Authors: Jennifer Jane Pope
I chewed and ate the meat slowly, sucked two or three pieces of bread and drank the milk, which was still warm from the cow and foreign to my modern taste buds. I did not particularly like any of it, but I needed to keep my strength up as much as possible for it could yet be a long time before I had even the slightest opportunity to escape, and I didn't want to find myself fainting away if the chance presented itself.
All too soon, it was time for the gag and the mask again. Erik had the good grace to look apologetic and he promised he would take the things off me again as soon as he could, but for now I was to be walked in the woods and then paraded on the lawn before the library windows, probably, I assumed, so that Gregory Hacklebury could be reminded of the control Meg now had over his wife, the bitch dog she had created.
To my relief, when we arrived at the back of the house there was no sign of either Hacklebury or Meg, though two maids did appear from the direction of the kitchen. They stood watching and giggling as I was paraded back and forth across the lawn, though admittedly at some distance from us. I peered out at them from my mask, trying to see if I could recognise one of them as Polly, but although the taller girl looked vaguely familiar, neither one of them was the poor maid from my dream. Not that it would have made much difference, I reflected as Erik turned me to walk back down through the trees, but at least it gave me something to think about for a few minutes rather than just plodding mindlessly along at the end of my lead.
A dog's life, I concluded grimly, could be a very boring life indeed.
Which abruptly gave me cause to wonder just why I had been transported back this time, for my previous visits had apparently been timed to coincide with particularly traumatic stages in Angelina's captivity. Oh, this dog thing was traumatic enough and I fully expected Erik to take advantage of my helplessness yet again before the day was much older, but it did not compare with the earlier thrashings, nor even with the shock I had experienced upon being transformed into a mock canine for the first time.
Unless...
Maybe I was now supposed to inhabit this body fulltime, keeping Angelina safely out of the firing line, so to speak. After all, my breaks back in my own time did not appear to bear any direct relationship to the passage of time here. If I were now being returned to this body at the same time and place as when I left it previously, that would certainly protect Angelina's sanity. Yes, it made sense. If there had been any continuity gaps, they could only have been during hours when this body had been sleeping, when it would have made no difference which of us was in occupation.
Lucky little Angelina, I mused as we once again came in sight of my kennel and yard. Not only saved the pain and the shock, but the boredom, too. And yet, although everything seemed to have settled into a mundane routine, I could not get away from the feeling that something felt slightly different and that something, possibly something of great importance, was about to happen.
There are many forms of torture in this world. Some are physical and involve the inflicting of pain. Some are psychological and can range from humiliating the victim to imposing a regiment of deprivation not only of the senses but also of more abstract things like freedom.
Take, for example, boredom. Boredom, combined with humiliation and the sense of being forgotten and neglected, is a very effective form of torture, indeed. I stood in the middle of my tiny world, the sunlight filtering in through the vents in the wall, and through the door beyond the short passageway outside my cell, my only contact with the outside world until Erik chose to return again.
He had indeed chosen to use me after our outing but he had done so with a detached attitude, entering me and pumping in and out of my defenceless sex as if it were a routine chore and not an act to be savoured. Afterwards he patted my head, gave me water through the funnel and left me without another word. For who needs to exchange words when all the words that can be said have been said? Besides, I would still be here when he returned and still be as available to him, a four-legged parody useful only for base relief and the amusement of captors who now seemed to be tiring of me. It seemed I was surplus to any real requirements, my presence a burden even though my continued existence was presumably still preferable to my death, at least for the moment. Whatever plans Meg and Hacklebury had were being pursued without the requirement of my immediate involvement. If they needed to keep me alive, they were doing so in the cruellest of ways, yet even this unbearable situation might prove to be only temporary.
Even if they did break me and temper my will to theirs, my usefulness to them was surely limited. Once they got whatever it was they wanted, I would become a liability and a potentially dangerous one, at that. Far easier to slit my throat, choke the life out me with a length of cord or slip something into my food than to keep me around; simple, quick and fatal. No more Angelina and maybe no more Teena, either. I pondered the threat to my existence and waited. There was nothing else I could do but wait, a sorry four-legged captive with no voice and no face save for the pug-like leather visage they had given me.
It shouldn't happen to a dog
, I thought grimly, and then might have laughed had I been able to, for it
wasn't
happening to a dog. It was happening to me.
The sun continued to move across the sky, its steady progress revealed only by the shifting shadows. Somewhere outside birds twittered and called to each other and somewhere, in another world, in another time, another body waited in another limbo, a body to which I fervently prayed I would soon be returning.
Not long after darkness fell, the limbo in my little prison came to an end in a way I could never have foreseen. Eric had dropped in earlier for a few minutes, just long enough to unmask me so I could eat, though I had to suffer the gross indecency of feeding myself from a metal bowl on the floor with only my teeth and lips to grab up the morsels. Another bowl was also filled with water and I was thus able to drink at will, at least all the time the leather dog mask remained hanging on the hook by the door. With my tongue still hampered by the clamp, it was no easy or tidy matter to suck in my sustenance, but it was better than starving to death and dehydrating, so when he left me alone, I gratefully took advantage of small mercies.
The problem was that without the need for regular visits to water me Eric would be appearing less, and less. Even if his visits more often than not resulted in us playing doggies together, that was better than being increasingly bored by my confinement. Therefore, when I heard his heavy tread again and saw the flickering lamplight beyond my door, I was actually intensely pleased.
He hung the lantern on the wall, put down the small bag he had been carrying in his other hand and instructed me to stand upright. I had actually already been standing when I heard him approaching but had obediently resumed my dog stance before he arrived. I got back on my feet and stood motionless while he prised my mouth open and loosened the gag clamp to pull it off.
'Thank you,' I said once he had withdrawn the device. I ran my tongue around my mouth, if only to prove to myself that I could still do it. 'I've managed to eat everything,' I said, looking pointedly down at the empty food bowl.
'Good, and now washing you we shall be for smelling bad you are.'
I flushed at this directness but there was no arguing the truth of his statement. Besides, washing meant I would be free of the confining dog suit, if only for a brief interlude. I stood passively while he began tugging at the laces. Then there was the sound of more footsteps outside and he paused as both of us automatically turned our heads in the direction of the door. At this time of night, the only likely visitor was Meg.
Sure enough, she appeared in the doorway, but instead of tossing the expected sneering comment in my direction she remained silent, her face taut and pale, and a moment later I saw the reason for her expression. As she stepped into the room she was followed by a second figure, a shorter, brown- skinned girl with jet-black hair dressed in rough country clothes. She was undoubtedly of Indian origin and had huge, almond-shaped eyes I could tell were the deepest brown even in the dim light.
Immediately I realised that I knew her, or that Angelina knew her, and I knew, too, that her name was Indira, though beyond that there were only confused images and an intense sadness associated with her. However, whatever her relationship with Angelina, it was immediately obvious that Indira was not on Meg's side for in her right hand she held an enormous pistol, the muzzle of which was pressed firmly into the small of Meg's back. In her left hand she gripped the handle of a knife, the blade of which was stained darkly with what could only be blood. She looked straight at Eric, who had frozen in surprised indecision.
'One wrong move from you, you great blond lump, and I'm going to put a hole through this bitch you could fit your head in. Understand?'
Eric gaped at her, but nodded.
I, in the meantime, was stunned to hear such a blunt threat uttered so fiercely by an Indian girl this far back in time in an accent that was clearly not ethnic or even contemporary. Something was very wrong. Or very right...
Indira looked at me, and winked. 'Listen,' she said abruptly, 'I don't really know quite how this has all happened, but it's happened and we have to take advantage of it. First, you need to get out of that lot and put something else on. This bitch is a bit bigger than you, but her dress will have to do until we can find you something better.'
'I... I don't understand,' I gasped. 'Who are you? I mean, I know your name, I think, but where have you come from?'
'Well, if you know my name here then you know more than I do,' the girl replied, and smiled suddenly. 'But yes, you do know my name, and I know yours, Teenie.'
'Andy?' I felt like as though the ground abruptly shifted beneath my feet. 'How? I mean—'
'Haven't got a fucking clue,' my transvestite lover replied, shrugging. 'All I know is that one minute we were quite happily doing the thing we both like doing most and then suddenly I was here, or to be more precise, I was about half a mile or so away, standing just inside a fence where there was a small gap between the palings, next to some guy lying in a heap on the ground with this knife sticking out of the back of his neck. That's where I got this gun. It's a lovely piece of workmanship. Probably not very accurate, but fires a whopping great lead ball.'
'I should have slit your miserable little throat!' Meg hissed. 'You dirty little black whore! You'll pay dearly for this!'
'Whore I may be,' Andy retorted, 'but from what I can see I'm brown, not black, and I happen to be the one holding the big gun and the nasty knife, so shut your mouth if you don't want me to stick this thing in your arse a few times. It looks very sharp to me and would go straight through your skirts as easy as through butter. And
you
,' he pointed the knife at Eric, 'get that stuff off my friend and don't try anything clever unless you want bits of this bitch all over your nice clean shirt. And don't think I won't do it.'
'You only have the one shot, little Indira,' Meg said abruptly. 'Just one shot, and the noise is sure to bring others running. You won't get away.'
'Well, in that case we won't be any worse off than we already are, will we?' Andy said brightly. 'But
you'll
be very, very dead, which has to be an improvement judging from what my friend has told me about you, Megan Crowthorne. Now shut your noise and get out of your skirt and shoes and don't try anything stupid.'
It took several minutes for Eric to complete the laborious unlacing process, by which time Meg had been standing in her stockings and corset for quite a while. Her eyes were cold with rage but she knew she was impotent in the face of the pistol and, mad or not, she wasn't stupid enough to defy certain death. I dragged her dress over my head and turned so that Eric could fasten the hooks at the back. It was a loose fit, but better than nothing, and certainly an improvement on what I had been wearing.
'The shoes are a waste of time,' I declared, quickly trying one on. 'She must be three sizes bigger than me. I'll be better off barefoot, unless there's something suitable in the next room. There's certainly stuff there we can use to tie these two up with.'
'That's good,' Andy said. It was almost his own voice, or at least a version of Andrea's he used, but not quite, and I was still somewhat in shock at hearing his words emerging from that pretty mouth in that undeniably feminine and alien face. We moved into the next stall, where several items of bondage equipment, along with boots and corsets, were stored.
'Use those,' Andy instructed Erik, pointing to where a pair of thick leather cuffs dangled on a short chain from one of the nails in the wall. 'Buckle them good and tight, with her hands behind her back, and make sure those little lock things are done up properly.
Erik obeyed with alacrity, and though for a moment I thought Meg was going to resist, she submitted in the end.
'Now you, big boy,' Andy said, waving the pistol at Eric. 'Stand facing the wall and put your hands behind your back and don't forget, one wrong move and the bitch gets it.'
I gaped at Andy, not quite able to take everything in yet and not quite able to believe the silly bugger actually seemed to be enjoying all this. It was a bit like a scene from a James Cagney movie, but neither Meg nor Eric would have been able to appreciate that as Mr Cagney wasn't even a twinkle in his father's eye yet. Come to think of it, his father probably wasn't even a twinkle in his father's eye yet, either.