Leinth

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Tonight is Ruby’s night.

I’m in no mood for it. Before I descend the tiled steps to my basement bar, I toss back dry a dick pill and two painkillers—one for the headache I already have, one for the headache the little blue performance-enhancer is going to give me—around the cigarette drooping from my lips. Once that burns out, I spit it to the ground and grind the butt into the filthy, half-melted snow beneath my combat boot. No matter how hard I try, one fag won’t last all night. I could light another, but there’s no sense putting it off.

Even on the worst days, my bar—my territory, if not my property—is an oasis, set against the smoke-sky shithole that is Arkturgrad. Out here, in the city, I’m just another demobbed dogface. I always keep my head down, but the way I pace my strides and hold my shoulders gives me away, and we all know they’d prefer we simply took ourselves off to die in some quiet, forgotten corner rather than blight the bright, red future they’re building. The one we broke ourselves fighting for. I’m one of the lucky few fit enough for a bureaucratic posting, but my new so-called comrades don’t spare more words than they have to in my direction. They look at me like they’re waiting for me to snap and try to rip out their throats—or my own.

Fine. So be it. Out here, I’m nobody. In there, I’m the whole world. Still, it takes me a moment to prepare. I force my aching back straight. I smooth my long, black coat with my hands and scrape the polluted slush from my soles against the last step. I pant into my hands to warm my face and then, most importantly of all, I let the expression of numb, non-threatening apathy slump from my countenance and replace it with a painstakingly-composed smirk of easy, confident command.

Once I am transformed, I open the door and cross the threshold. I step into my kingdom.

It’s a shit kingdom, I’m under no illusions about that. The wooden furniture is kitsch verging on parody, especially for the basement of a block of faceless, concrete apartments. I’ve no love for the checkerboard floor, or the humming, low-hanging lights, and still less for the stench of piss and cheap vodka. But what matters is that, as I enter, all heads turn. A few oddball regulars, a few stray civvies, the bartender, an old woman, a vet from an older war with a soft spot for us mutts—but most importantly, my pack.

“Scarlett,” I greet.

“Welcome, sir!” comes the reply.

“Bailey.”

“Welcome, sir!”

“Lola.”

“Mmrr.” Lola can’t talk much, most days, but her smile and crisp salute are sufficient.

“And…”

I scan the room. Ruby isn’t here yet. A calculated taunt, I’m sure. I sigh. More shit to deal with. Just what I need. The rest of my little pack is spread about lazily, and I elect to sit at the bar next to Scarlett while I wait. As I settle, she hails the bartender with a finger and, a moment later, places a glass of vodka in front of me.

“Your drink, sir,” she offers happily.

“Thank you,” I reply with a fond smile. A handler must distribute her affections carefully and evenly but inwardly I am not shy to say: Scarlett is my favorite. She and I share a bed most nights—to hold, far more often than to fuck.

“How was your day, sir?” Scarlett chirps. In my presence, her smile is brighter and, with her red-curled hair, she shines the way she should have done, if she hadn’t been forced into kennel and cockpit.

“It was… hard.” It slips out before I can still my tongue. I grimace and take a sip of vodka to keep it busy. No use. It’s already half-said. “Another headache day. I keep falling behind on my quotas.”

Scarlett’s brow softens in concern, but her doe eyes shine with an admiration undimmed. That’s a comfort. “I’m sorry, sir.” She gropes around for a solution, and finds something close. “May I polish your boots later?”

“You may.” They need it after today’s weather. So do I, and so does Scarlett. Service is her sweetness, and I am ever grateful to receive it. There’s little any of my poor mutts can do for me, in truth. Less of them made it out of the cockpits. It’s why I work, and why I wear the cap and the coat. Someone has to.

“Thank you, sir.” Her gratitude soon ebbs; fresh, anxious lines etch themselves into her pock-marked forehead. “Sir, I thought… I was hoping we might… have another scene together, soon?”

I stiffen the way I used to when I felt shells exploding against my mech’s armor. “Ah.”

Scarlett retreats a little. It pains me to see it. Why did she have to bring it up now, of all times? “Sorry, sir. It’s just… it’s been a little while.”

It has. I can’t hide from that. “I only just sat down, Scarlett,” I reply heavily.

She shrinks. “Sorry, sir.”

The silence that follows ties a knot in my breast.

“I can’t,” I tell her irritably, as if in reply. “It’s Ruby’s night. You know she’s been acting out.”

“I… didn’t mean tonight,” Scarlett looks pained. Why? What’s she got to be pained over? “Just, soon.”

“I only just sat down,” I hiss. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

That’ll be enough to quiet her for the night, but not enough for the tightness in my chest. Downing the rest of my drink doesn’t loosen it either, though I’m comforted by the thought that, in a few drinks’ time, I won’t feel it regardless. In the meantime, though, this murderous awkwardness demands filling, and my sour mood rushes to provide.

“I spend all day at work,” I growl. “Slaving away while all the rest of you do nothing. I finally clock off, I come back here to keep taking care of you, and all I have to hear about is what I’m not doing?”

“S-sorry.” Scarlett’s gentle voice cracks beneath the weight of my ire. She looks at me and sees God. It feels good that it’s so easy for me to hurt her. In here, I am powerful. “Sir, I…”

“I do everything for this pack.” There’s enough truth to it for the words to ring like thunder in both our ears—but that doesn’t make it fair. It’s not like they don’t work when they can, but shipbreaking at the yard is irregular at best and there’s little else they can manage. The half-healed port-scars on the back of Scarlett’s neck are an ever-present reminder of the fact that I’m one of the lucky ones. “Can’t I get a little patience in return?”

“O-of course, sir,” Scarlett trembles. I’m crossing a line, my inner voice says. Nobody’s been more patient with me than Scarlett. She has needs too. But I don’t want to listen to that voice. “I-it’s not important. You’re right. You do so much.”

“That’s right,” I sniff. “It’s not important.”

I hate to do this to her. I do—but there’s no other way. They don’t understand what it’s like to live under this kind of pressure. Not the danger of the foxhole or the vanguard, just the constant, grinding, everyday war of attrition against the entire world. They’re spared from facing it head-on—because I’m sparing them. If things would only let up, even for one day, it would all be so easy. I could give them all their fill. But it never does, so I ration myself out as best I can. And tonight is Ruby’s night.

My second drink arrives. I down it in moments. The crestfallen expression on Scarlett’s face presses into the side of mine like a rusted nail. My guilt and anger yawn apart to leave an empty chasm, and my mood starts plunging into it. Can’t she try to show me a good time? Can’t she smile? Can’t I see a nice, pretty, grateful smile? But then, what right do I have to expect that, given how long it’s been? I’ll have to make it her night soon. She deserves it. It won’t matter if it takes a little longer. We’re a pack, after all. A family.

And I’m all they have.

A breath of vile, icy air rushes through the room. I turn to see Ruby arriving, shit-eating grin exactly as wide as I expected. It’s time. Wish I had another drink in me—my headache is still beating against the inside of my forehead—but perhaps it’s for the best. I stand and compose myself for a moment. Once you’ve been crammed into enough death-trap cockpits, hunching to keep your head low comes as naturally as breathing; correcting the bad habit is a constant effort, but an important one. After all, She never hunched.

“Hey, girls,” Ruby tosses out. The daring look she throws me lets me know that I’m to consider myself included. “Sorry I’m late.”

She’s playing at nonchalance even though we all know she’s on tenterhooks. The first step of an old and tired dance. I approach her before she can sit down.

“I told you to present yourself at nineteen hundred hours,” I remind her tersely—but not angrily. Anger would be all wrong.

“Yeah, as I said.” Ruby laughs like she can blow me off with ease. “Sorry I’m late.”

She moves to push past me. I stand in her way, and we square off. She’s a short one, but spunky. A bratty little pug of a woman, from the soles of her combat boots to the frosty tips of her short hair. Every part of her is asking for what I’m going to give her.

“I don’t need stupid mutts who can’t follow simple instructions,” I hiss. “Are you stupid, Ruby?”

Ruby’s sapphire eyes shine with adrenaline. She draws herself up, challenging me. “You don’t need? Whatever.”

“Call me ‘sir’, when you speak to me, mutt.” How long will she draw this out today?

“Pfft,” Ruby scoffs. “C’mon, Thalia. No need to pretend, yeah? We all know you’re not a real handler.”

Ice hits my veins. It had to be this, tonight? I want to scream. I want to sigh and tell her to fuck off. But the rest of the pack is watching. She’s playing her role. I must play mine.

“What did you say to me, mutt?” The hate in my eyes as I stare daggers at her should be a warning, but it only serves to goad her on.

“You’re just like all the rest of us.” Ruby chews lazily on her words like they nothing to her, but the way she shivers lets me know she’s savoring each act of daring. The anticipation before the fall. “One of the people’s hounds, playing at being a person. Playing at being so high and mighty. Maybe I’m getting a little tired of it, is all.”

Shut up. I’m desperate for her to just shut up. Why does she have to be like this? Why does she get to be like this, and I just have to put up with it? Good thing I don’t. Not for much longer.

“Last chance, you worthless fucking mongrel,” I spit. “You will speak to me with respect. You will call me ‘sir’ or ‘Handler Thalia’, or I will send you to get put down like the useless waste of breath you really are. Understand me?”

The slight gasp that slips her pierced lips lets me know that I’m on the right track. This is what she wants. What she needs. My vitriol is her oxygen, and how does she thank me? By puffing herself up like an overinflated balloon, and meeting my gaze as level as she can.

“Make me, bitch,” she growls.

I punch her in the gut. Ruby stumbles back, winded. She can’t fight back—that’s one of the rules. I’m free to advance on her and hit her again, then grab a fistful of the short, pale fuzz on her head and use it to pin her up against the wall while I slap her across the face.

“Stupid dogs need to learn stupid lessons,” I sneer. The violence is invigorating. The adrenaline banishes my headache. I’m in the scene. “And if you’re too fucking lobotomized to understand a few words and numbers, I’ll speak in a language even an abused puppy understands.”

Another punch sends her to the ground. I don’t stop there. I kick her. And again. And again. And again. And again. The more I let loose, the more the heavy, black, leather coat draped across my shoulders feels like it weighs nothing at all. As Ruby’s bruised arms drop, letting my boot crash into her ribs, everything that’s been fermenting inside me all day comes uncoiled and releases itself. I look down at the bloody mess I am hammering my packmate into, and past the bruises, past the whimpering, past even the erection straining against her pants, I see worship. The look of daring is wiped from her eyes, leaving those brilliant, blue orbs dulled and glazed with utmost loyalty and adoration. Like Scarlett, she looks up at me, and sees God.

The transformation sends blood rushing exactly where I need it. The little blue pill is kicking in, right on time. With both bliss and poison singing in my veins, I grab a chair from a nearby table, sit down, and unzip. “Ready to make yourself useful, mutt?”

“Yyyyessssss, Handler T-Thalia,” Ruby bleats, hauling herself upright. The poor thing is lost to bliss now, her smirk melted into an expression of drooling, fawning lust. “I’mmmsoorryyysir.”

“Atta girl.”

I beckon for another glass. A risk, but I can probably finish before vodka dick gets the better of me. After a few moments, Scarlett presents me with a fresh glass. I down it and, as I do, study her face. She’s smiling now. My mood settles. All is right again. As Ruby goes to work between my legs, I glance around. They’re all smiling. Scarlett, Lola, Bailey—each of them is rapt, torn between envy and pride. I am their handler, and I always will be. I have forged myself into the star around which they orbit. And for that, for those looks of love in their eyes, no matter how hard it gets, it will always be worth it.

Tomorrow, I’ll try harder to remind myself of that.

***

Tonight is Bailey’s night.

Putting Ruby in her place earned me a few days’ good rest. The rest of them have been feeding on her defeat, chasing each other's tails with giddy teasing and fond recollection. All of them have been here waiting for me after work ever since, sparing me the need for any more theatrical confrontations. Ruby, above all, is glowing with the memory and on her best behavior. As meek as a comfort girl, and the bruises I left her with will keep her that way for at least a week.

But now Bailey is the squeaky wheel. She had a work placement interview this morning, and apparently it went badly. Little surprise, but it’s sent her spiraling. The kind of shit I deal with every single day would leave any of my packmates a wreck, and Bailey has a particular way of getting in her own head—which means I need to pull her out of it before she does something stupid again.

It always has to be me.

Since Bailey isn’t one to force it the way Ruby does, though, I’m free to relax and gird my loins at my own pace. So I sit in my bar, waiting for the painkillers to pick in, listening to one of the old songs playing over the radio. Some kind of warbling, revolutionary ballad that gets on my nerves, even as it leaves me with a strange fondness. Maybe I knew the song, once. Maybe it’s what got me to join up.

“Your food, sir.”

“Thank you, Scarlett.”

Scarlett smiles and sets down a bowl for me. Beet soup and a lump of old rye bread. About all we can afford. Nothing grows on this lump of ice. We fought for the future, but now they have to build it—and since it isn’t built yet, every food shipment has to go a long way. The real kicker is that under the so-called ‘Transitional Economic System’, you still need to earn every scrap. The future belongs to the workers, so if you don’t work, you don’t eat. So much for our sacrifice—not that I’m inclined to whine about the food, really. It’s the kind of thing they fed us in the kennels. I’m used to it. Anything finer and I’d spend all night nursing my stomach. Besides, Scarlett is a dab hand in the kitchen. She makes a little go a long way when she has the energy. I should give her that scene soon. She’s earned it.

That prospect sits heavy in my belly as I gnaw on the dry bread. Another task for the list. A handler’s work is never done. Speaking of which: huddled in the corner at the far end of the bar is yet another thing I need to take care of.

My pack has long since learned to be wary of strangers. Anyone who wanders into a bar like this is either lost or looking for trouble. I need to figure out which applies to the squat figure currently hunched over her drink, head down. She’s ex-military; I can always tell. Could be she’s nothing more than a soldier come to drown her sorrows. In that case, there’s no bother. Could also be she’s a hound like us. In that case, it gets complicated. Some of us are more damaged than others. If she’s looking for a new pack, I need to make sure she’s not a walking disaster, and even if she’s not, it’ll be complicated. Pack dynamics are fragile, and a new dog is a new mouth to feed—in every sense. Fortunately, I got a look at the back of her neck the last time she got up to piss. No scars. No hound.

There’s one more possibility, of course.

I’ve heard stories about ex-handlers trawling bars, looking for victims. I don’t know if I believe them, but I do know what kind of monsters they are and I’m not taking any chances. I remember Her. She didn’t make it through the war, thank fuck, but plenty of Her ilk did, and the revolutionary government is even more eager to sweep them under the rug than it is us. No justice for us martyrs. Handlers are still out there, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let one just waltz into my bar and start sinking their hooks into my girls’ heads.

Once I’m done mopping up the dregs of soup with my bread, I stand and ease myself over to where the stranger is perched. “Hey,” I hail, friendly as my mood permits. “I can’t offer to buy you a drink, but I wouldn’t mind a little company for the one I’m about to have.”

“Suit yourself,” grunts the large woman buried under the shapeless jacket.

Once it’s clear that’s all I’m going to get, I sit down beside her and rap my knuckles on the bar to summon a glass of vodka. “Mind if I ask your name?” I ask as it arrives.

The hunched pile of ill-fitting clothing next to me shakes as she laughs. “Looking for someone to warm your bed?” Her voice, a bitter gurgle, tells me she’s spent plenty of nights alone, and expects plenty more.

“Scoping out prospects, let’s call it,” I reply jovially. We both know I’m giving her the third degree, but there’s no harm in keeping it friendly. Luckily she seems to see it the same way.

“Call me Val,” she offers. “And you?”

“Thalia.” She isn’t interested, but again: what’s the harm? “What brings you here, Val?”

“This.” She lifts her glass, half-empty, and taps it twice against the counter.

That’s all the answer I get. Maybe all the answer I need. This woman looks nothing like a handler. She’s heavyset, and the way she carries it suggests she’s gained the weight recently. A handler would never—nor would they let their cheeks glow rosy and their breath stink from the booze. Her hair, faded tawny and shoulder-length, is a mess, and on her hand I can see the spot a wedding ring used to sit. She’s a mess, all in all. “Fair enough.” I down my drink, then make to stand. “Thank you for your service, eh?”

Something about that grabs Val by the ear. She turns her head sharply to look at me and now that it’s not tucked behind her collar I get to see her face, wrinkled and puckered like an old apple, and behind it, the small, dark pips of her eyes. She drinks in the coat and the cap, and the redness fades from her face like autumn turning to winter. It’s like she’s staring down a nightmare—but she’s quick to hide her horror behind a mask of alcoholic indifference.

“What’s the matter?” I press, smirking. I just can’t help it. “Seen someone like me before?”

“No,” Val replies, a little too quickly. I grin. Her fear is tastier than the borscht. A petty pleasure? Certainly, but I’ve earned it. My guess is that Val served alongside a dog team at some point and saw more than enough. I’m sure I wouldn’t cop to it either.

“Glad to hear it,” I tell her. “Enjoy your drink, Val. I’ll see you around.”

I shouldn’t needle her. It’s not smart. But it doesn’t matter. She’s clearly harmless.

That’s one task off the list. Soon, the other—but first, more drinks. One shot of vodka, then two, then three. Each one sounds like a better idea than the last, until I’m stumbling drunk—and then it’s showtime. Bailey’s night.

Bailey, my poor, sad little puppy. Always hiding—in the corner, or behind me, or behind her own hair, although that’s mostly to cover what a cockpit fire did to half her face. Given a chance, she’ll simply fade into the background, and then out of the room, and then you won’t see nor hear from her in a month until she’s coming out of a facility with a fresh grid of scars all over her thighs. But I won’t give her that chance. She’s one of my pack. I won’t leave her behind. I’ll give her what she needs, and what she needs is simple: attention. She needs to be seen and touched and caressed and beheld and fucked, until her own reflection in my handler’s eye drags her out of herself and into the real. It’s beautiful, the moment the chains on her soul shatter beneath my hands and she breaches, like a moth from a cocoon, into something glowing and sensual and present. It’s beautiful—and it’s hard. She can go for hours sometimes, and I’m already fading.

Nothing for it but to get it over with. My back hurts and my head throbs and the room is spinning, but I am a handler. I am perfection. I call Bailey to my side, bend her over a table and begin to ravish her in front of everyone—in front of my adoring hounds, in front of the bartender who’s seen it all before, and in front of Val, pretending not to stare over her glass. Let them watch. Let them all watch. Let them see what I can do to a girl. What a handler can do to a hound.

After a brief orgy of fumbling, Bailey’s haggard fatigues are torn away and her slender body is bared to me. I warm her against the cold. My fingers and my lips and my tongue beat the frost and the shame aside, until she is red and raw with longing more than embarrassment. Her green eyes glow, her ginger hair is strewn a mane, and all over she is as bright and rich as summer’s memory. But still, she needs more of me. Always more. I strain until I ache to give her pleasure, and I wonder, when will it be my turn? When will I lie back, easy, drowning in another? I should be now, but the battle against the alcohol in my system makes my every effort torturously mechanical. Get it up, handler. Don’t fuck up, handler. Don’t let them down, handler. I set myself against the task until it is all the same, all the ugly flesh, all the ugly noise, all the sticky tabletops and dusty floortiles, with Bailey at the heart of it, and I her shadow, and against her light I fade, and I-

I come to in my own bed.

It’s later. Much later. I passed out at some point, I guess, but the throbbing inside my skull brought me around. Someone must have poured me here. As I stir and groan, she appears: Scarlett, eyes full of worry.

“Water,” I croak.

“Yes, sir.” It’s there at once; I’m infinitely grateful. “And…” More painkillers. Scarlett is too good to me.

“Thank you,” I manage. It’s so kind of her to do this, and almost embarrassing how much of a mercy it is to have Scarlett here to see to these little things—not that my quarters are deserving of a maid. All of us hounds live at assigned dormitories in requisitioned residential blocks. Each of us has little more than a kitchen unit and a bed. On my wage and their pensions, we can’t afford a real apartment to share. Still, with Scarlett busying herself under the ailing, orange glow of the old stove, it almost feels like home.

“This’ll help, sir. For your stomach.” Scarlett’s next blessing is a cup of apple tea mixed with honey and cinnamon. A rare treat; even if it’s only from a stale bag, the tea’s sweetness is enough to revive me and settle my belly. Scarlett knows how I get when I drink, and she doesn’t want to see her beet soup again.

“Thank you,” I repeat, then sit up in bed. Even now, I cannot fade into rest. Anxiety, my bosom companion, gnaws at my chest. “How did it go? With Bailey?”

“Well enough,” says Scarlett, even though her face says: not quite. “She was happy.”

“That’s good.” I can’t remember more than flashes. Based on those, I have my doubts, but for now I decide to believe Scarlett. She’s a good girl. “That’s good.”

“She’s very grateful for what you do, sir.” I set down my tea on the bedside table, and Scarlett climbs up into my bed. There’s scarcely room for us both, but we make do. “We all are.”

“Right.” They’re all grateful—and they all want more. The dozens of things I could say tie my tongue, so I slump back once more and let Scarlett settle against me as I stare dizzily up at the yellowed ceiling, at the peeling beige flowers of the wallpaper, at the white, lacy curtain over the window, its corners already given to ice and mold.

This is an awful place. I’ve hated it since the day I arrived. This planet. This city. This room. But my Scarlett is here.

“Sir,” she ventures carefully, just as I was drifting off. “Perhaps… would this be a good time to talk about our next scene?”

My mood plummets. The end of the day, and I still have something to worry about? I tense, though if Scarlett feels it, she doesn’t let it show. For some reason, even her patience is starting to piss me off. I bet it feels like a luxury—or charity. Or maybe it’s malice; why does she only ever bring it up at the worst times?

“Later,” I murmur drunkenly, trying to banish that unworthy thought. “Another time.”

Scarlett says nothing. Eventually, once my nausea passes, unconsciousness claims me anew.

***

Tonight is Lola’s night.

A regularly scheduled event. Lola can’t express her needs the way the others do, so I make sure to give her time each and every week. For her, it’s maintenance—and for me, a chance to redeem myself. I can’t be blamed for struggling under the weight of all the burdens I carry. I know that and so do my hounds, but I cannot stand the way they look at me as I stumble, as I must have done with Bailey while I was blackout drunk. I don’t remember, but the pity in their eyes rains down on me harder than any barrage and colder than any snowfall. I see, reflected back, all of the excuses and lackluster nights, all the missed scenes and disappointments. I need to banish them. I need to remind them that I am their master and their handler, and that they should look upon me with awe.

Tonight I will. I have the skills. No drinking beforehand. I’ll turn my dingy, shitty little basement bar into a concert hall where I stand, at the head, conducting their cries of adulation. Let them see. Let them all see what I can do.

Lola is perfect for showing off with. Her craving is restraint. She needs the nights she can let the animal inside herself out. Where she can buck and writhe against her bonds and feel that she will not slip, will not be allowed to fall, and once she is done and all her strength is spent, she goes limp and weak, tongue lolling out of her mouth, and looks up at me in unadulterated worship. There are a dozen ways to do it. A straitjacket Lola took with her on her way out from the military. A set of leather cuffs and restraints I made for her from scraps and cheap hardware. But the best—the most impressive—is what I have with me now tucked away in my coat’s voluminous pockets: jute rope, neatly stowed in several tight hanks, ready to be wrapped around Lola’s form.

I run a hand over the rope, savoring the sensation, imagining how they will look and feel against Lola’s skin, while the other brings my cigarette to my lips. I’ve stepped out for a moment to smoke. Not necessary, really—I could smoke inside, as others do—but I enjoy the quiet peace of it. Quiet as the winter wind allows, anyway. I’m chilled to the bone out here, but all the same, I make the cigarette last. Tonight, nicotine’s fading headrush will be my only ally in the war against my throbbing migraine. I linger until I can draw no more from the ashen stump between my lips, then toss it aside. Time to get on-mission.

The warm air inside rushes to meet me as I open the door, tasting of stale vodka and the cheap fuel oil burning in the corner stove. Eyes turn to meet me too. A dozen pairs. packmates and regulars alike. Val has rapidly become one of those. That seat at the end of the bar now has her name on it; she sits, she drinks, she says little, but she watches my pack and I with obsessive interest. I’ve been enjoying her impotent little fascination. Lola bounds toward me, eager as a fresh pup; she always knows when it’s her night. I muss her hair fondly for a moment before donning the arrogant, dispassionate mask she longs to see.

“Heel, Lola,” I tell her. She’s at my side already, but the word calms her. Stills her. “Good girl. Now strip.”

That’s a command every hound has learned well. Lola makes quick work of her clothing; she’s bundled up in layers of it against the cold, and underneath there are layers more of fat and muscle. Lola’s a big girl, especially for a hound. Probably one of the reasons the cockpit wasn’t kind to her. Adorable as she is now, sometimes I wonder what she was like before. Maybe that pretty face was once sharp and expressive instead of slack. Maybe those brown eyes saw more than stars. She could have been quite the Amazonian beauty, but now her long, tawny hair is a perpetually-knotted bush that hangs lopsided around her.

I extinguish that train of thought before it takes me anywhere dark. For us, there is no before and no after.

“Up,” is my next command, once Lola is naked. I rap my knuckles against the top of an unused table, then snap my fingers. “C’mon, girl. Up.”

Though a little clumsy, Lola manages to scramble her way onto the table without unbalancing it. With every instruction obeyed, her smile shines brighter. She becomes the fireplace around which the room gravitates. All eyes on her. Something prickly stirs in my heart. Don’t they see me, too? Don’t they see that this is my light? My heat?

I extinguish that train of thought too. Why can’t I focus?

“Paw,” I tell Lola. “Both of them”, I clarify, when she only offers the one hand. I retrieve one of the short hanks of rope, unravel it, and bring Lola’s wrists behind her so I can wrap it around them, watching as she shivers at the jute’s coarse kiss. She’s in paradise already. Even my calling them her paws has her radiating euphoria. As I tie the knots, I spare a glance at the room. I want to see the admiring looks on my pack’s faces. I want to see the strangers and regulars watching in terrified awe of my power.

I look at Ruby, then Bailey, and then my eyes seek Scarlett. She isn’t with the others. At first I worry she’s missing, but then I find her.

Scarlett is sitting at the end of the bar, cosied up with Val.

It could be nothing. It could be—but I see instantly that it’s not. However innocent the outward appearance, in Scarlett’s heart it’s anything but. I recognize the way she presses close to Val, starry-eyed, attentive, smiling and doting. I recognize the way that, as Val finishes her glass, Scarlett hastens to ensure it’s filled again immediately.

That is my smile. My service. My hound.

Fury rises incandescent in my gut. My nostrils flare—but beyond that, I show nothing. It wouldn’t do. In this place I am master, and a handler does not fear things like a hound pouring another woman a drink. Scarlett is mine, I tell myself. I have nothing to worry about, I tell myself. And moreover, I have a job to do.

Resolutely, I plow ahead with the scene and begin to lay rope across Lola’s body, ready to transform her into a work of living art that will quiver and whine and moan to the beat I set. At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. As I begin to work a longer piece of rope around Lola’s arms in a series of loops, pulling back her shoulders, and binding them tight, the realization hits me: I have not done this in months. Too many lapsed sessions, too many nights spent too tired to practice. The skill, hard-won, has slipped through my fingers—fingers that now turn numb and cold as I clumsily twine and intertwine the ropes, hoping against hope that the muscle memory will come.

It doesn’t. And everyone is watching.

I am watching.

Watching Scarlett and Val. My memory is a patchwork blanket, but every look between them is emblazoned there in fire. They lean in and share a comment, then a laugh, and I boil with sticky need to know what’s being said. What’s the joke? Who is it about? The way they sit now, you’d think they’d known each other for years. Scarlett is a flower in spring’s full blossom, proud to be plucked and worn abreast. Val is a fat, fledgling bird of prey, bared to spread her feathered wings around my little light. The simmering affection of the scene sends me into shellshock. I feel like I’m the cockpit again, hell before me and following with me, just a scared dog, and I-

“Mrrraf!”

Lola’s pained cry jolts me awake. I look down and see that I have been pulling too tight. Her shoulders are pulled back at an atrocious, dangerous angle while her head is craned to look at me, trusting, puppy-dog eyes full of wounded confusion. I look at the ropes I’ve been laying and knotting. They’re a tangled mess. They resemble not at all the intricate tie I was supposed to weave. I glance around the room. Bailey and Ruby look at me with eyes full of concern—and worse, fear. Not fear of me, but rather existential dread at the thought that their god, their star, is so fallible. Then I look to the end of the bar. Scarlett hasn’t even noticed. But Val? She’s looking straight at me, and her lips are turning upward into a smile.

Before I know what’s happening, my hands beat the door aside, my feet scrape against the icy steps, and I’m out into the Arkturgrad winter.

With moons and stars overhead choked by smog, there is no telling how long I spend racing through the snow-carpet streets, gripped by a panic I have not felt since I was a pilot. That was years ago now—years spent rebuilding, but now all that is in ruins. The blocky buildings that rise all around me seem to taunt me with it. They, too, are years in the rebuilding. This is the future we fought for, but it rests beyond my horizon. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have more than most. A pack, a family—but I can’t keep my shit together well enough to enjoy it. I have one job. To be their handler. It’s all I want and need, but each day I fall a little further apart, and all the people living in these concrete apartments would shun me if they saw my coat or the scars on the back of my neck. What am I for, if not this? What is my place, if not at the head of the pack?

They are the only people I can remember who have ever needed me.

After what is surely hour of wandering, I arrive back at the bar. Where else? Besides work and a meager home, there is no other place for me. Head down, I glance around only long enough to confirm that my pack isn’t here. They’re out looking for me, most likely. I should repay the favor. Instead, I huddle down at the bar and order a drink.

Then five more. My world shrinks to the shimmer of vodka on the surface of my ever-dwindling glass. It’s good for me. Keeps me warm and quiet on the inside. Keeps me from looking around the room. I don’t want to know if the other patrons are staring at me. I just keep drinking, and cantankerously wave the bartender away when she tells me it’s time to close up. She can let me do it. It’s not the first time. She douses the stinking heater on her way out, leaving the room dimly-lit, and leaves a tall glass of water next to me along with the bottle of vodka. It’s a kindness, I suppose. For some reason it just pisses me off.

Once the twilight before dawn arrives, there is so much vodka in me that my bitterness is drowned ocean-deep. I feel only the faint currents that rise to the surface, churning eddies that make me sway and retch. Fatigue nips at my heels, and my headache is worse than ever. The bar is growing cold and so am I, however tight I pull my coat. I need to be in bed. Any bed. But first I need to piss, and I’ll be damned before I let Scarlett catch me at my apartment with it running down my leg.

The bar’s bathroom is never heated and rarely cleaned, meaning it’s as cold and filthy as outdoors. It sits on the corner of the building, light filtering through frosted, high-placed windows, now a cold blue as morning’s first fingers reach down through the snowfall. Though more asleep than awake, I manage my business, then step up to wash my hands. The sight of myself in the ancient, dusty mirror feels like a shard of glass being pressed into my eyeball. I’m a ruin clinging to an outfit, and seeing the rest of the filthy bathroom reflected behind me is far more than my damaged, drunken mind can take. My stomach churns in warning. I clutch at my temples.

“Headache? From the implant?”

I nod.

“Here, there’s… won’t mean much, but this is what I always used to do for mine.”

A meaty hand feels its way up the back of my neck. I bristle at first, but the touch has a certain quality to it that sets my nerves at ease. Fingertips feel at my scars, then the points nearby where bones meet. Suddenly they press hard, and I feel a great source of tension inside me loosen. I sigh, grateful for the respite.

Then I process that I am not alone.

“Get… fffuck!” I whimper, stumbling back. I turn and, in the dark, see the worst face it could have been.

“Easy,” Val says, voice all gentle warmth. “You’re deep in the glass tonight. Take it easy.”

“F-fuck off,” I hiccup. “What’s it to you?”

Val recoils, and has the temerity to look wounded. “Just… I’ve been there too. Frequently.”

“You…” I scoff; does she think she knows anything about me? I hate that there is anyone here to see me like this. I hate Val for being the one to see it. Then I remember what I saw earlier. “Get the fuck away from m-my hound!”

“Your…” Val’s face twists for a moment, then slackens. She retreats, palms raised and cheeks flushed. “It’s not like that, alright? We were just talking.”

“Jjjjust.” I know what I saw. Talking? Please. Nobody talks to us. I break out in uneven laughter. “Bullshit! You know what we… we…”

I frown. Val knows what we are. But she knows more than that. What she just did to my neck—no regular soldier would know a thing like that. Only one person touches a hound that way, even if mine never bothered.

“Handler,” I hiss. “You’re a fucking handler.”

“W-woah, I’m not!” Val replies, but the fear in her eyes tells it all. “No, that’s all-”

“Yes!” I seize on her recalcitrance; once again, I feel powerful. “I should—we should—fucking gut you, bitch.”

“I’m not a…” Val shakes her head furiously. “I’m not. That’s not who I am.”

“You were,” I sneer. “Now you’re… fuck… fucking… hanging around us. Some kind of hound chaser?”

“No!”

“Didn’t get enough of it in the war?” I leer. “What, your… your wife’s pussy not good enough after a few years of dog dick?”

“Careful!” Val growls. Her defensiveness delights me.

“O-Or let me guess,” I snort. “You just like to watch. Hear… hear that one a lot. Or maybe you just fucking… can’t even get it up without a bunch of trannies like me licking your boots, huh?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Val’s properly angry now. Good. That’s good. “I was trying to help you!”

“Bet you were hoping I’d fall at your feet over it,” I sneer. I’m still drunk, but the adrenaline hitting my system makes me confident. In here, pale blue light dancing off my leathers, I am taller. Stronger. “Why else would… would you keep lurking around us?”

At last, the monster before me has the decency to look ashamed. “I-I-I thought you might understand!” she bleats. “Outside, I’ve never seen another… I-I, I don’t know. You seemed like y-you had something figured out, maybe. I thought… I thought you might…”

She trails off, but I can hear what’s on the tip of her tongue. “Help you?” My face twists in mockery; my reflection in the mirror is a leering gargoyle. “Accept you?” Ugly, uneven laughter erupts from my throat. “We hate you! We hate all of you! Look what you did to us! If you had… had any fucking decency you’d have given your service weapon a blowjob on the way out!”

Val goes quiet for a moment. Her face is veiled in the shadow of her jacket’s collar. Then: “That’s fucking rich, given how you’re dressed up.”

I shake as if struck. “What the… fuck did you say?”

“You hate handlers, but you’re dressed up like one?” Val’s humorless laughter is the sound of something dark uncoiling. “What, that’s the only way they can get off? If you’re playing pretend? Or maybe it’s more about you. Maybe you’re the one who needs to pretend.”

Despite all I’ve drunk, fury brings clarity, not cloudiness. Val’s forgotten something. Before anything else, I am a beast of war. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

I fly at her, hands raised. I might not be at my most coordinated, but I’m more than strong enough. Val’s been drinking too, and handlers never were ones to get their own hands dirty. I beat her arms aside with ease, then begin to rain blows down on her heavyset body. She slumps back against the wall, letting out ugly grunts. I press forward. I keep hitting. It’s easy. It’s so easy. Why didn’t we do this all along? She’s only human. I can make her small. I can make her afraid—just like I’ve been afraid all these years.

“S-s-stop!” Val coughs. “I-I’m sorry!”

“Fuck you.” I spit. I won’t stop. Doesn’t she know? None of it ever stops. Not the bad dreams, not the shitty days, not the headaches and humiliations. Why should any of it ever stop? Ever since the war, everything’s been upside down. I spend all day getting kicked by my hounds, so now I get to kick her. I get to let it out—and the best part is, nobody will ever blame me. This is exactly as right as it feels. When I’m done, my hounds will clean the blood from my boots, and there will be one less war criminal in the world. They look at me and see God again. Even the exertion the beating feels good. I’m nauseous, yes, and my head pounds, but I’m hot and full and eager again, and with each blow, I feel something passing from her to me, some essential mote of power, like the very personhood She took from me is something I can dig out of Val’s broken ribs and cram back into my skull and maybe then I’ll-

“Hound! Failsafe: Syem-Na-Tset.”

Everything stops.

The code word slams into my head like a hammer blow, leaving me a rung bell, shaking, limbs otherwise frozen. The voice of the people is the voice of God—that’s what they drilled into us, and the woman before me speaks now with all of that authority, stirring in me a loyalty that glows brighter than fresh-forged steel. I remember this feeling better than I remember my own mama’s embrace—yet years of dormancy have blunted the effect of the brainwashing. I can tell. The pressure, the compulsion, the paralysis—it’s not what it once was. I could resist. I could fight this.

“On your knees, mutt.”

Obediently, I sink.

I could fight this. But countless drinks, a throbbing migraine, and twenty hours awake have taken their toll on me as well. The willpower I need to struggle is buried beyond my reach. I can’t find my fire. What would I be fighting for? More nights like these? I promised myself I’d never kneel again, but instead of that promise it is the the handler’s command that echoes through my damaged skull, and from my knees I am awash in the presence of something greater.

Rising to her full height before me is Colonel Valentina Karahalios, her name one of many etched into my subconsciousness. She towers now like a mountain above the horizon, a volcano erupting with a great, unfathomable force once bound up tight within. Before her, I am in abject terror—but more than anger, her manner speaks to the poisonous ease of a lapsed addiction. Her face is dark, but the blue light of morning halos her in a shimmering aurora that peels away at the edges of my vision.

“You’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you,” the handler thunders. “Bad dog.”

“N-no,” I whimper, scrambling backwards until I hit the wall. Her slightest disapproval would have me quivering. Her palpable anger is an atrocity.

“I’m going to take it back.”

“N-n-no, please!”

My stuck pig’s shriek echoes around the empty bathroom, but there is none to hear it. None but the monster before me, who now bends down to plant a hand on my face. She pries my unresisting lips apart, then pushes fingertips deep, deep, deep into the core of my being. I begin to buck wildly, weakly, as I feel something rising to meet her, a heat so great it burns my throat—and in its absence, leaves me cold.

“There we go,” the handler tells me mockingly. There are more words too, but those somehow pass beneath my perception, sewn like poisoned seeds and turned under the soil. “Go on, girl. Go on. That’s it. Drop it. Give it up. Let it go.”

The heat passes into my mouth and then spews forth, and the last thing I remember is a great, blazing light filling the room as Colonel Valentina Karahalios plucks something from my lips; a spark, bright as the sun, that I reach for one final time as she bears it up, up, and away forever into the deep black shadow She casts over all.

***

Tonight is Scarlett’s night.

That one thought presses itself to the front of my hungover awareness as I wake to discover myself still slumped on the bathroom floor, my own vomit half-frozen down my front. As I scramble through filth up to my knees, limbs aching from a night spent on hard tiles, I’m left with a murky awareness of danger.

There is a handler preying on us. She’s going to take something from me. And Scarlett might be slipping through my fingers.

I dare not look at my own reflection. With what few paper towels I can scrounge, I try to wipe the sickness from my chin and clothing but succeed only in smearing it everywhere. My shame grows in tandem with my fear. I can’t let Scarlett see me like this. I need to be perfect for her. Which means I need a change of clothes—which means I need to go to work, where I have some spare shirts in a locker.

Mercifully, the bar is yet to open. I’m free to lock up without another soul to see and head out once more. The winter chill has never bitten deeper, and my head is so painful I consider going to the nearest clinic, but the hours of waiting are more than I can bear. It’s already noon, if the glow through the smog is anything to judge by. I shuffle to the monolithic government building I work at, but fail to slip in and out unseen. I’m forced to make my excuses to my supervisor whilst the other workers peer at me. The world around me is still spinning. A kaleidoscope of pitying faces—pitying, but not surprised. It’s like they all always knew this day would come. As soon as I change clothes, I flee home with my head down. Each step I climb on the way up to my dormitory takes an hour’s strength, and I pause outside my door for a long moment, catching my breath and bracing myself.

Wear the mask, Thalia. You’ve done it a thousand times. It’s all she needs.

My key turns the lock. Inside, it’s already warm. Scarlett stands at the stove over a pot of apple tea kept at a simmer. She turns to look at me, smiling, though her eyes are big, round, anxious headlamps.

“Welcome home,” she says, veiling worry with warmth. “Tea?”

I eye her warily. This isn’t how I meant to begin, but the aroma calls to my unsettled stomach. “Please,” I blurt out.

Good as gold, Scarlett is quick to settle me at the small table beside the stove. The cup of apple tea tastes of home itself. “There we go,” Scarlett murmurs gently, taking her seat opposite. “Thalia, I’m so glad you’re safe. We were all so worried.”

I nod guiltily. The tea and the tone of her voice transport me back to all the other times we’ve had conversations like these. “How’s Lola?”

“She’s fine,” Scarlett promises softly. “Worried, mostly. Not injured.”

“Good,” I murmur. “That’s good.”

Whilst I sip, Scarlett begins to hum to me. A little old folk song. The words, if I ever knew them, are long since lost to me, but the melody still stirs within me a sense of childlike comfort. I’m so, so tired, but closing my eyes for so much as a moment makes me so dizzy that the painful cacophony raging against the inside of my skull begins to raise yet louder complaints. Scarlett notices my plight and slides a pair of pills across the table toward me.

“Let’s get you into bed,” Scarlett suggests, as I swallow the painkillers. “You need your rest.”

At first, I nod agreeably. Here, all is normal and safe. Now that I have warmed up from the winter cold, I can feel a fever beginning to flicker to life within me. Bedrest is my only choice—but before my anxiety is blanketed by fatigue, it nips at my heel once more.

“No,” I protest. “First, you and I need to-”

To my shock, Scarlett interrupts me with a click of her tongue. “Thalia, please. Whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait. You don’t seem well.”

Her unprecedented insubordination bolsters my resolve—and awakens in me an uncomfortable awareness of something terribly, terribly wrong. “What did you just call me?”

Scarlett blinks innocently. “Thalia?”

The chair rattles against the floor as I bolt to my feet. “You will call me ‘sir’ or ‘Handler Thalia’, mutt.”

The very proclamation drains what little strength I’ve recovered, but that momentary weakness is nothing compared to how it feels when Scarlett, calm and unmoved, fixes me with a warm, loving, but pitying little smile. “I don’t think we need to play that game anymore, my darling.”

At once, the fever surges to claim me. It’s all I can manage not to slump against the wall as I burn up from the inside. “I-I am your handler. I own you. You’ll… you’ll…”

“Thalia, listen.” Scarlett sighs in sympathy. Her smile, disgustingly genuine, is a hot knife carved into my swimming vision. “It’s OK. It’s all OK. You don’t need to push yourself anymore.”

“Push?” I am a pane of glass, red-hot from the kiln. Scarlett can see straight through me as my edges warp and peel. “That’s… have you been talking to Val?”

“So you do know!” Scarlett’s smile widens; I groan softly as its edges draw blood. “Yes. We spoke at the bar, then she came to see me late last night. We talked everything through. Things will be so much better from now on.”

“She did something to you!” I launch myself at Scarlett wide-eyed, grabbing her by the shoulder. She doesn’t flinch. “S-she has some… some failsafe! Some codeword they left in our heads.”

“She used no such thing,” Scarlett insists. How can she be so blind? There’s no way Val would have let her remember.

“S-she told you what she is?” The fear in my belly curdles to fury. “Y-y-you should’ve… Scarlett, you know what they did to us! How can you talk about her like… like…”

Scarlett simply shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t you see, Thalia? She’s like us. She’s one of us. With her, we can be a real pack again. Even you.”

“N-n-no!” Mere minutes ago, I was a block of ice. Now, my forehead is drenched in sweat. Weakly, I lean forward, bearing my weight against Scarlett to try to push her to her knees. “W-we are a real pack! I. Am. Your. Handler!”

“Thalia…” That look of pity. It unmakes me.

“Call me ‘sir’!” I bark. “You… you… w-we promised.”

That is all I have to fall back on now. A promise made in the long, withering days after the victory, when it was clear none of us would make it through without each other. I wish I had more. I wish I had the authority of the coat I wear. But Scarlett remembers our promise, doesn’t she?

“Alright, Thalia.” Scarlett does not buckle under my weight, but her voice signals a kind of weary acceptance. “Alright.”

“I just told you what to call me,” I hiss. “M-mutt.”

My voice lacks conviction and I wince at the way it cracks, but Scarlett is kind enough not to react. She simply closes her eyes, then opens them again. Our scene begins. “Yes, sir.”

“I should put you in your place.” That’s what she wants, isn’t it? What does she want? “I should…” What should I do? The words will not come. There must be something. I fall back on what’s easy. “Kneel.”

“Yes, sir.”

In a smooth motion, Scarlett folds her long, pleated skirt beneath her and falls to her knees. Her face gives nothing away, neither resistance nor enjoyment. She is as perfect for me as she ever was. A perfect submissive—and a perfect mirror. In her, I see my reflection. In her, I see nothing.

“You…”

Scarlett will do anything I command. Of that, I’m sure. But what should I have her do? What does she want? I know her well enough—or so I think, but as I look at her now, she proves strangely inscrutable. My every notion is stillborn, counterbalanced into the abyss by a thousand tiny worries and anxieties until I am left utterly paralyzed. Perhaps it’s the wrong question. What Scarlett wants shouldn’t matter, should it? Then, what do I want?

I don’t know that either. I’m tired. I’m running a fever. I want to rest.

But I can’t.

“Suck my cock,” I blurt out uncertainly. It’s the first thing that comes into my head, but as soon as the demand leaves my lips, it feels childish. Crude. Embarrassment makes the heat inside me burn all the hotter.

“Yes, sir.” If Scarlett frowns on the order she doesn’t show it. Instead, obediently, she shuffles forward and begins to unfasten my belt. The sight of her on her knees before me, submissive and eager to please, should stir something in me.

It should. But it doesn’t.

As Scarlett frees my cock from its confines, I try to comfort myself with the thought that I can settle into this pleasure for as long as I need to awaken my spark—but then I discover, to my horror, that her expert touch leaves me just as cold as everything else about the moment. As Scarlett runs her fingers over my soft nub, trying to coax it to life, I close my eyes and try desperately to think about anything at all that might strike my passion. Anything except Her, anyway. But the minutes wear on and the mood sours awkwardly, and when I open my eyes I find that the smile on Scarlett’s face has become one of pitying comfort as she plants little kisses on my still-soft cock, a tender but patronizing facsimile of the voracious service I demanded.

There is no use pretending this will work. I can’t get hard.

That’s to be expected, I tell myself, after what I’ve been through. I don’t have the blue pills that usually help; even without those, I could normally muster something, but the sickness burning behind my brow makes it impossible. It’s not my fault, but this was a bad idea. I need to try something else.

“Stop,” I instruct. Scarlett does so. She looks at me with big, expectant eyes; I brace myself for mockery, but none comes. She is too good for that. Too loyal. And yet, I feel nothing. What’s wrong with me? This is a nightmare. A fever dream. “G-good girl,” I tell her weakly, as though it were a task completed and not a mutual humiliation.

“Yes, sir.” I almost wish for mockery instead. Maybe then I’d feel that urge to put her in her place. Instead, I’m left casting about for something to do. Anything. Since Scarlett’s mind and mine are equally opaque, all I can think to do is desperately search the whirling room around me for inspiration. I find the answer at my own feet.

“My boots,” I spit, before mastering myself. “Polish my boots, m-mutt.”

“Yes, sir.”

That’s all I’ve heard from her this entire scene. Against my wishes, as Scarlett goes to retrieve her cleaning kit, a knot of resentment begins to form in my belly. It’s so easy for her. All she has to do is whatever she’s told. She’s free all the agonies of choice. All the burdens of leadership. She can simply obey, and enjoy the blissful feeling of reward submission provides. It’s been years, but its taste still lingers on my tongue. It always has. Why has it never been my turn? If only all I had to do was kneel, and say ‘yes, sir,’ and-

No. I can’t let myself think that way. I don’t think that way. It’s the fever talking. It has to be—or else it’s what Val did to me. If I don’t believe that, I’m letting them win. Not just Val, but Her. All those monsters. If I don’t believe that, I’m admitting I’ll never be more than what they made me. But however much that stiffens my resolve, it isn’t enough to keep me from recoiling slightly as Scarlett brings a damp rag to my boots and begins her work.

After a night in the bar bathroom and a morning of Arkturgrad’s snow and filth, they need the attention more than ever. As Scarlett busies herself with the task, though, it proves no different from the misguided blowjob. Standing over her, watching, I feel strangely restless. I cannot shake the sense that I should be doing something. My hands twitch; they want for a task to work at. I try to stifle the impulse with affirmation: this is exactly how it should be. I, her handler, receiving the service that she, my hound, provides. It doesn’t work. I’m uneasy. Like my fever, my anxiety keeps rising.

Am I doing a good enough job? Am I playing my role? Is Scarlett enjoying herself? Would she enjoy something else more? Is this form of service too selfish? Is it too much like the chores she performs for me each day? Do I need to make it more exciting for her? Should I care? Would She? Would Val? What would Val make her do? What has Val already made her do?

When I confront her, will her boots be polished to a perfect, mirror shine?

“I-I need to sit down,” I pant, the fever-heat within me growing strange as I dwell on the mental image. Scarlett watches me, concerned, as I slump back into the chair, one arm draped limply across the back.

“Are you sure you don’t need to rest, Thalia?” Scarlett begs. She’s so worried about me, and it’s making this so hard.

“S-s-sir!” I cry. “Keep going, m-mutt. If my boots go to damp, I’ll… I’ll… just, get them perfect.”

Scarlett purses her lips for a long, worried moment, before the: “Yes, sir,” comes. Then she crafts her lips into a smile, as if to reassure me. Do I look like I need to be reassured?

Though she returns her attention to my boots soon after, I cannot shake the feeling that she has seen right through me. I am not enjoying this. I should be. I always did—even if, sometimes, it was a battle to find the strength to hold up my end of our pack’s bargain. When I put myself forward as handler, it was because I alone was suited for it. I had the spark—but now it’s gone. Burnt out by the years, final embers snuffed out between Val’s fingertips. It’s never been further from me. I feel the space in my breast where it once blazed, a damp, hollow spot, the absent desire giving way to a corrosive yearning. It grows colder and hungrier with each passing moment, yet everything else is so hot I want to start tearing at my sweaty skin for relief.

“Are these clean to your satisfaction, sir?” Scarlett asks.

I look down at her. My vision is like an oil slick. I can’t see my boots. The only thing I can see is Scarlett’s smile—and now I see it for what it truly is: patronizing. She is humoring me, like a mother with a stubborn child. She’s kind, oh yes, but when she looks at me, she does not see God. And she never will again.

“Y-y-yes,” I bleat. I’m on fire. My entire life is burning down. “Good… good dog.”

“Yes, sir.” That smile, that maddening smile! “With your permission, I’ll polish them now.”

The most I can manage is a curt nod, and even that sends sweat dripping from my brow and leaves me perilously light-headed. The leftover scent of apples and spices is too much, somehow; cloying and sickly, and when Scarlett opens her tin of boot polish, the acrid scent sends me into paroxysms of nausea. I’m melting down. I am succumbing to sickness. Too late, I realize that I need water. I force myself to my feet; too late, I realize that I should have ordered Scarlett to get it for me. I collapse against the table, sending my teacup falling until it shatters against the tiles. I almost follow but Scarlett, my Scarlett, is there to catch me. Slight but strong, she bears me upright again.

“Alright,” she tells me, with firmness I haven’t heard in an eon. “That’s enough.”

“N-n-n-no,” I whimper. “N-no, this… this is… t-this…”

This was my last chance. I see that now. I neglected Scarlett for too long, and now she’s slipping from my grip. I keep up my stammered, incoherent protest all the way to my sickbed as Scarlett drags me there, but I have not the strength to resist her as she lies me down and fusses over me.

“Don’t worry,” Scarlett tells me lovingly. “Don’t worry, Thalia. It’s all going to be alright.”

I nod feverishly, fervent in my eagerness to believe her. I cannot believe otherwise. It would rip me in half.

“I… l-love… you,” I risk. Those words have often been on my lips these difficult years, but they’ve never left them. Not until now. A handler shouldn’t. But I must tell her. I must make her see what she means to me.

And she does. Her eyes widen in surprise, then soften in affection. She coos as she sets a glass of water at my bedside, helps me out of my sodden clothes, then presses a damp rag, blissfully cool, against my forehead. “I love you too,” Scarlett replies. “That’s so… yes, my love, it’s going to be alright. Don’t worry. We’ll be together soon. You, and I, and all of us.”

“S-s-s-sssooon?” I drool. The sheets beneath me are already soaked with sweat. My own skin is a marsh. “N-no… s-stay, stay!”

“I can’t, my love,” Scarlett says apologetically, as she furnishes me with medicine. “She told me to go to Her.”

“H-her?” At that, I go still. The trembling reverence in Scarlett’s voice is fuel to this new, awful fire. My thoughts begin to grow dim as they consume themselves, fighting for air. Anxiety, hope, envy, dread, each battling for primacy.

“You can come too. As soon as you’re better. She told me as much.” With infinite tenderness, Scarlett lingers for a moment at my bedside; as I reach for her, infant-weak, she squeezes my hand in hers, then bends to kiss my cheek. But after, as her lips graze my ear, her whispered voice is honey and thunder and merciless promise. “You’ll see. She’s so much better than you.”

My entire body betrays me. In one motion, I spasm, limbs stiff and back arched. My eyes begin to roll back to behold the inferno of my broken mind, each muscle whining pitifully against the way I seize and contort, and now—now!—I feel myself growing so stiff with need that I rub myself to near-climax against the itchy, woolen bedsheets, Scarlett’s testament to Val’s superiority ringing in my ears.

Now, at last, Scarlett permits herself a faint giggle at my pathetic display. “Goodbye, Thalia,” she says as she rises to her feet and away. For all that she has been through, she wears the face of a maiden again, ready to walk her wedding aisle like they did in the days the churches still stood. “Come for me, my love. We’ll be waiting.”

As Scarlett departs, so too does my conscious mind—but sleep is not rest. In fitful, feverish dreams, I dwell in fire. I dwell in Val and Scarlett’s awful dance, and in their heat, I am melted and remolded. All that is impotent and needless runs away like snow in spring, like a dream that never truly was, and what remains is stamped with a white-hot brand, inscribing, in place of an old, seeping scar, a new name. A new purpose. A new master. As the brand goes cool, I am cleansed—and I am lit from within by a flame that will burn eternal.

***

Tonight is my night.

I sleep for a full day and awake the next evening, and once I do the world feels more like a fantasy than any nightly phantasm ever has. My fever is broken. My headache is gone. My body is light. With a blissful smile settled on my face, I prepare myself. I dress as nicely as I’m able, while my coat and cap rest on a dresser, long forgotten. I don't need them anymore, not even as proof against the winter cold. My new faith keeps me warm. It is only excitement that leaves me shivering as I walk the virgin snows covering the empty streets that lead me all the way to the bar.

To Her bar.

From outside, I see that the heater is burning bright. Raucous sounds leak from within. Chatter, moaning, music, clattering glasses. The place seems, for once, like more than a graveyard for soldiers yet lingering. It seems alive. I am late to the party, but I feel neither shame nor envy. It’s my night. The party is for me. I savor one last breath of night, descend the steps, and enter. Once I see Her, my eyes go wide in rapture.

Colonel Valentina Karahalios sits at the center of Her bar with all the majesty and authority of one of the kings we fought to bury. She occupies an entire table to herself, laden with as lavish a meal as the bar’s kitchen can furnish; nobody dares sit beside Her, but the whole room turns on the axis of Her moods, Her laughs, Her stray comments, Her sheer presence. She is arrayed in full leather panoply: cap, coat, boots, pants, vest, all bearing the scars of years spent folded in a footlocker yet now radiant black from a fresh conditioning. They have never suited anyone better. This is not the same Val I intimidated with ease a few days ago. This is something else. A monster come unshackled. An awful light freed from its bushel. Legs spread, She now bears Her bulk with ease, like She deserves all the space She takes up and more, and Her weary, wary face has relaxed into a thin smile of supreme, aristocratic authority.

I look at Her, and I see God.

“Welcome, mutt,” our handler says. “Good of you to join us.”

An eager, taunting titter goes up around Her pack.

Her pack, not mine. They draw close to Her now, Her inner circle, eyeing me warily as though unsure if I am intruder or supplicant. Ruby stands behind Her, hair a mess, face sporting a fresh black eye, and she has clearly never been happier for it. Bailey knees before Her, thighs wrapped around Her boot, her rhythmic humping and panting as much music as what’s playing over the sound system. Lola is at Her other side, resting on haunches, a leash wrapped around her neck and a blissed-out-grin on her face. And then there is Scarlett, my Scarlett.

Scarlett stands just beside Lola, vodka bottle in hand, ready to refill Valentina’s cup at any moment. As She notices my gaze lingering on her, Valentina’s thick branch of an arm snares her waist and pulls her, giggling, into Her lap. Our handler makes no secret of the way She gropes Scarlett, nor why; She stares at me the entire time, taking pleasure in both my stunned response and in the way Scarlett melds and folds against her like a doting lover.

Like flint against steel, the moment strikes a green spark of jealousy—but it finds no purchase within me. I am a spent pyre. I see in Handler Valentina Karahalios all I once had and held dear. All I once took pride in. If I were even half a person, I would hate Her for it. Instead, I look back on all those years of pack leadership, on all the love and affection, on all the desperation and struggle, and I see it for what it ever was: an inevitable interstice.

This is what we need. She is what I need. And so I watch, as She takes whatever She wants from the girl I love.

“Kneel,” our handler commands, as She turns to me, Scarlett still purring eagerly in Her embrace.

I obey.

The feeling that floods me as I yield to that one, simple command is indescribable. It’s like a muscle deep within me, held tense for years without relent, has finally been permitted to relax. The sheer, screaming relief puts grateful tears in my eyes. This moment is a homecoming. I fold my legs beneath me, a pose of perfect submission that has never faded from my muscle memory, and I understand that the handler’s guise I wore never felt so right as this.

“Good mutt,” She tells me. Now the tears fall. “Let’s see if you’re still worthy of being a hound. Strip.”

From my knees, I tear my clothes away from my body in a frenzy. Even the nakedness feels right. She should be clothed; I should not. Every contrast between us is a fresh, joyful revelation. Absent my unearned leather coat, beneath the loose-fitting dress uniform I now toss aside, I am thin and wan. I pale by comparison.

“Good.” Even that one word lights me up with gratitude. “Now bark, mutt.”

Without hesitation, I rock back on my haunches, push my snout into the air, and part my lips. “Rrrarf! Raf! Rrrrrraf!”

More laughter from my pack, Scarlett included. They are fully at ease now. I no longer command the respect to be considered an adversary; instead, they can simply delight in seeing me laid low and humiliated. But I know them as well as they know themselves, and in their eyes I see more than schadenfreude. I see love. I see welcoming. This ritual debasement is a necessary castigation. I must be stripped of the walls of pretension I have built around myself. Only then can I join them anew. Each derisive giggle is an embrace.

That doesn’t mean they don’t burn like Hell’s own fire. In their contorted, mocking faces, I see the ghosts of the awestruck, worshipful masks they used to wear each time I called their names. I was the star around which they revolved—and now I’m a joke. I have dealt each of them humiliation and punishment in my time, and to have it all thrown back at me before them leaves me infinitely more naked than simply removing my clothes ever could. With each peal of laughter, the ghosts fade. I will never see those adoring looks again. At least, not for me. The weight of what I am losing seizes my heart in a vice. There is so much I treasured about being their handler. Really, truly treasured. So much pride and pleasure.

But deep down I know: this is better. And so I say goodbye to it all with a delirious smile on my face.

“My, you are an eager one.” Amusement dances in Handler Valentina’s eyes, and I am simply pleased to have pleased Her. She works up a wad of saliva in her mouth and spits it onto the ground in front of me. “Lick that up.”

Worse and worse. Better and better. I dive forward, pressing my tongue to the ground to lap at her bodily waste. The checkered floor tiles are filthy. Years of dust, cigarette ash, and sticky, spilled-drink stains assault my tongue and turn my stomach, but I push past it. I have found a reservoir of strength within me, devoted only to submission. For another taste of Her body, I would do this and more a thousand times. I must prove myself. I must satisfy Her. I wonder, distantly, if this is punishment. If She is spiteful. I find it difficult to assign Her such a lowly motive, though, and in truth, it does not matter. If She is, I deserve it for how I treated Her. If She is not, I deserve it still in exchange for Her mercy. Once the tile is spotless, I look up, breath bated for Her approval.

“Come here,” our handler instructs. “Bring me that,” She tells Ruby, gesturing to my clothing while I crawl to Her side adoringly. In Her every command, I see the vastness of the distance between us. To me, dominance was tensing a muscle. To Her, it is relaxing it. “Hm.” She makes a displeased sound as She rifles through my pockets and discovers my cigarettes and lighter. “This is a filthy habit,” She pronounces. “I won’t tolerate it.”

“Yes, sir.” How natural it feels, to call Her that! “I’m sorry, sir.” With Her very judgment, the desire to smoke is purged. It was only ever a substitute addiction.

“I’ll make sure of that.” Handler Valentina lights one cigarette and throws the rest aside. Then She calls me close; I shiver when I feel Her powerful hand wrap around my jaw. “Brace yourself,” She warns. “Show me how well you can take it.”

I try my very best, but even I cannot help but scream when she reaches around and presses the cigarette’s lit tip against the scar where once my neural implant was.

Though it was removed a long time ago, something like that never truly heals. The nerves remain overexposed, begging for connection, and now they find it in fire. I taste metal and see colors I never have before as the pain sweeps through me and leaves me a twitching wreck. But when I recover, I find myself not slumped to the ground, but held against my handler’s body by strong arms.

“Good dog, Tali.” Handler Valentina murmurs, all of Her ice melted into gentleness. “Good hound. That’s my Tali. That’s my girl.”

I melt against her too, free to weep in the knowledge that I have passed the test. Her embrace is a promise: from now on, whatever comes, I will be equal to it. The headaches and the pains. The work and the exhaustion. For Her, I will be strong. The rest of the pack draws close and embraces me on all sides, former disparities forgotten. After this, I am sure, there will be time for claws and teeth. There is a pecking order to work out—but even if I am at the very bottom, I will be content. That is Her gift.

From within the mass of warm bodies, my eyes find Scarlett’s. I love her, and she loves me. What does that mean now? I feel her left hand around me, squeezing me fondly. I sense her right, clinging still tighter to our new handler. From here on, our love is not ours. We belong to another. It’s a strange, new thought, but not a sad one. It simply is. Whatever we had before is gone, and so am I. In this moment, I am both reborn and crystallized. Handler Thalia is dead. There is no use mourning her. This is her last winter. From now on, the seasons will change, but I will not. From now on, as winter’s snows melt to spring’s slush, as the summer dust gives way to autumn rains and then to snow again, I will remain this: Tali, Her hound.

And it is all I will ever be.

—

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