His Master's Voice #1 (The Dollhouse Society)

by Jay Ellison

  “You playing this weekend?” Rebecca asked me just before lunch while she passed me on the way to her office.

  “Oh, yeah. New venue,” I said while I hauled flats of Hi-Pro dog food onto a shelf. That wasn’t strictly true. It was a new venue—a new club that had just opened downtown and was allowing bands to play for about five minutes in a kind of “talent show” type of thing—but I didn’t want it to sound so vague or she might ask me work the weekend, and I really needed the time to jam out with the band.

  She nodded. “Remember, we’re doing inventory in two weeks.”

  I groaned internally. That meant I would need to work next weekend whether I wanted to or not. Between my job here, my training business—which I was still trying to build—and band practice, I wouldn’t know if I was coming or going. “I’ll remember,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic and failing horribly.

  Later, after I knocked off, I rushed for the sub and only just made it to the dog park where I usually met my clients at three in the afternoon. Most were affluent, so they wanted to meet in the big, sprawling dog park in Lower Manhattan, the one with the training zone. That made for long crisscrosses across the city that took forever, but I was hoping it would pay off soon. If I could build a big enough client list, I knew I could quit my job at Pet World, and then I would just need to balance two jobs, which would be awesome.

  “You’re late, Timot,” Mrs. DeGeneres said, tapping her foot while she gingerly handled the leash where her Afghan was pulling and fighting. I knew she was terrified of breaking off her super-fake nails. The diamonds around both their necks sparkled—hers from a gold chain, his from his collar. I called her Mrs. Degenerate behind her back because she was so mean sometimes, and her dog, Copernicus, as dumb as a bag of rocks.

  I checked the time on my cell. I was only running two minutes behind. “Sorry, Mrs. Degenera…DeGeneres…the sub ran late.” I was huffing and puffing when I took the leash from her.

  “You’re making me late for my crystal class. Don’t let it happen again!” she said, giving me a sour look before slipping into the limo where she had an actual driver who did nothing but chauffeured her all over the city.

  “I won’t,” I said, scooting down a little to speak to her through the window. “And Copernicus is making great progress!”

  She looked at me like I was scum, unworthy of but the briefest of glances. After all, I was just help…like everyone else in her life. “Be a good boy for Mummy, Copernicus,” she said sweetly to her dog before telling her driver to drive.

  The limo pulled away from the curb, riding right through a puddle from last night’s rainfall and splashing mud onto my jeans. Copernicus whined and I looked down at myself and thought about crying.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “This is really turning out to be a shit day,” I said to Copernicus just before it turned into a sufficiently less shit day. I was running him through the doggie gauntlet—or, rather, not, as Copernicus had decided to take a long snooze in the bright yellow doggie tube—when I spotted the Dom from the day before.

  He was sitting on the same bench from yesterday, talking on the same cell phone, but he seemed to be alone. I didn’t see Abercrombie Michael anywhere. Unless, of course, the Dom had left him back in his limo, or whatever it was he drove. I was in the training zone and the Dom was in the play area of the dog park, so there was some distance between us, plus a six-foot-plus chain link fence, but I still spotted him in his ultra-sleek business suit and shades.

  And I think he saw me, too, because he seemed to be looking in my direction. Unless, of course, he was looking at something else behind me that was more interesting, which was a distinct possibility.

  I took a big chance and raised my hand in greeting.

  He didn’t wave back, but he did smirk briefly. So he was watching me.

  I blushed at the realization, grateful I was probably too far away for him to really notice. It wasn’t every day that a guy looked at me. I mean, sure, I had some admirers, but it was usually giggly teenage girls, and they were always down on the floor while the band played a gig in a dive somewhere. That didn’t really count because even though I liked girls a lot, and was friends with a ton of them, I wasn’t into them in that way.

  Should I wave again? Or go up to him?

  The idea filled me with terror and anticipation.

  I wanted to go to him, talk to him again. But no, that would be way too forward, I told myself. What if Abercrombie Michael was around somewhere? He would probably punch me in the eye for looking at his Dom, and I wasn’t really a fighter. Plus, I didn’t want to look desperate in front of the Dom—even though I totally felt that way.

  He was so gorgeous and put together. Really elegant. I loved his suits and pretty but manly rings and the way he dominated the bench he was sitting on. Plus, the way he had commanded his sub yesterday was incredibly hot. The guy had total control over his sub. But what the hell would he want with me? I wasn’t that elegant sub he had had on a leash, even though I knew I would heel in an instant if he asked me to.

  Oh, man. I really wish I hadn’t talked to him that day.

  I had this fantasy of him sitting in a fancy wing chair in front of a fire, maybe reading a book and drinking a glass of wine while I knelt obediently beside him on my own special throw rug, my eyes on him the whole time while I hoped for a little attention. A pet. A stroke. More. I wondered what it felt like to kiss his soft lips and feel the thrilling scratch of his scruff against my cheek. I knew, as a Dom, he would be an amazing kisser. He would control every moment. He would make me do things I had only ever dreamed of doing…

  The fantasy warmed me and excited me at the same time. And, yeah, I know I was acting like some giddy schoolboy with a crush, and that it was stupid, but it was my fantasy. And in my fantasies, good things happened to me sometimes…

  Copernicus’s sudden barking snapped me out of my daydream. He had finally crawled out of the doggie tunnel and was standing there beside me, barking at his own shadow on the ground.

  I sighed. “My god, you are a stupid dog,” I said and lead him back to the entrance to the training zone.

  That night, I spend hours Googling the Dominant/submissive lifestyle. The stuff I learned was amazing and weird and oh so thrilling, and, by morning, I considered myself something of a semi-expert. Well, online, anyway.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tall, dark and dominant wasn’t at the dog park the next day, or the day after that, which was a Friday. That was depressing.

  I was hoping to sneak a few glances at him while I worked with my clients’ dogs. I mean, I knew I wasn’t anywhere in his league—even his sub’s league—and that he wouldn’t give me the time of day, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t window shop. Fantasize.

  On the upside, I didn’t see Abercrombie Michael, either, which was a huge relief. I knew I was making him out to be a way biggie bogeyman than he was, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the guy meant me serious harm. All my old fears of being jumped at school, bullied and punched, kept resurfacing, as stupid as that sounds. It was like some kind of stupid PTSD thing I couldn’t shake.

  On Saturday, the band played the new club. I was super nervous, but excited. Raven, our keyboardist, was calm and collected, as usual, but I thought maybe that was because he was high. He took lots of drugs for his anxiety. Kree, our drummer, was his usual bouncy self—I knew he was high. We got halfway through our cover of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man before we were booed off the stage, but that was no surprise.

  The kids at the club looked more like they belonged to Abercrombie Michael’s cliché than the hardcore goths, metalheads and fetishistas we were led to believe we could expect. Someone threw a water bottle at Kree’s head, cut him good above the eye. We wound up down at Emergency, with Kree getting his head sewn up.

  “Did you see that? That was awesome!” he said, touching his wound like it was a badge of honor, and Raven and I loo
ked at each other and shook our heads because we just couldn’t even. I got home in time to find Reg and Jesus on the ratty old, secondhand sofa, getting high and watching a SyFy Original movie and laughing about the shitty monster.

  “Dude, you wanna doob?” Jesus asked and burst out laughing like that was the cleverest thing ever, but I shook my head. For one thing, I didn’t do drugs or alcohol. For another, I didn’t feel like sitting and laughing with them. I couldn’t see anything worth celebrating tonight. Instead, I locked myself inside my bedroom and took out the old song sheets of Taylor’s song and looked them over, not that anything new came to mind.

  I then spent some time looking at BDSM pics online, trying to decide what was hot and what was not. In the beginning, I had thought it was all about the same—lots of chains and whips and stuff—but now I saw that there were all different styles and specialties. I wondered what the Dom was into.

  Finally, I crawled into bed and lay there, listening to traffic out on the street and the guys getting hysterical in the other room. Was this all there was in life? Work, bad gigs, the occasional personal fantasy? I lay on top of the sheets, touching myself, pretending it was the hot Dom doing those things to me. I imagined him using that commanding voice on me. Sit. Stay. Heel. Roll over. I imagined him holding me down and kissing me so hard I couldn’t breathe.

  “I’m going to force you, and you’re going to take all of me like the good little slut you are, Timot,” he whispered harshly in my ear just before he pieced me with his magnificent cock. He kissed me, biting my bottom lip. Pinned me to the mattress. Forced me to take him…to take all of him. I cried out at the savage way he filled me. I was at his mercy, writhing on his satin sheets while he powered into me, over and over, making me his slave, his sub, his possession. I was his to use, his to pleasure himself with. All my desires, all my dreams, were dust. Everything in my life had come down to a single-minded need to please him, my Sir, my Master.

  I lived at his behest, my sole purpose—my only point in living—to bring him pleasure and to respond to his commands.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Dom was back on the bench on Monday. He was so distracting in his charcoal-grey pinstripe suit and princely, commanding presence that I found it hard to get Snowball through the doggie gauntlet. We must have done it five times before he finally got it right. “Good boy!” I said, throwing myself down on the ground and giving Snowball a big hug.

  Snowball wiggled and barked enthusiastically. He knew that if he did well, he could go play with the other dogs in the off-the-leash part of the park. I actually half-hoped he would run toward the Dom again, giving me a reason to trot after him, but when we got to the gate, he saw two of his dog buddies waiting at the top of a grassy hill and ran toward them instead, barking excitedly and leaving me all alone.

  I looked over at the Dom’s bench—I had finally begun to think of it as his bench—and saw that the Dom was no longer doing business on his phone. He was sitting there, an arm across the back of the bench, dominating the space while he watched a boy tossing a Frisbee to a red setter running all over the place.

  He was smirking with amusement until he sensed I was watching him. Then he turned his head to meet my eyes, his smirk gone and a serious look on his face. Did he expect me to go to him?

  The thought was somehow both exciting and dreadful at the same time. What if I was wrong? Maybe he was here all the time because he liked my technique with the dogs? Maybe what he really wanted was to hire me as his dog trainer and he was just here to observe my methods. It would be embarrassing to go up to him, only to learn that he wanted me to train his dog.

  He nodded at me then. A clear sign he wanted to talk.

  My heart went from beating fast to a full gallop. I took a step toward him—then stopped. He shifted his arm slightly and I wondered if he would do a come-hither gesture. If he did, I would most certainly go to him, but he didn’t. I studied the lovely, angular lines of his body under the almost too-snug suit. I remembered some of the things I had learned from Google. In the D/s lifestyle, it was always the sub’s decision to choose his or her Master. I would need to go to him. It would be my last act of self-will, and he probably wanted me to know this.

  I must go to him, choose him. After that, things would change forever.

  I would be his. I would belong to him—body, heart and soul. He would be my Master, then. He could be the one calling all the shots.

  I felt this whole monumental conversation going on between us, unspoken but clear as day.

  No, I thought. Not like this. Not spur of the moment.

  He has to know I’ve thought it through—that this is important to me.

  Instead of running to him, I raised two fingers to my lips and kissed them. I wasn’t sure if I was conveying what I felt correctly, but he seemed to understand. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

  I went to collect Snowball. Tomorrow would be different.

  Tomorrow, everything would change.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  My god, was I nervous.

  I could barely get anything down at breakfast, and the hours dragged on endlessly at work. All the while I was hauling bags of dry dog food off the hand truck and onto a pallet on the floor of Pet World, I found myself constantly checking the time on my cell. The day just went on and on! “Freakin’ Groundhog Day!” I said to the little terrier in the seat of the cart while a confused-looking little old lady walked by, shopping for her wiggly little companion. By the time four o’clock rolled around, I thought I would scream from shear anticipation.

  Yanking off my ugly, bright yellow Pet World apron, I stuffed it into my locker, slammed the door, and raced out the door to catch the sub. I almost slammed into Steve, my coworker, in the hallway.

  He caught me before I could topple over and grinned. “Hot date?”

  “Yes, actually!” I grinned back.

  Mrs. Degenerate was already at the dog park even though I was early.

  “You’re not late for once!” she crowed.

  “Nope! Right on time!” I actually kissed her on the cheek before grabbing Copernicus’s lead and bounding toward the training zone. She looked so confused! It was delightful.

  The Dom was waiting, as I hoped he would be, but I didn’t run up to him like some schoolboy riding the crest of a crush. Instead, I did my very best to get Copernicus through the gauntlet. He managed to climb with little enthusiasm over the low doggie wall, but fell asleep, as usual, in the tube. I waited until he was snoring loudly before I reached into the pocket of my black leather jacket and pulled out the studded leather dog collar and lead with the rhinestones on them. I had bought them both last night from the adult toys shop on the way home from work.

  I felt a surge of nervousness as I buckled the collar on and attached the lead to the ring that fell just under my Adam’s apple. The collar was snug, but I liked the sensual feel of the leather around my neck, and I hoped it made me looked sexy and…well, own-able. I checked my makeup in the little hand mirror in my pocket. I thought I looked really hot with the guyliner and the crimson streaks in my hair and earrings with the little silver skulls and crosses hanging from them. I turned to look at the Dom.

  He was sitting forward on the bench as if in anticipation, legs spread, but hands calmly folded before him. As usual, he looked to be in no rush and to own the space all around him.

  I let myself through the gate that separated the training zone from the rest of the dog park and took the first tentative step toward him, then stopped suddenly. Felt like my scuffy old black combat boots were glued to the path. I listened to my heart clocking in my chest. Normally, I wasn’t this forward. I never approached guys I liked. But I had decided I couldn’t face another night of going home, listening to those stoners howling on the sofa, and thinking about my sorry, go-nowhere life while I lay alone in the bed, isolated and miserable. Something had to change in my life, and soon.

  I took another step t
oward him. Then another.

  Maybe everyone was right. Maybe I was a freak. I rubbed nervously at the black nail polish on my thumb, second-guessing this whole thing.

  The Dom’s attention was focused entirely on me now. That buffed my courage somewhat, and I took another step. What if he found me wanting? What if he laughed in my face and called me an idiot? Maybe I had misinterpreted his signals all along. Maybe a whole bunch of people would jump out of the bushes so they could start beating on me.

  It wasn’t as far-fetched as you might think.

  “Don’t,” I said to myself, eyes closed and teeth gritted in determination. I stared down at my feet and took a few deep, quick breaths. “Suck it up, princess. Show some balls.”

  I nodded, pleased with my little pep rally. I would probably not get beaten. I might be rejected, or even laughed at, but I was willing to take that chance. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had used me as sport.

  Before I even knew it, I was right there, standing before the Dom sitting on the bench, and he was looking me up and down in a way both critical and interested. I thought this might be the same method he used to pick out a new suit. Only…was my cut and style a little too…weird? But he hadn’t told me to go away yet, and the idea bolstered my flagging courage and made me stand up straighter, though I took pains not to look him directly in the eyes. I’d read that you didn’t look a Dom in the eyes, not without invite. It was immensely disrespectful. And I wanted him to know I could obey, that I could be a good sub…if I was worthy of him, that is.

  I cleared my throat, did it again to clear the hoarseness, and said, “Hello…Sir. I don’t know if you remember me from the other day…?” My voice trailed off.

  He was sitting back. I felt the weight of his eyes on me, analyzing me. They lingered briefly at my groin where my skinny jeans were pressing against my sudden hard-on. God, I was so embarrassed that he could see that! But soon enough, his eyes returned to my face, though I struggled not to meet his gaze head on. “Hello, pet,” he said after a moment, that soft, chocolaty and utterly male voice washing over me. And then: “Yes. I remember. Is that for me?”