CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
“Uh… yeah. Yes. Absolutely. That’s fine. No problem,” my master stuttered, trying to avoid my gaze. “You go right ahead.”
Good to know he was okay with the plan, I thought, suppressing the urge to smirk.
In all honesty, there was no real reason for me to be showering again.
I’d had a thorough shower after we’d got home last night, rinsing off a day’s worth of dust and a million scraps of straw.
But there was something else that I urgently wanted to do in the shower, and from the way he was turning red, all the way down his neck and up to the tips of his ears, I was very sure that my master knew it.
I sauntered off down the hall and shut myself in the bathroom…
and then I made a point of listening for any telltale sounds out in the hallway.
Surely my master was too shy to come and listen at the door?
But just in case, I resolved to not be too quiet about it all.
I didn’t want to sound like I was deliberately seeking attention, but I also wasn’t aiming for total silence.
I stripped off my clothes and turned on the shower, a little disappointed that the noise stopped me from hearing what was going on in the hallway.
There was only about a fifty per cent chance he’d leave the kitchen, given how shy he habitually was, but I found it arousing to imagine him with his ear pressed to the door, listening.
I didn’t need to do any more fantasising than that to have my cock at full attention again.
I stepped into the shower, my hand immediately moving to grip myself.
I’d done this a disappointingly large number of times over the past three years, since my master had almost never allowed me to climax while he was fucking me.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t still enjoy it.
I began to stroke myself, and immediately, a low moan rose in my throat.
Stars above, that felt good. In my mind, I could see my master standing at the door, a little startled by the sound.
I could imagine the studious frown on his face, and the way his shoulders would tense.
I stroked myself again, then let my head fall back, the water cascading down over my face.
My fist moved quicker, and I pictured my master, outside the door, reaching down into his own pants as he reacted to the soft sounds I was making.
I was breathing quicker now, and my legs trembled just a little.
I’d been trained for stamina, but at the same time, it had been years since I’d had to go longer than forty-eight hours without some kind of release.
We were currently sitting at three and a half days, and I moaned louder as I felt my climax gathering in my balls.
I closed my eyes and imagined what it would feel like to have my master slide up inside me…
“Oh fuck!” My release splattered all over the tiled wall of the shower, quickly washed away by the flow of water.
I moaned again as a few aftershocks rocked me, and then stood with my forehead leaning against the cold tiles, my fist still gripping my softening cock.
I’d expected it to be quick, but my release had come even more easily than I’d thought.
And on the heels of that thought came another realisation.
Never, in all my time at the hotel, had I fantasised about my old master when I was finishing myself off after he’d left the room.
Three years with him hadn’t roused any noticeable interest, but three days with my new master had me almost coming in my pants.
A new wave of concern gripped me. But this time, it was less like guilt and more like…
confusion? Resentment? It seemed to be a dozen different things at the same time, and I couldn’t quite get a handle on what all these emotions should be called.
The instant I came up with a name for one of them, it would slip away, to be replaced with something else.
I felt sorrow – not for the loss of my master, but for the fact that I hadn’t been allowed to live the life I’d been promised while I was in training.
There had been no affection, no love, no joy.
Just cold repetition. I felt anger that my previous master had bought someone so unsuitable to his needs.
I felt a deep and glorious joy that I’d found somewhere so much more pleasant and interesting to live, and a dark fear that it would somehow all be ripped away from me.
I felt a baffling blend of determination to turn the old barn into a project that my master could be proud of, and annoyance that he was being so unbearably difficult about so many very simple things. I felt…
I stopped to consider it, trying to wrap the whole thing into one simple explanation.
I felt… scared. I felt scared at not knowing who I was, or where I belonged, or what any of this meant. I felt scared about how quickly my moods were shifting, when I’d been trained all my life for consistency and diligence. I felt adrift, like a tiny boat caught in far too large a storm.
Making sure the last remnants of my release had been washed away, I turned off the shower…
and the instant I had, I caught the faint scuff of a bare foot against floorboards outside the bathroom door.
Just that little sound was enough to bolster my mood again, and a grin lit my face.
Despite my very recent release, I felt my cock twitch. So he had been listening after all.
? ? ?
“Could you go and clean out the kennels and cattery this morning?” my master asked me, as we finished a fairly routine breakfast of porridge and toast. I’d decided to stop tormenting him after my shower, and I’d dressed in loose grey trousers and a maroon t-shirt – nicer colours than my beige uniform, but still comfortable enough for physical work.
“I’ll do the animals in the barn,” he went on, “and then, if all goes well, I’d like to spend another couple of hours cleaning out the lower level of the old barn.
After we get the rubbish out, I can call in an electrician to check the wiring and have a plumber go over the water tank.
Once we know the basics are working, then we can use power tools to start working on replacing the planks. ”
“Yes, sir,” I said, pleased with the plan.
I’d liked working in the old barn. For all that it was dusty and dirty, it was also easy to see the progress we were making, and I was looking forward to the more precise work of replacing the floorboards and repairing the roof.
“Shall I take Bribie with me? By the time I’ve finished in the kennels, Bo should be here, and I can leave Bribie in reception with her, rather than him causing any problems in the barn. ”
My master nodded. “Yeah, good idea. Thanks.”
“What about Mr Beans?” I asked next, feeling a touch more trepidation at the answer I thought I would get. He’d been allowed to stay in the house for one night, and though he’d behaved well and hadn’t been a bother, I was fairly sure my master was going to say he had to go back to the cattery.
Right on cue, Mr Beans wandered into the kitchen. He rubbed his head against my ankle, then sat down at my feet and put a paw on my leg. In response to the entirely polite request, I leaned back in my seat and he jumped up into my lap, purring loudly as he rubbed his face against my arm.
I rubbed his ears, then looked up at my master, waiting for his decision. He was watching Mr Beans with a pensive expression on his face, and I held my breath…
My master sighed. “He can stay in the house today. He may as well…” He paused, then rolled his eyes, though he was smiling as he did so. “He may as well move in here full time,” he said, and I couldn’t help the wide grin on my face. “He’s too old to get adopted so… Yeah, he can live here now.”
That had been far easier than I’d thought it would be.
Nothing at the hotel had ever been that simple, whether it was changing a shift for one of the workers, or needing to order new buckets for the cleaning, or even just requesting a new towel for my room.
Every single change was questioned and interrogated and scowled at.
And yet here, with just a little nudging, I’d been allowed to adopt a pet.
Well, okay, we had adopted a pet, since I was entirely sure that my master would enjoy Mr Beans’ company as much as I would. But even so.
Once more in a joyful mood – and ignoring the lingering thread of guilt I felt about it – I finished my breakfast quickly, then called for Bribie to follow me over to the cattery.
Once the cats and dogs were taken care of, I dropped Bribie off at reception, explaining to Bo what my master and I would be doing today.
There was a dog bed in the corner behind Bo’s desk, and Bribie slumped down there in a happy heap, ready for a nap after the excitement of greeting all the other dogs in the kennels.
I paused to watch him for a moment, and that was enough to get Bo’s attention. “Anything wrong?” she asked, glancing at Bribie.
“He gets tired very easily,” I said, knowing he really hadn’t done all that much this morning. He’d walked to the kennels then played with the dogs for a few minutes, and now he looked thoroughly tuckered out.
“He’s old,” Bo said, her tone sombre. “Really old. We honestly didn’t expect him to last this long. We do our best to look after him, and to make his last days comfortable, but he’s not long for this world.”
I nodded, feeling my scales ripple. “Thanks for looking after him today. I’m sure he appreciates it.”
“No problem at all,” Bo said. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
I headed off for the old barn, knowing I could check in with my master on my way past the new barn to see if he needed anything.
Sure enough, as I arrived, he was in the midst of coaxing Huckleberry out into the field.
The donkey had continued right along with his efforts to be as stubborn as possible, refusing to go out to the paddock in the morning, and then refusing to come back to the barn in the afternoon.
Clyde was currently standing in the middle of the paddock braying loudly, as if calling to his friend to come and join him, but Huckleberry would not be convinced.
“Do you want me to get a carrot?” I asked my master, but he shook his head.
“No. If we keep doing that, it’ll only reinforce what’s already a bad habit. He needs to learn to listen without being offered food all the time.”
“Is there anything else you’d like me to do?
” As I stood there, I casually reached up to grasp the support beam over the doorway of Huckleberry’s pen.
I slowly did one single pull-up, knowing it would make my biceps bulge, at the same time as lifting my shirt to display a strip of my stomach.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t quite done torturing my master this morning.
I lowered myself down and dropped to the ground, looking expectantly at my master.
“Uh… No, it’s fine. You go ahead,” he said, thoroughly distracted from his task. “I’ll, um…” His gaze snapped back up to my face as he gathered his thoughts. “I’ve still got to clean out the polvers’ pen, but that’s the last thing on my list. I’ll see you over there in about half an hour.”
Now that he wasn’t being asked to go anywhere, Huckleberry suddenly decided that he did want to go out to the paddock after all.
He set off at a quick trot, causing my master to yelp and dash after him, in order to avoid being dragged along by the lead rope.
I grinned and left him to it, heading up along the dirt road and around the stand of trees in front of the barn.
I opened the doors wide again, having noticed how much dust simply drifted out the front of the barn while they were open.
Anything that meant less sweeping for us was a good thing.
Then I did a brief inspection of the ground floor.
There were some rotten planks with nails in them, and I decided it would be as well to remove the nails and stack the planks before attempting any sweeping.
I’d need a hammer, some gloves and a bucket to put the used nails in, so I headed for the storage cupboard to collect some gear.
The instant I opened the door to the dark little room, I knew something was off.
I’d been trained for my entire life to pay attention to small details in order to best serve my master – a dirty countertop that needed wiping, an empty packet in the bin that indicated an item to go on the shopping list, a slight frown that displayed dissatisfaction with a meal.
And so now, I froze in the doorway, uncertain as to what the problem was, but absolutely certain that there was one.
I glanced around the barn, checking for droppings or scratch marks.
Had an animal broken in overnight? I couldn’t see anything out of place, but at the same time, I didn’t think a bird or a lizard would be making me jittery.
And it couldn’t be anything larger than that, given that the main doors had been firmly closed.
I looked around the dark room, then activated the light on my comm.
Nothing seemed obviously damaged or displaced.
The ceiling was intact, the tools were still lined up where we’d put them yesterday afternoon.
I drew in a slow breath, trying to focus my senses…
Oh! It was the smell, I realised all of a sudden.
But what was the smell? I couldn’t have explained exactly what the difference was, just that the storage room today smelled different from the way it had yesterday.
Something very slightly musky. But it wasn’t likely that any wild animal could have gotten inside the storage room.
The door had been closed when I’d arrived.
I scanned the room again with my comm light, wondering if I was just jumping at shadows, or if I was imagining things…
I froze all over again, my heart rate doubling while I instinctively slowed my breathing to make it as silent as possible.
Sticking out from behind a stack of wooden crates was a pale blue foot.