’s sake, plea…ugghhh!”

The ball gag was rammed against his mouth, silencing him immediately. A finger and thumb once more cut off his nasal passage until he was forced to open his mouth, which was instantly filled by that monstrous red ball and secured. Then, as earlier, his chin was lifted, and those bitch slaps began again with the palm and rear of a slim hand. Front, back, front, back, front, back, and then an extra-hard additional duo, presumably to reinforce the message. Talk at his peril! What the hell had he ever done to deserve this?

The girl raised a finger to her lips in that universal gesture of silence, held it there for a second as her youthful, cold blue eyes held his captive, and then she used that same hand to deliver one final bitch slap before releasing his chin. He could only stare at her with bulging, tear-filled eyes as she turned her slim back on him and resumed filling that litter tray, his fucking litter tray! The dampness that made his eyes sting wasn’t born of pain, although that played its part, but more from frustrated rage and total incomprehension.

Those youthful, sparkly, clear blue eyes terrified him almost as much as those painful slaps. In fact, the pain from the slaps, although sharp and stinging, faded quickly, whereas those eyes lingered in his memory, chillingly so. No warmth, compassion, pity, or sign of any normal human emotion whatsoever. No, that wasn't quite true, for there was contempt tinged with curiosity in those blue eyes and what scared him most of all….not a sign of insanity.

Not that he was in any way an expert when it came to diagnosing mental illness, other than the occasional crazy you met on the bus. But then that craziness was more likely to be drink or drug-induced rather than the genuine article. But surely he’d see some sign, some indication that these insane fuckers were just that, fucking insane! The truly frightening thing about those youthful blue eyes was that there wasn’t the slightest hint that the girl was in any way mentally unstable, and that was really scary!

The sound of the front door closing as his two male Masters departed interrupted Pet’s recollections. One was undoubtedly heading to his office at the luxury car dealership, the other to the local red-brick school. Monday, bloody morning, and the start of another week in his personal hell — not that day, week, month, or even year mattered to him or how he was treated. He raised his head, watching Miss Susan clear the breakfast bar and load the dishwasher, but she didn’t turn it on. Probably less than a third full, so it could wait till supper, saving water and energy. The girl was an environmentalist, a member of Greenpeace, and an on-and-off vegetarian, among other things. Pet’s thoughts trailed off as he watched her disappear from the kitchen and upstairs. Yeah, fuck saving whales and bloody squirrels or badgers, whatever! What about saving him? Didn’t he count for anything in the scheme of things? Wasn’t he a ‘threatened’ species? Bitch!

What had she said to her mother that morning back whenever it was? ‘I’ll see to it?’ Just a few simple words that seemed so innocuous compared to the horror in store for him and that in its way was just a precursor to ….to….Pet looked up at the ceiling, seeing not that so much as the room above, Miss Susan’s bedroom. Oh Jesus, let it just be a long bout of Pussy worship tonight and not the vigorous alternative he so hated even after all this time. Nowadays, she didn’t bother with the ‘pussy lube’ not often anyway, none of them did or needed to. Only Miss fucking Susan when she decided to go one size bigger. Pet shuddered at the thought. Just how bloody big did the young bitch intend to go?

He lifted his head as a floorboard creaked above him, listened incuriously for a moment, and then lowered his chin back onto the wicker-woven rim of his basket as another unpleasant thought struck him. That was something else he was overdue for. His thoughts were returning to the past. It hadn’t just been the ‘pussy lube’ his rear end had been introduced to that session, was it by that young she-devil above him? Even when she’d freed his legs or kind of freed them, swapping his short hobble chain for a longer one that had allowed him to squat legs apart in his letter tray to practice, he’d barely been conscious of the act and the humiliation.

That had been the final act, the finale so to speak, of that long, horrible session, and what had preceded it had knocked everything out of him. Not broken him, that would take longer. Still, by the time he obediently squatted in the litter tray before being put back in his cage for the night, he’d lost the will to go on, the will to live to the point that she probably didn’t need to have bothered herself with that longer hobble that allowed him to squat legs slightly apart. The idea of fighting back, kicking out, or rebelling had been thoroughly squashed for the moment! The litter tray was merely the crowning humiliation, and he couldn’t have done anything anyway; it was just a dry run, a test he realised later. It wasn’t that he was physically incapable; he had nothing left in him, although the mental humiliation and embarrassment might have put a stopper to what nature intended and indeed did do until the following morning, if morning it was, when they expected him to do his ‘doo doo’s to order.

Once she’d finished messing about that oversized cat litter tray, Miss Susan switched her attention back to him. He’d watched her intently, his mind a bit more in shock than it had been ten minutes earlier. His brain working overtime, he recalled, albeit somewhat absently, the predicament he was in. Oddly, despite the sheer wackiness of the whole thing, he could remember staring at that tray and thinking it was way too big for a cat, despite the embossed markings. Maybe a puma, a leopard, even a young lion, or something — or… yeah, perhaps it was designed for dogs, a puppy or something bigger, a German Shepherd or similar. That would explain the paw symbol, wouldn’t it? Crazy how your mind can go off on a tangent at times, even when the answer is bloody obvious!

The girl was pulling on those washing-up gloves again and caught his eye. She looked up at him, then back at the litter tray, and finally back to him, shaking her head slightly. Her lips curled into a smile that sent a chill through him. Christ in heaven above, if her eyes didn’t hold madness, then that evil smile did. No sane person filled with the warmth of shared humanity would ever smile like that at another fellow being!

“Out, come on, out, move. Out of your basket, now! I’m running late as it is, so out!” Miss Susan's fingers snapped as always when she issued a terse command, once more jerking him back to the present.

He hadn’t heard her coming back down, but that wasn’t surprising, given how light she was on her feet. Her brother and father stomped up and down so heavily that he was surprised the house didn’t shake, and you could always hear her mother on the stairs, but not to the same extent. Miss Susan, on the other hand, was one of those people who seemed to glide around, making hardly a sound. It was the same with everything she did—slow, measured, and precise, and never noisy. The girl spoke softly, rarely raising her voice, unlike the other family members, and that was something else that terrified him. The lower and softer the tone, when she deigned to speak to him, the greater his crime and the more severe the punishment she intended to inflict!

Pet raised himself up and quickly climbed out of his basket as best he could with his stubby little bent limbs. He didn’t need to look where her finger was pointing after they’d imperiously snapped a second time. Of course, he had to wait for her to turn the door handle and open the door that led down to his prison and their terrible torture chamber in that dreadfully grim basement. His daytime prison while his betters went about their ordinary lives, while he endured his very extraordinary one!

“Move!” It caught him as he approached the top step, as he scrambled obediently forward, hoping to avoid her swinging foot, and as usual, he failed. It caught him on his bruised and welted backside, hard enough to cause pain but not enough to propel him forward and downwards. Just like with the main staircase, descending quickly in his limited, limb-restricted form was nearly impossible despite all his practice.

‘Cautious, my precious! More haste, less speed. We mustn’t risk our necks, must we, precious? No, precious!’ Gollum’s words from The Lord of the Rings, as he climbed cautiously headfirst down a cliff, often come to mind in these absurd circumstances. Were they from the book or the film, perhaps both? Not that it mattered, as he lost his footing as he often did and half bounced, half slid down the last few steps, rolling onto the cold, unyielding concrete floor, adding more bruises to his vast collection.

He could have managed it quite easily if Miss Susan hadn’t been behind him, and Miss Susan wasn’t someone you kept waiting, not ever if you were a lowly, insignificant pet! Her hand was on his collar, hauling him back onto his stubby little legs before he’d even finished rolling, and he was unceremoniously dragged, his stubby feet scrabbling, across the floor and thrust into his cage with another kick to his bruised bottom to help his entry.

The door clanged shut, and the catch swiftly snapped into place. It had no lock; his confined prison didn’t need one. He couldn’t reach the catch, push or twist it even if he could. He shuffled around the cramped, familiar space, the steel floor covered with a thin layer of sawdust and wood shavings, the pile of old towels and blankets serving as his bed—his nest for curling up and keeping warm—and that loathsome litter tray he’d long since learned to use when he wasn’t plugged, of course.

A thought he immediately regretted, as if the young bitch was telepathic—she paused briefly, sniffed, and looked at him thoughtfully, then nodded to herself as if reaching a decision. She had, and he understood what it was and why. The girl crossed to one side of the room and returned, carrying something, which she placed in the ‘wet area’, his ensuite bathroom, over in one corner—the tiled area fitted with a hosepipe, water outlets, and a drain sluice.

My turn tonight, and I want a nice, clean, thoroughly cleaned-out pet. I think I’ll be more energised tonight," she gave him another of those confident, wicked smiles. “Be good," she giggled, crossing to the stairs and exiting the basement. “I’ll be back later to cleanse you of your sins!” her laughter floated back.

Pet stared through the bars at the stairs and the closed door. The light was on; it was always on when he was confined in his cage for the benefit of the cameras that watched his captive misery, rather than for his own benefit. Pet would have welcomed being left in the dark, as at least then he could pretend he was elsewhere for a little while. He wouldn’t have to look out at the horrible room he knew all too well, with its equally horrible furniture and even more horrible ‘toys’. Those whips, canes, paddles, tawse’s and all the rest!

They were all still hanging so innocently on their respective hooks, though likewise the row of so-called ‘sex toys’ lined up with near military precision on the shelf above. Toys! What a crazy word, considering how they’d used them on him. That was the first time the evil girl had ‘lubed his pussy’, her words, not his, with that Vaseline. Then she’d raped his anus with one of those fucking toys, plugging him so that even if he’d wanted to use that fucking oversized litter tray, he couldn’t until she permitted him to do so.

But that had been the second horrible and painful humiliation she had subjected him to that day… morning, afternoon, or whatever it was. His eyes reluctantly but inevitably drifted to the wet area and the innocently appearing piece of apparatus she had placed there, which she found so amusing. The enema stand, in itself, was not as bad as one of her canes, yet… Pet shuddered. Three times she had filled him until he screamed into his gag for release, and twice she had, but not the third time. No, the third time she had filled his belly and bowels until he felt like he was going to burst, then disappeared for what seemed like hours to catch something on TV. God, that had been an eternity, and that was when he realised there were worse things they could do besides beating him black and blue, far worse. Mind you, he had still to ‘meet’ the boys at that point, hadn’t he!