“You’re wrong and you should feel bad about it.”
We’re sitting on my sofa, its legs over mine. It’s got an article open on its phone, some anonymous and opinionated tech worker shilling their particular brand of solution to the mostly irrelevant problems in Rust.
“Okay, well if you’re going to be like that about it-“
“No, listen, I’m only being like that because you keep shifting the goalposts. There’s nothing wrong with ve-“
“I’m shifting the goalposts?” I shift to look at it.
“Well the last thing I know is, I’m taking a stance on this-“ it gestures at the article on its phone - “and now we’re arguing over I don’t even know what any more.”
“You called me a people-pleaser because I said there’s nothing wrong with verbosity in a scripting language.” I can’t stop the grin spreading across my face. “Unless you’re writing code to run once and be deleted, there’s always value in syntax which hints at-“
“I called you a people pleaser,” it interrupts, licking a finger clean, “because you - a vegan - bought me cheese and onion crisps.”
“You said you liked them!”
“I do, but salt and vinegar are okay too, and-“
“And you deserve better than okay, puppy.” I smooth its hair out its face. “You deserve nice things.”
“I don’t think that’s true, actually.” It’s grinning, knowing I can’t argue with an opinion. God knows I’ve tried.
“Well, you’re entitled to be wrong.” I shrug. “Anyway, listen, this article is fundamentally bullshit, whatshisname is literally just shilling his-“
“You’re a people pleaser.” It grins, and I shove two fingers down its throat before it can stop me, pushing them down until it gags and tries to pull my wrist away.
It lets them fall, looking at me with panic in its big, adorable brown eyes. I wriggle my fingers, enjoying feeling its throat contract around them, the gagging getting more frequent.
“The interesting thing is…” I let my fingers still. “I can see how you think you can’t do this. Your hands are still twitching up to mine. But you aren’t throwing up.”
I shift my hand, ekeing an extra few millimetres of depth out, and I’m rewarded by a truly horrific sound from the depths of its throat. “You think - your subconscious brain truly believes - that you can’t do this. But here I am, pinning your head to my sofa cushions by the tonsils, and you aren’t throwing up.
“That tells me something. It tells me that I know what your body can do better than you can. It tells me that your subconscious is lying to you. It tells me,” and I lean in close, voice dropping to a whisper, “that if I want you to do something, you’re going to fucking do it for me. Understood?”
It looks at me and tries to nod.
“Uh uh. I can’t hear you.”
“glxh xchluisha…” its cheeks are flushing red.
“What’s that?” I pull my fingers out its throat, and it gasps and retches.
“Yes, Handler.” It murmurs, and I pull it into a hug. It whimpers into my shoulder and I kiss its forehead.
After a moment, it mumbles something, and I pull back. “What’s that?”
“People pleaser.” It murmurs, and grins at it kisses me.
