by Loki Renard
Sarah could not cobble together the words, but she moaned her agreement as he pounded into her, fucking her harder and faster. Apparently unsatisfied with the lack of a verbal response, he pulled out and slapped the length of his cock against her pussy lips. It was not a punishment, but it was a tease. She stood there with her legs spread, taking hot slaps of his rod and wishing it was inside her.
“Yes!” she promised. “I’ll be good.”
“Good.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and took her down to the floor, flipping her so she was on her hands and knees. Her bottom received a stinging slap and then he was back inside her, pushing his cock deep inside her bare pussy until they both came in a hard, fast crescendo that left her whimpering obedience against the soft carpet.
Chapter Four
The next day, Sarah noticed something different about the house. “The purple…” she pointed toward the windows.
“I turned the force fields off,” he said. “Because I trust you not to leave the house without me.”
“I can’t ever go into the city alone?” Sarah didn’t think that was very fair. There were all sorts of people wandering around the city all the time. Why shouldn’t she be one of them?
“You’re a pet,” William said. “And the other citizens will treat you as such. I doubt you will take kindly to that, and I do not want to have to pick you up from the kennels.”
“Kennels?”
“Where strays are taken.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about that. Just promise me you won’t go out without me.”
“I wonder what the city is like at dawn,” she said, changing the subject. She had every intention of going out without William. Going out with him would mean behaving herself like a good little pet. That was not what she had in mind. What she had in mind involved exploring the city a great deal more intimately than William would probably have liked. She would not stick to the highways and byways and markets and whatever else they might have in the manner of public spaces. She wanted to see how citizens lived inside their homes. Were they all like William’s?
A shadow fell over her and two strong fingers slipped below her chin, lifting her head toward his so that their gazes met.
“If you betray my trust in this, not only will I put the force fields back in place, I will lash your bottom until the idea of walking seems unpleasant.”
He was using his serious voice and his serious face. A double dose of serious.
“I understand,” she said softly. It seemed to mollify him. She did understand. She understood that if he caught her out of the house without him, there would be trouble. But there were many ways to sneak out of the house without being noticed now that the many balconies and windows were unshielded. If she were to put her mind to it, he need never know that she was out.
“Sarah…” There was warning in his tone. “I can see you plotting, girl.”
“Oh, you have a machine that lets you read my thoughts?”
“I don’t need a machine,” he said, his cheek dimpling as he smiled wryly at her. “You don’t hide your thoughts very well. Every one of them is written on your face.”
“Just because I’m not some emotionless, expressionless citizen doesn’t mean I’m planning something.”
“Mhm. Just you mind that warning.” He tapped her gently on the nose. “I have some ministry work to do today, so I’ll be in my office. You can amuse yourself in the holochamber, or practice reading.”
Neither option appealed to Sarah overly, but she did not protest. She had a different agenda. An agenda that involved skipping out the nearest window and exploring the city from which she had been so strictly forbidden.
She picked up a book and pretended to read. None of the symbols made any sense to her, for she had not paid any attention to any of the lessons William had given. Reading seemed to her to be a complete waste of time. Why would anyone want to decrypt the thoughts of another person through small dark marks? Small mouth noises were troublesome enough.
William went off to do his work. She did not leave immediately, for she knew that it would take some time for him to fully immerse himself in his descriptions of the natural flora and fauna that he ‘discovered’ with every trip to the wilds. The people of the city seemed entranced by descriptions of the world that lay directly outside their gates, but they had no apparent desire to experience them firsthand.
Unlike a city dweller, Sarah only saw value in personal experience. If you did not see it with your own eyes, taste it with your own tongue, then it was of little value being told about a thing. In her weeks of captivity she had grown increasingly curious about the city itself. The aerial view provided by the transporters had given her an idea of the general layout of the place. It truly was like a nest of some kind, all tiny passages feeding onto larger walkways and pod-like structures in between.
A quiet settled over the house and she knew that he must be engrossed in his work. She could sense his concentration several rooms over. He would stay that way for at least an hour, she imagined from past experience. That meant she had an hour to explore the city—and perhaps find a way out of it.
Creeping toward the window, Sarah looked over her shoulder. There was no sound, no creaking of a chair, which would have indicated that he’d sensed something wrong. A little pang of some emotion she couldn’t quite place shot through her stomach, but she ignored it and slipped out of the window onto the ledge beyond. She was free, in a manner of speaking. The air outside the house was still, unnaturally so. The dome prevented any real air currents from entering the city space. What little breeze there was brought with it an unpleasant scent. She couldn’t place the smell at first, but it quickly became very obvious. Farts. The entire place smelled of farts, thanks to the many hundreds of people going about their day in a big impermeable dome.
There had to be some kind of venting system somewhere, or they would have all succumbed to the posterior gasses a long time ago. Looking around, Sarah noticed that there were little grates dotted through the upper portion of the wall. They were closed at that moment, but she imagined they could be opened if the flatus became overwhelming. It could potentially allow radiation in, but no doubt there was some kind of technology to keep it out. These people had an answer for everything, including things that didn’t need answers.
She sat for a time, getting her bearings and making sense of the place. It was not at all like the forested wilds. It had a strict order to it, a grid-like system that occasionally deviated into curves and triangles, but soon returned to straight lines. She would have no trouble navigating it, especially as William’s house had the benefit of being elevated above much of the city. There were other homes located nearby, providing a series of white domed stairs down toward the central city. Of course, no citizen in their right mind would have taken their life in their hands by leaping from roof to roof, but Sarah had no such misgivings. She hurled herself from the ledge and flew through space in a crouched position, landing on a nearby roof on both hands and feet. It was easier to absorb the shock of landing with four limbs rather than two.
She looked back over her shoulder and saw the window from whence she had come still empty. William had not noticed her leaving. She had gotten away with it! Quite thrilled with herself, Sarah bounded from rooftop to rooftop, taking the path of least resistance and letting gravity do most of the work. If there was one thing she was good at, it was moving through uneven terrain with alacrity. After several dozen such jumps, she found herself overlooking the very heart of the city. People were everywhere, going to and fro in the brightly colored robes that they seemed to so admire. There were ornate garments with flowing trains and large shoulders and more fabric than Sarah had seen in her life. If they had needed to flee a predator, they would have become instant meals. But the city people did not dress to survive, they dressed to impress one another.
There were a few people wearing leggings, but they seemed to be of lower rank. The well-dressed ladies and gentlemen moved pa
st them as if they did not exist. Sarah felt a pang of sympathy for those who wore leggings. They seemed closer to nature than their better dressed counterparts, but that seemed to make them mere objects.
This city, so obsessed by its technology, so dependent on a thousand systems of delicate control liked to pretend that it was separate from the world it had walled itself off from. But it was not. The people looked the same to Sarah’s eyes as hogs about a watering hole, or flies on a choice bit of carcass. Swarming beasts were swarming beasts, no matter how you dressed them.
Having judged those who considered her a mere pet, Sarah sat quite proudly on the rooftop and looked down her nose at the citizens. Not a single one of them looked up. They had forgotten about the sky, too busy living in the stink of their own flatulence to remember that predators liked high places.
She knew she would have to keep out of sight. It was not certain how the citizens would react to her presence if they were to become aware of it, but it was too great a risk to test. William must not know she had disobeyed him.
Turning homeward, Sarah realized that her journey back up the tiered houses would not be as simple as her journey down. There were plenty of pillars and ledges to climb on of course, but it was a slower process. It was also less easy to see where she had come from when all she could see were towering walls, which led to yet more towering walls. The houses were slightly staggered back and forth, which made navigating all the more difficult. To eyes attuned to plants and rocks, the plethora of stone facades and pillars looked like a great desert, every inch of it the same as every other inch.
After a good hour climbing here and there, Sarah had to admit to herself that she was well and truly lost. Worse than that, the light was beginning to go. William would surely have missed her by now. He would be angry. He would be looking for her, leather in hand, of that she was certain.
Crouching between an ornate stone flower and a wall, Sarah tried to work out where William’s house was. It couldn’t be over there, for over there was where she had just come from… or was it? There were so very many houses, a multitude of dwellings that looked the same when viewed from the exterior.
She was about to make a decision to go in a new direction when sharp twin prongs lodged in her buttocks and a jolt of electricity shot through them. Screaming with rage and pain, she fell to the ground, her muscles contracting uselessly as a strange citizen stood over her with a set of manacles. Cuffs were attached to her wrists and ankles, then she was picked up, still shivering with the discharged current, and tossed into a crate that was much smaller and much dirtier than the one William had used.
Whimpering to herself as her every muscle ached, Sarah cowered in the back of the crate. It was transported without any kind of care to a place much lower in the city, a place that was barely lit and that smelled of heavy cleaning agents. Worse than sterile, the air smelled lethal, so completely removed from nature that Sarah’s heart beat faster at the scent alone.
The crate was pushed into a corner and left. She was cold. She was hungry. She felt the little pangs of needing to toilet, but there was no toilet in the little crate.
“Let me out!”
“Hold your tongue, or you’ll get another dose of jolts!” The little man had a nasty, nasal voice that carried serious threat—and moreover, anticipation. He clearly enjoyed his job, every mean, painful part of it.
Sarah tried every panel and place in the crate, but although it was filthy, it was just as secure as William’s had been. There would be no escape until the man let her out, at which point it was likely things would get worse. Much worse.
She took refuge in silence and fear, deeply regretting ever having left the comfort and security of William’s home. She had been a fool to take his kindness for granted. Clearly these citizens thought nothing of using violence when it suited them. William’s spankings barely registered on the scale when compared to the vicious device the catcher had unleashed on her.
A hatch in the top of the crate opened and a hand shoved its way in, grasping her by the back of the neck. Sarah shouted in panic as a cold metal device was pressed to the back of her neck. It made beeping sounds, but did not cause any pain aside from the unpleasantly rough gloved grip painfully pinching at her nape.
“Tch!” A frustrated sound was made, and the hand withdrew. “Not marked. Not chipped. If your owner doesn’t claim you in twenty-four hours it won’t go well for you.”
Sarah could not imagine spending another hour in the crate, let alone twenty-four of them. A whimper escaped her lips and was swiftly punished when the catcher slammed his hand against the crate’s side, half deafening her with the reverberations.
He left her with the echoes of the blow, in the cramped cold from which there could be no reprieve. The crate was not large enough to do anything but sit in. She could stretch her legs out in front of her, but she could not stand.
If this was to be her last sight of the world, it would be a sorry one. The scent of death was in the air. She was certain that others had lost their lives down there, she sensed it strongly. It frightened her so deeply she could barely breathe.
Minutes passed by into hours and she started to doze off, not because she was tired but because she was thoroughly exhausted. Fear had faded into despair.
What seemed like an eternity later, heavy footsteps rang out close by, jolting her into awareness. Suddenly, the grated door was flung open. She smelled William before she saw him; his scent alone propelled her from the crate into his arms. She threw herself at him, tears coursing down her face as she gripped him like a spider monkey, wrapping her arms and legs around his body and refusing to let go.
“I guess that says she’s yours,” a voice spoke. It was the voice of the catcher, the man who had shocked her for no reason at all. It evoked a rage that sent her from William’s arms to the catcher’s throat, her canines bared like a beast as she did her very best to bite the cruel citizen.
“Sarah!” Her name cracked through the air. “Here. Now.”
She ceased her attack, pleased to note that the catcher looked suitably frightened. As well he should. If William had not stopped her, she would surely have drawn blood, for the coward deserved at least that and likely a whole lot more.
She retreated to William’s side, standing just behind him, a low growl emanating from her throat. A sharp slap from William’s palm made her cease, but she still glowered at the citizen, who was looking at her as if she were a particularly nasty form of dirt.
“She’s not registered,” the catcher said. “She should have been marked and chipped for identification purposes already. You were informed of that when you applied for your license.”
“She needs more taming before she will be ready to receive my brand.”
“All pets are to be marked within thirty-six hours of entering the city.” The catcher was not reading from a page, but he sounded as though he was. That was what reading did to people—turned them into reciting mimics, no original thoughts of their own. “You must comply with regulations, or face fines.”
“I understand,” William said stiffly. She looked up at him curiously. He could have crushed the catcher if he so desired. He was a much larger man, a much stronger specimen entirely—but somehow the catcher with his rules and his regulations was holding sway. Sarah did not understand it at all.
“I want to go home,” she said.
“Home?” William turned to her with his brow raised. She had never called it home before, but a spell in the kennels had made her realize that William’s domicile had become her home too. It was a place where she might find some comfort, where she knew she was protected from little men with big guns. His expression softened slightly, but only for a moment.
The catcher did not care much for their bonding time. “That’s four thousand credits,” he said. “One thousand for allowing a pet loose in the city, an additional two thousand for her being hostile, and another one thousand for her lack of marks.”
“Four
thousand credits is enough to feed a family for a year,” William pointed out. “That’s a bit steep, isn’t it?”
“If you want to keep one of these wild things, you need to have it under effective control,” the catcher replied. “You were informed of your responsibilities when you applied for your license.”
William’s expression went from grim to grimmer, his jaw locking as he paid over four thousand credits by pressing his thumb to the handheld device. Sarah didn’t really understand the system, but she understood that the clerk was taking something William valued, and he was doing it because she had been caught.
She began to feel a very strange emotion, one she had not felt before. It was uncomfortable and prickly, like a sore bottom but on the inside, just above her stomach. It made her feel slightly nauseous, though the kennel had done a good job of that as well.
“Come,” William said curtly. She followed at his heel, eager to be away from the place.
“Leash!” the clerk called out. “She must be on a leash!”
Sighing, William snapped one about her neck. She made no objection, and was thoroughly surprised when he handed her the end of the chain to hold herself.
“There,” he said, turning to the clerk. “She’s leashed.”
The clerk’s face turned pink then red with thwarted frustration. “That is not what leashing means.”
“She’s wearing a leash,” William said. “And we’re leaving.”
He walked toward freedom. Sarah followed, a little grin on her face. William had a bit of a rebellious streak, so it seemed. She had not seen that side of him before. She liked it.
“I did not like that man,” she said as they left.
“There wasn’t much to like,” William agreed.
“He treated me like an animal. I might be a pet, but I am still a person.”
“There are those in the city who would debate that,” William said grimly. “There are those who think that people with your mutation are not properly human.”
