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Chapter Twelve

Branson

Two Months Later

I can’t tell the passage of time anymore, but I imagine it's been weeks or more since I’ve left the cage. It was maybe the second week when I thanked Bud for the bigger cage. I don’t know if I could have lasted in the small one. I could tell he was surprised. He laughed and said I was becoming a little pussy, but I didn’t care. There are so few things I can feel grateful for, I need to take what I can get.

I can be grateful for my large cage, for the bits of food that find their way to my belly.

I may be old enough to be considered a man, but they’ve taken any bit of humanity left in me, much less masculinity. Shame is a concept I’ve long let go of. There are only good days and bad days, days where I make her happy and days where I don’t.

Hanging my head in my hands, my fingers run through what's left of my hair. It’s been falling out in clumps for a while now and what remains is long and lanky. I can’t smell myself anymore, but my skin is grimy with weeks of caked-on filth. I wish I could be clean, wash away the shame of failure and helplessness.

As always, my headache pounds on. Some days are worse than others. Today is a bad day.

Maybe today she’ll come, though...

Since I can’t tell the time, it’s hard to say how long it's been, but it feels like more time passes between each visit. The loneliness is eating away at me and even a sobbing victim would be preferable to this. I’ve even come to crave when Teddy visits, even if it's only to abuse or hurt me. At least it’s touch. I miss touch. The feel of anything but cold metal bars and concrete floor.

A bitter taste lingers at the back of my mouth at the thought of craving her company after all of this; but there it is. I crack my neck, ignoring the collar that’s become familiar. Heavy chafe marks are around my neck from when I was young, deepened and scarred even further.

I go back to old techniques, trying to remember as many words and definitions as possible. Once, long ago, when she was Amelia, she told me she loved learning things from me. If she ever asks me again, I’ll have lots of things to teach. But I’ll call her Teddy now, because that’s what she wants.

I swallow down the bile at the thought of the lengths I’ll go to please her, remind myself there is nothing else. I have nothing else.

Thrombocytosis. Thyrocalcitonin. Thyroxine.

I drift off, letting them run through me and don’t notice someone coming until the door opens. Teddy steps into the room and despite myself, I feel my heart rate pick up in excitement rather than fear.

“Why, hullo, Pet,” she greets me, walking into the room and up to the metal table. She makes a noise of disgust at the corpse sitting there, pinching her nose as she turns to me. “Well, that doesn’t smell nice, does it?”

I don’t reply, as much as I want to. The last time I answered a rhetorical question she stabbed me and left me without food for days. I didn’t mind the food or the blood, but I missed her.

Kneeling down in front of my cage she looks at me critically. I want to cover myself, my nakedness and the grit covering me, but I’ve learned that lesson too.

“Good,” she says after a moment, pulling a key from her pocket, “Come on, then. I suppose you’ve been good so you can clean this up.”

I wait for her to reach into my cage and attach the small red leash. I don’t even feel embarrassed anymore when I crawl out behind her, waiting for her direction.

Maybe if I listen, it’ll stop.

Maybe if I listen, she’ll love me.