#jason(oc)

Pet's weekly routine doesn't change much. Every day, she wakes up in time to make Sir's breakfast (three rashers of bacon, two fried eggs, two slices of toast, and exactly eight ounces of orange juice) and get him ready for work. Sometimes, if she's good, he'll give her a pat on the head before leaving.

Sometimes, if she's not, he'll leave her with shoulders mottled and aching.

Then she has to clean the house until it's spotless, and everything's in the correct position. There's not a speck of dust to be seen once she's finished, not an object out of place.

On Mondays, the shopping's delivered. The doorbell is connected to her collar, the low shock making sure she knows it's been pressed, but the delivery man doesn't ring it anymore. She's not sure why.

It's always delivered by the same young man. He's nice, talks to her like she doesn't have a collar around her neck. Brings the shopping all the way into the kitchen when he doesn't have to. His name is Mr Jason.

One day, he hands her a slip of paper with a phone number on. Tells her that if it ever gets too much, this life, to call someone called Sandy on that number.

She's okay though. Why wouldn't she be? This is the life she chose.

She puts the shopping away perfectly, everything in its place, exactly where it should be. Exactly where Sir requires it.

She sorts, irons and stores the laundry twice a week, hers (maid outfits, which according to Sir's friend are fashionable) hanging in a small closet in his room. Everything that Sir gives her is in her closet. She doesn't have much – a pet bed, clothes, disciplinary tools that make her shiver to look at them so she tries not to unless it's absolutely necessary – but it's everything she needs. Sir takes care of her every need, she doesn't need anything of her own.

Sometimes she bakes. Sometimes she cooks. Sometimes she does neither. Sir doesn't always have a plan for his meals, and on those occasions, Pet knows she has to wait until he's home, until she can receive clues or instructions on what he wants. She always bakes on Thursdays, so he can have enough homemade snacks to sustain him throughout the week.

Once the day's chores are complete, she has to clean herself. That's important. Even if she will undo the work after Sir gets home, she has to be clean and presentable and smell nice for him when he does. Everything has to be perfect.

She washes herself, every nook and cranny, carefully scrubbing between her fingers and toes, making sure to use the strongly-scented soaps and conditioner that Sir likes so much.

Ten minutes before Sir is due to arrive home, Pet's shock collar goes off. It's a low setting, just to let her know Sir needs her. She inspects the house, making sure that everything's in its proper place. No room for sloppiness here.

Five minutes later, it goes off again. She starts the coffee maker. It takes five minutes to brew, and then it will be ready for her to pour him a cup when he gets home. She has to turn it on at exactly the right moment, his coffee mustn't be too hot or too cold. Then she kneels beside the front door, ready to welcome Sir home.

The first thing he does, once he's drunk his coffee, is inspect the house, and her, thoroughly. He strips and examines every part of her, and her clothes, and then does the same with the house. Every speck of dust missed, every part of the bathroom that isn't sparkling enough, every packet that isn't in exactly the right place, it all gets tallied up. Everything wrong with her, too, a slightly loose hair ribbon, a drop of damp left between her toes, a minute incorrection of posture, that all goes down. That's the number of hits her shoulders will take. Punishing her is, apparently, Sir's work de-stressor. That's what he said to his friend once, and Pet remembers. She always remembers. She has to, she can't afford to make mistakes.

The tally goes down on the big chart, too, along with anything unusually good she's done, in preparation for Sunday.

That evening, as every evening, she is at Sir's beck and call, serving his every request. Her collar vibrates frequently as he calls on her often, sometimes for drinks, food, company... and sometimes for other things.

Pet's collar is like a bell in those old-timey British films Sir likes to watch, she muses sometimes. It calls her to service. Only the collar is silent, and it hurts, too.

Silent. Silent like she is. Silent like she has to be, because that's the way Sir likes it. Unless Sir requests otherwise, of course. Silent movements, silent chores, silent as a mouse. Only squeaking for his amusement when her punishments become entertainment.

On Monday and Wednesday evenings, Sir takes her into his bed and has sex with her. He's talked about experimenting, he's used a few toys, but nothing major. Not yet.

She's not sure how she feels about that idea.

On Fridays, Sir works from home. She doesn't spend all day doing chores then, instead she waits on him, bringing him drinks and snacks and papers, whatever it is he needs when he calls for her. Stress relief, sometimes. If she's lucky it just involves roughly petting her, but it's often more than that. She's used to the taste by now, though, it's okay. Whatever Sir wants is what she wants. Even if it leaves her black and blue and red, or with a sour taste in her mouth and an aching jaw.

Her neck hurts the most on Fridays, shivering with phantom shocks for hours more that night, after even the mice have settled down and gone to sleep.

On alternating Saturdays, Sir goes out with his friends, or they visit each others' houses. Some of them have pets too. Some just like to play with her. She doesn't like it quite so much.

Her least favourite game is when they take the pets out someplace public, and she has to stay perfectly still and silent, perfectly secretive, as they do what they like to her. The first pet to cry out or be otherwise noticeable loses.

She doesn't like to lose. That's never good. Sir doesn't like it at all. It's especially bad if a member of the public notices, says something. She hates it when that happens.

Then come Sundays. A lazy lie in for Sir with plenty of sex, and then the charging of the three sets of shock collar batteries that have been used that week. That's when she gets her punishment.

It could be a reward, of course, in theory, if she made up enough good points on her tally, but she could never do that. She's not certain it's even possible, or if Sir rigs it. He might.

Sir has used lots of different punishments in the past. Stress positions, beatings, small cuts in sensitive places. Nothing that will scar.

The only scars she has are the section of her right shoulder that Sir and his friends use as an ashtray, and Sir's initials on her inner thigh, where no-one else can see. The latter, he called scarification, seeming very pleased when he did it.

She's not pleased. She thinks she should be, but she isn't.

Sir has a special wipe-clean room for Sunday punishments, in the basement, that she has to clean until it's spick and span. That's what he says, spick and span.

His current favourite punishment is to tie her spread-eagled to hooks in the floor and ceiling, upside-down and naked, and just beat on her with whatever's to hand. Sometimes, it is his hand. She's had broken bones a few times, although Sir usually tries not to do that. He says bruises make her look prettier, so they're fine, provided they can be mostly covered up. He tries to avoid them in the places her clothes won't cover.

Bruises are socially acceptable on pets, although not too many. Apparently.

Then, once the batteries are charged and the shock collar is back on, it's time for a film and a takeaway. If Pet's lucky, if she's affectionate enough, she'll be hand-fed the leftover crusts and crumbs. Otherwise, it's her usual pet food, ordered on a subscription from somewhere she can't read the logo of. Enough to keep her fed, bones peeping through the skin like they should in fashionable pets. That's what all the magazines show, the ones that Sir flicks through and then discards with a snort. But there's no variety, and sometimes she finds herself wishing that there was.

She ignores the look of pity the delivery man gives her as he hands over the bags of warm food. She always does. She's as wide-eyed and pleading as possible with Sir, so much nudging affection, and maybe, hopefully, this time she'll be allowed some of his tasty leftovers. Maybe even tasty food of her own, one day.

Sir's friend petsat once, and she got a pet ice cream from his girlfriend then. It was like a cloud on her tongue.

A cold cloud. Maybe clouds are cold, though, it's not like she's ever been up there.

Sometimes she daydreams about having an ice cream again.

She daydreams about clouds, too. She likes to watch them skud past. Shape them, mould them, name them. Pretend they're something they're not.

Sometimes she feels like she's pretending too. Waiting for a gust of wind to blow her out of this life and into another.

This is the life she chose. But she isn't sure she'd choose it again.

One Monday, Mr Jason arrives with the shopping. He looks at her, wearing a posture collar over her shock collar because Sir thinks she isn't good enough, bruises peeking out from under the sleeves and skirt hems. Everything aches, she could barely move for aching that morning, bruised stiffness setting in. She's one wrong step away from being sent to a retraining centre, though, and regardless of that she'd have to do her job, so she goes through the motions of it all.

And then there's a knock on the door, and her careful posture, the way she's holding herself to keep the weight away from the worst pain, almost breaks.

Mr Jason takes one look at her. Just one look, catching so much, and he says two words.

"Call xem."

So Pet does. After Mr Jason's left, she calls, doing her chores at the same time. She can't read the numbers but she copies the shapes into Sir's landline. They speak for hours, as Mx Sandy works out a plan.

Her beating that evening is worse than normal because of her inattention during the call, with a metal and leather cane as Sir orders her to select the weapon that will cause the most pain without scarring or breaking anything. She obeys, her posture apparently not at its best still. She'll have to work on that then.

The next day, Sir comes home with a yoke and a box of pet cams. He explains that they're so Sir can watch her at work, to see why she's misbehaving so much, and then he can send her to the trainers with appropriate instructions the next time he goes on a business trip. He says that he doesn't understand what's happened, but that her behaviour needs fixing.

Pet thinks that perhaps, if he was a little more careful with his Sunday punishments, then it would be easier for her to behave during the week.

At least she won't have to go on the business trip. She feels sorry for the rental pet he'll undoubtedly get, though.

Then Sir makes her kneel and passes the yoke over her head, fastening it around her neck. The wooden sides sit on her shoulders, draping slightly over the very tops of her arms. It's not too bad like this, but then he fastens weights to it, and she struggles to keep her shoulders at the correct height.

This is to fix her posture. She's going to wear it for the next week and then they'll see how she is. Whether he also needs to spend money on training her in that, too.

The yoke worked on his friend's pet, apparently. DIY posture training. Pet remembers seeing it on him, at Sir's friend's house. It looked like it hurt.

She's grateful that she at least doesn't have to wear it at night. A small shock emits from her collar when it is to go on and off.

She can't read a clock, but she doesn't need to with her shock collar.

Sir's going to install the cameras the weekend after this, when his friend's free to help. Pet calls Mx Sandy the next day, making sure to be very careful with the landline, and xie moves the plan forward a week.

On Saturday, Sir's friends come to visit. Not the camera-installing one, thankfully. They laugh at Pet in her yoke, and hang weights from it and use it as an increasingly heavy table until she collapses. Then Sir, drunk Sir, the worst kind of Sir, breaks a glass on the back of her head, the one that cracked when she fell.

Now her head is covered in cuts and beer and then stinging cuts.

She hates them all. She knew it was coming, they did it to another pet before, but it still hurts. Why can't Sir care without hurting her? Is that the only way to be loved, as a pet?

It seems to take a very long time, but Monday finally comes. Mr Jason arrives at the normal time, his eyes widening when he sees her. She's glad he's not seeing her at her worst, at least.

He helps her put away the shopping quickly, side-by-side, exactly the way she'd do it alone. The longer time frame there is for an investigation into her departure, the better. Then he leads her outside.

They can't leave the yoke or collar here. Both are padlocked on, it would be obvious she had help.

"In here, until we get out of the gates. My cousin's in the back."

He helps her climb into the truck, where she collapses to her knees, the weight suddenly too much. The person who must be Mx Sandy peers out from behind a stack of crates.

"Hi. I'm Sandy. Let me help you get those things off?"

Pet nods, crawling as close as she can, and Mx Sandy meets her in the middle.

"Okay. Let's see if I can pick these locks. I'm going to come around behind you now, don't panic."

Pet nods, and Mx Sandy clambers behind her, fiddling with the locks on her yoke. Xie lifts the yoke off, and Pet's head sags. It feels suddenly weightless, but she's too weary to hold it up.

There's a tiny click and Pet's leather shock collar is peeled away. She swallows hard and doesn't feel the press of soft leather or plastic against her throat. It's strange.

"That's better, I bet. Put this jumper and shoes on. Maid outfits aren't uncommon with pets around here and I don't want people getting suspicious."

Pet nods and shrugs on the knee-length green jumper and trainers Mx Sandy hands her. They're surprisingly comfortable. She pulls down the sleeves until they're exactly even on both sides, and checks that the laces are symmetrical.

As clothes should be.

"Thank you, mx."

"Just Sandy. Ready?" Pet nods again, unsure what she's meant to be ready for, and Mx Sandy knocks hard on the metal dividing them from Mr Jason.

A few seconds later, the lorry comes to a stop, and Mr Jason rolls up the back of the lorry.

"We're walking the rest of the way," explains Mx Sandy– no, just Sandy. She has to be exactly right. She can't make another mistake. "Safer for Jay that way."

He holds out his hand to help Pet out, and she takes it, stepping down as gracefully as she can manage. "Good luck. See you next weekend, cuz."

Sandy makes a face at that. "Don't get caught."

Mr Jason (Jay?) climbs back into his lorry and drives away, leaving Pet alone with Sandy in the large, empty, secluded car park. Xie takes her hand before she can worry too much.

"Let's go. It's not far from here."

Pet keeps her head high as they walk, graceful, elegant. A good pet should always be so. Even, maybe especially, if everything still aches and she's struggling to hold herself up. That's good, it means she still knows how to behave, if she can do that.

They keep walking until they reach a brick house in a nondescript street, and Sandy unlocks the door, leading Pet inside.

There's nobody around, although there's signs of inhabitance everywhere. Clothes draped over doors, shoes piled by the entrance, a whiteboard covered in sheets of paper and pictures drawn in drywipe. She has the urge to tidy it all up before someone gets in trouble for it.

"Dryer's broken at the moment. I'll show you to your room, Tom's out at the moment so it's all yours. I suggest you change and take a nap before we do anything else."

Pet nods, and follows Sandy upstairs. The room is spacious, two single beds lined up neatly opposite each other. One has plain blue covers, neatly tucked, while the other's are a repeating safari pattern.

Pet's not sure what a safari is, or where the headache comes from, but she pushes it away as she has done so many times before.

The blue-covered bed has a neat pile of clothes at the end, and she picks them up, carefully changing into them as Sandy quickly turns xier back. The fleecy pyjamas are warm and soft, covering her nicely but leaving her forearms free. She certainly never had clothes this soft from Sir and she wraps her arms around herself, savouring the lack of thin, scratchy material that made up her usual outfit with Sir.

Pet notices a clock on the wall. That's reassuring, somehow. Maybe Sandy doesn't rely on electric shocks to tell xier pets the time.

"The bed's for you to sleep in. Take a nap for as long as you need, I don't intend on timing you or anything. You must be exhausted."

"Thank you, mx. What are my duties when I wake up?"

Sandy pauses for a moment. "We'll work that out when you're feeling better. Nothing more than anyone else here. One thing I'd like you to start thinking about is your name. I want you to choose one you like, rather than Pet. Is that okay?"

Pet nods. She's going to have to keep a close eye on Sandy to choose a name she can be sure xie'll like, but that's acceptable, if nerve-wracking. What if she chooses the wrong name?

Still, she can't disobey.

"Yes, mx."

At a gesture from Sandy she climbs into the bed, curling the duvet around herself until it covers her completely. She's so warm, she doesn't remember the last time she was so comfortably warm.

Sandy rests a hand on her head and she leans into it. She knows she'll have to pay for the non-earned kind touches later, but that's okay. They make her feel so much better that that's okay.

"Go to sleep, honey. We'll sort everything out when you wake up."