Page 44

Red is always red. The rest is for today. (Some of the yellows are always soft limits, too, but. Whatever)

Ireread the list I’d put together while on the—thankfully almost empty—bus before I tucked my phone away in the locker. I hadn’t taken that long to get ready. When I wore my full latex suit, getting ready took longer. But temperatures were rising, and maybe I wanted to challenge myself. So, instead of going for the suit that matched my puppy hood in yellow and black, I put on a more basic singlet with my knee pads and mitts. And my tail, obviously. They matched the hood too, obviously. It left me more exposed, but it was also less work to get into it.

I supposed Tony had asked to meet me in the Littles’ room because the area was covered in mats, but I was trying not to question every single thing. It was bad enough that I could barely glance down at myself without flinching.

Most times, I left the locker room on my own two feet, crossed the sparse industrial looking first floor, and only went down on all fours once I was upstairs. The second floor had a more rustic, woody feeling to it. It was also easier on the joints and not as cold.

But I didn’t want to deal with my tail threatening to pop out with all the squatting up and down, and I didn’t want to keep questioning everything.

All fours, it was.

The plan was to run upstairs to the Littles’ room. But María was at the bar downstairs. The main bar was upstairs in a common area full of couches and armchairs and cozy shit, but we had a tiny one downstairs too for the people who just wanted to grab a bottle of water or whatever on their way to one of the rooms.

It didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I wasn’t the one who designed the place. I was pretty sure the two bar areas had come with the building, so maybe getting rid of them would’ve been more expensive.

“Woof!”

I was a sociable pup, and I hadn’t seen María in a while. She was my favorite human when I was a puppy.

“Hey, pup.”

María moved from behind the bar to squat down in front of me, ginger curls bouncing around her face. She was wearing one of her usual lace ensembles that reminded me of boudoir shots. This one was in a deep red, and the top was a corset that pushed up her boobs even more. Her boobs were so soft and jiggly. I had to stay focused, though. Today wasn’t about playing with María,and I didn’t imagine Tony would appreciate tardiness. Or me getting distracted by boobs—even if he agreed María was hot as fuck.

She gave the best head scratches, too.

“Eyes up here, pup.”

Right.

I blinked up at her before I barked again for emphasis. She just laughed and kept giving scratches, so I knew we were good.

“You’re here to play with Tony, huh?”

My eyes widened. Had Tony told her? He’d talked about me? I wagged my tail as fast as I could while giving another bark.

I had to go upstairs now, stat. But I’d missed María, and she smelled good.

Ugh.

Decisions.

“Be good with him, okay?”

I whined. I was always good, but that was not the issue. The issue was that I’d missed her, and she was standing up, which meant pulling away, but I hadn’t properly greeted her yet.

“Okay. Okay.” María crouched down again. There were hints of laughter in her voice. I always made her laugh as a pup, but it brought me more warmth now. She wasn’t struggling as much anymore after the whole thing with Erika, but she’d only recently started coming back to the club more often. “You want more kisses, huh?”

“Woof!”

María knew what I wanted, too. She was the one who pulled me forward so I could burrow against her neck and sniff and nuzzle her. There were more cooing sounds from her as she kept a hand on the back of my head, giving more scratches, and she rubbed my back with her other hand.

Her skin was so soft and warm. It was uncanny.

“We’ll set up something to hang out later, yeah?”

“Woof!”

That was good. I hadn’t seen her in too long.