The Pet Shop (21 page)

‘W
ELL
, I
HADN’T EXPECTED
that, though I must say it was rather nice.’ Jan chuckled softly. ‘It was something I was looking forward to when my probationary period was over, you know, something I’ve fantasised about. And I have to say, my fantasies didn’t come close to the reality.’ Jan had just bathed Stella and herself, which had turned out to be quite a touchy-feely experience, and Stella could no longer say she hadn’t known the pleasure of a woman. Jan was tucking in her shirt, smiling happily in the mirror at the reflection of Stella who stood next to her in nothing but a collar and leash. ‘And you’re all bathed and ready for your meeting with the Boss and Ms O’Kelly when the time comes. Now, shall I answer some of those questions for you?’

Jan dug into her pocket then patted herself down. ‘Uh-oh, I think I must have lost the pen while we were all having sex. It must have fallen out of my pocket.’ Her cheeks brightened and she offered an apologetic smile. ‘Never mind. We’ll find another one in the office.’ She led Stella away from the annexe and into a side door of the big house over which there was a sign that read,
Office. No Pets allowed
.

‘It’s all right, don’t worry,’ Jan said, when she saw Stella staring at the sign. ‘Pets can come in if they’re with a handler and on a leash. You’ve read the manual. You know that Pets aren’t allowed to interact with any form of media. That’s why the office is off limits. Anyway you’re not exactly here as a Pet at the moment, are you?’

Stella followed her inside and watched as she shuffled through the top drawer of a small hard wood desk buried under a huge computer monitor. The handler nodded to the screen. ‘We keep track of all the Pets on this, you know, who’s here, who’s not, and if they’re not, are they with a keeper or living their other life. Alan had the programme specially designed by some company in America, some company on the West Coast, I think.’

‘Alan?’

‘You know? The Boss? Alan Boswell. It’s hard for me to think of him as anything but Alan. That’s how I was introduced to him when he recruited me.’

A. Boswell, “The Boss” was Alan. Stella hadn’t known that.

Jan offered a conspiratorial smile. ‘I’m sure they’re going to show you this anyway, so let’s just see what some of our Pets are up to. Most won’t be with keepers in the middle of the week, though a few always are. You know how wild work schedules are these days.’ She typed in Liam. ‘Looks like he’s in the real world at the moment, but he’ll be with a keeper this weekend. Let’s see, Daisy’s here on holiday, so she’ll be with the other Pets in the garden.’ She pointed to a door at the back of the office with a big
Do not enter
sign. ‘We have CCTV here, so we could go in there and find out exactly where Daisy is, though very few of us have access to it.’

She turned her attention back to the monitor and flipped down through the list of Pets given alphabetically almost like a roll call. ‘This is very helpful, as you can imagine, when we need to know who’s here and who can be available if a keeper wants a last-minute Pet. The names flash red if the Pet is here and–’

Stella pulled her hand away as Tino’s name came into view flashing red.

Jan chuckled. ‘Oh he’s here all right. A bit of a surprise to all of us, but he’s not staying. He’s back into the real world in a little while, sorry, Stella.’ She leant in close and half whispered, ‘Audrey saw him come in. She was gobsmacked. She’d never seen him in clothes before. She said Alan wasn’t very happy about it. They went off somewhere to talk.’ She tapped the keys and closed the programme. ‘Tino’s always in trouble though. Don’t know what he’s thinking showing up here in civvies.’

The handler’s words suddenly sounded a long way away beyond the sudden flutter of wings in Stella’s ears as the monitor faded to black, then blinked and pulled up a woodland scene that could have been shot on the Pet Shop grounds. That she ignored. It was the stylised logo of an owl perched against a crescent moon in the lower left-hand corner that caught her attention. It was barely noticeable amid the profusion of bluebells, but once her eyes locked on it, she saw nothing else.

Trying to keep her hands steady, she thrust a finger at the symbol.

Jan nodded. ‘Oh, it’s the Night Owl symbol. I think it has something to do with some company in America. Not sure though.’

But Stella was sure. Suddenly she was deadly sure of everything and sure of so much more than she wanted to know. With a trembling hand she grabbed up a pen and scribbled on the edge of the blotter pad.
I need to get dressed now
.
I know all I need to
. She barely laid the pen down when she heard familiar voices in the hall behind her.

‘We don’t want her to find you’re here when she arrives. It’s already–’ The Boss’s words died in his throat as his gaze came to rest on Stella. At his right shoulder stood Anne. Right behind them stood Vincent frozen mid-stride, as they all were, as though the sight of her had turned them to stone.

She squeezed Jan’s hand and did the totally forbidden for a Pet. She spoke. ‘Please wait for me outside.’

The flustered handler did as she was told, squeezing by the three who still stood unmoving in the doorway. When she was outside the three came in. Vincent closed the door behind them.

For a long time no one spoke. It took Stella a few seconds to be certain she wasn’t going to cry or scream or pass out. She longed to linger there in the silence before someone opened their mouth and her world was destroyed, but she knew it was already far too late for that. At last she lifted her eyes to Vincent. ‘You own the Pet Shop, don’t you?’

He swallowed hard, and his voice was low, raspy. But he held her gaze. ‘How did you find out?’

She nodded to the monitor. ‘The Night Owl symbol. The story you told at the wildlife reserve in Lincoln City. And it was on the sign at the refuge. It wasn’t hard to figure it out.

‘I should be flattered, I guess.’ She bit back tears and grabbed onto the desk fearing her legs would give under her. ‘I mean I must be really something that you, all three of you, felt you had to manipulate me and lie to me, to get me to take this position, even get me fucked, and so well fucked at that,’ she struggled with the phrase. ‘Though I suppose it doesn’t say too much for what you think of my intelligence, does it?’ She bit her lip hard to regain control.

‘Stella, please,’ the Boss stepped forward and reached for her. ‘You have to understand, no one ever meant–’

She shrugged away from him and stepped back until her butt was pressed against the desk. ‘You’re Alan, aren’t you? The friend from the photo albums. I recognise you now. I can’t believe I didn’t see the resemblance before.’

He nodded. ‘We’ve been friends for a long time, Vincent and I.’

She turned her attention to Anne. ‘I’m very sorry that your promotion to Pet Shop North America will have to be delayed, but I can’t take the position. I like what you’ve done here, though. The Pets are great, and the money couldn’t go to a better cause. I wish you all the best.’ Before Anne could speak, she continued. ‘Also I resign my position at Strigida. I won’t be back. There’ll be no two weeks’ notice. I’m sure you can understand under the circumstances. I’m sorry for that. I’ve enjoyed the work very much. If you’ll excuse me now, I have to go.’

She pushed past the Boss and Anne, but Vincent wouldn’t budge. ‘Don’t do this, Stella.’ His voice was low, husky. ‘You need to let me explain.’ He grabbed her arm, but she jerked away and in doing so lost all semblance of control.

‘I don’t
need
to let you do anything. Did you really think I was that desperate for money, for sex? I didn’t ask for any of this.’ She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. ‘And I sure as hell didn’t see it coming. You’ve made a fool of me. Well done. All of you.’ She fought back a sob. ‘I really didn’t see it coming.’ She pushed past Vincent and jerked the door open, and when he started after she turned on him. ‘Don’t follow me. I don’t want to see you again.’

In the hallway, her view of Jan was already splintered by tears. From somewhere the handler had managed a trench coat. She removed the leash and carefully wrapped the coat around Stella’s shoulders. ‘Come on. I know a more private way to the van. I’ll take you home.’

I
T WAS LATE WHEN
he arrived. He was the only Pet who knew the way to the Pet Shop, and he came and went as he pleased. He did own the place, after all, a thing he half-cursed himself for after losing Stella. And yet, it was so often the place where he sought comfort, he could hardly imagine not having it to escape to now and then. He had been to Stella’s flat again, but she still wasn’t there. The woman who cleaned for her told him she hadn’t been home in a while. No, she still didn’t know where Stella was, but she thought perhaps Stella might be considering leasing the place out.

There was nowhere he wouldn’t eventually find her, he kept telling himself. He was a powerful man. He had boundless resources. And yet the more time passed without him finding her, the more time passed without him doing everything in his power to make it right, the more worried he became that maybe she never really felt for him what he felt for her. Maybe he was never more to her than a Pet Shop fuck. On the good days he didn’t believe that. On the bad days he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything without her. The fear of his feelings for her was nothing compared to his fear of losing her. He wouldn’t allow that to happen. He couldn’t.

He didn’t turn on the light. He knew the place well enough he didn’t need to. He found his pallet on the floor of the dungeon and stretched out in the darkness. He closed his eyes and remembered Alan bringing Stella to him here. He remembered waking from a deep sleep to find her, like a dream, standing there backlit by the moonlight before Alan shut the door. The feel of her, the taste of her, her scent, they were all so much more visceral than just the thought process of memory. How could he have let this happen?

In the dark behind his eyelids he let the moving picture images of her stir him; the feel of her against his body when she slept, the sound of her laughter, the determined sound of her silence when she was his Pet. He lay his hand against his heavy cock and ran a fist along its length, amazed once again to find that the weight in his heart was much heavier than what settled against his groin.

He heard the heavy door open on its aged hinges, heard the click of the light switch, and the darkness behind his eyelids bloomed, but he didn’t move. He just continued to stroke his erection. He heard the footsteps across the stone floor and felt the weight and the warmth of a body settle onto the edge of his pallet. He could tell by the scent it was Alan.

‘I saw you come in,’ his friend said. ‘You all right?’

‘I stopped by her flat, just in case. She’s still not there.’

‘I know. Anne went by yesterday. We’re both at a loss as to where she might go. She has no family, and we’ve never heard her speak of any close friends.’

For a long moment the seamless silence stretched between them. The two had always been comfortable in their silence. Their shared passion for exploring nature had made silence an essential quality in their friendship.

At last Vincent spoke, though it was more thinking out loud really. ‘I can’t believe she’s evaded me this long. Maybe she really does hate me. I couldn’t blame her if she did.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. She doesn’t hate you. If she hated you, she wouldn’t have bothered. What we did hurt her,’ Alan said. ‘We humiliated her. It wasn’t what we intended, but she doesn’t know that.’

‘And we can’t tell her when we don’t know where she is, can we?’

‘We’ll find her. And when we do we’ll make it right.’ Alan reached out and laid a hand on Vincent’s belly causing him to flinch. He ignored the flinch and moved his fingers down over Vincent’s, which were still curled around his erection.

‘Don’t.’ Vincent tensed and tried to push him away.

But he got a stinging slap for his efforts.

His eyes flew open and he found himself caught in Alan’s serious gaze. He wore a look that he reserved for the Pet Shop. ‘I should spank your arse, punish you properly. Who the hell do you think you are coming to this place and running your gob? When you’re here, you’re a Pet, remember? And Pets don’t talk.’

Vincent lay back on the pallet thinking that the transformation the Pet Shop wrought on his friend was nearly as big as the one it worked on him. Alan stroked Vincent’s penis almost as though it were his own, but his eyes never left Vincent’s face. When he was certain Vincent wouldn’t fight him, he released a long slow breath. ‘There now. That’s better, isn’t it? I can forgive your outburst this time. Pets in distress are known to lash out.’ He leant forward and placed a warm kiss low on Vincent’s belly then sat back up. ‘But a good handler knows that sometimes Pets need comfort of the most basic kind, and they give that comfort. They do what they can to make their Pets feel better.’ He pulled away long enough to slip out of his clothes then he settled in next to Tino, and it
was
Tino who came into his arms buried his head in his chest and howled his agony.

‘Sh! Tino, sh! It’ll be all right. We’ll find Stella, and we’ll make her understand, I promise you, now let me take care of you. Let me make you feel better.’ His hand found its way to Tino’s erection again, lingering to cup and caress the weight of his balls before stroking his length. He trailed kisses down Tino’s neck and throat, pausing to run the press of his tongue in tight circles around each of Tino’s nipples. ‘There, that’s it, relax for me, let me take care of you. You’ll feel better after you come.’ He gave Tino’s balls a firm squeeze, firm enough to make him flinch. ‘You can’t rest when you’re so full you’re ready to explode. And you need to rest.’ He ran the tip of his thumb over the droplet of precome seeping from the end of Tino’s cock and spread it and stroked it over the head. Tino sighed and shifted against his hand.

He moved his lips from the nibbed points of Tino’s nipples down his belly, dropping a kiss and a thrust of his tongue into Tino’s navel, caressing the dark mat of pubic curls with ticklish fingertips until Tino caught his breath in tight, measured sips. For the briefest second, he raised his eyes to Tino’s then he lowered his mouth onto Tino’s cock, cheek muscles tight, lips pursed for a slippery slide down the length of him until his breath stirred hair and raised gooseflesh. The hard muscles below Tino’s navel clenched and trembled at Alan’s tight slick pull.

Alan’s throat was deep and his control exquisite. He knew what felt good to another man. Tino reached to stroke his hair, and felt the vibration of his sigh down his cock, all the way to his pubic bone.

It was comfort, nothing more, and yet that was everything at the moment. At some point in the back of his darkened mind, he could feel Alan shifting and rocking against the pallet, but when he reached for him, Alan pushed his hand away. ‘Not tonight. Tonight the handler comforts the Pet.’

He curled both hands in Alan’s hair and pulled him still closer, but the man took him, every inch of him, taking Tino’s tight thrusts and tonguing the underside of his cock with hard, muscular strokes that made Tino writhe and arch up off the pallet unable to hold still, unable to control whatever it was in him that raged full-force to relief, any kind of relief. And the relief Alan offered, like always, was without strings.

He came with a cry that rattled the rafters and stiffened his spine. Alan held him fast and swallowed down spurt after spurt of his semen until he was spent and glistening with a thin sheen of sweat. Then Alan wiped his mouth on his hand and slid up next to him. ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ he breathed. ‘I came on your pallet.’ Tino could feel his friend’s sticky penis pressed against his hip. He pulled him close and kissed him, and found blessed relief in sleep. In the morning, he left early and caught a plane back to Portland.

It had been almost two weeks when the phone call came. He’d spent the day with his lawyers who were in negotiations with the Collins Company lawyers to save the Bear Grass Corridor. They had worked out a brilliant win-win solution and he’d gone home aching to tell Stella, knowing she would have approved, wishing desperately he could share such a major victory with her.

Instead, he’d had Maria pack him a sandwich and a thermos of coffee, and he spent the evening photographing a family of great horned owls who had successfully raised four chicks, all of whom were busy branching in a sprawling fir tree. It was balm for the soul and the best he could hope for at the moment.

It was late when he returned home. He’d just showered and settled in with a glass of wine to look at the shots he’d gotten when the phone rang. It was Alan.

‘Vincent, we’ve found her.’

Suddenly Vincent couldn’t breathe. He felt like his heart would explode. His fingers ached from his death grip on the phone.

Alan continued. ‘The cleaning lady just called to say Stella asked her to pick up some groceries. She’ll be home the day after tomorrow. Apparently she’s been somewhere in the Outer Hebrides volunteering for an RSPB bird count.’

Vincent smiled in spite of himself remembering the woman in the muddy pink heels and pencil skirt who had chased into the woods after him that first time they met. And suddenly the weight of his need for her felt like it would crush him. ‘I’m on my way,’ came his breathless reply.