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Chicory swallowed hard, staring at the dotted line. The recruiter was smiling, wide and plastic, as he waffled over his decision. He had come this far in the process, been through selection, and now… now all he had to do was sign this contract and all his worries would be taken away for the next five years.

It had sounded too good to be true – still sounded too good – but what else was he going to do? His dead-end retail job hadn’t exactly been letting him make ends meet before they laid off most of the workforce, and he sure as hell didn’t have other marketable skills to get a new one. Chicory knew he was on the precipice of getting evicted, on the very edge of losing everything.

He grimaced.

It was basically just a sugar baby thing, right?

His eyes darted back to the still-smiling representative. Anxiety churned in his gut, the back of his throat burning with it.

Chicory had to be missing something. There was no way that this was as innocuous as it seemed. If it was, why weren’t there other, less desperate, people on the verge of signing a contract with the innocuously named Marjoram Networking LLC?

He pulled the fancy ballpoint pen away from the line that he was only half-sure was going to sign away the next five years of his life.

“Is something wrong?” the representative asked, smile still too broad to be entirely sincere.

Chicory swallowed again, throat bobbing with the motion. “Just want to go over the terms one more time.”

“Of course, of course.”

He flipped through the thick packet of papers. The staple at the top was thick, and still straining to contain all the pages. Chicory’s eyes skated over the details. Marjoram Networking would place him with an interested employer, someone that was willing to pay a minimum of six figures a year for his services, and his room and board would be provided for. He would still lose his current apartment, but the new employer that would contract his services through Marjoram Networking would pay for his belongings to either be brought to his new lodgings, or placed into storage at no cost to him.

Really, the only thing that drew his attention was a section about ceding his right to any form of body modification to his employer. Chicory shifted uneasily, chewing on a rosy lip. It wasn’t like he was planning to get any sort of piercings or tattoos that might render him unemployable, but wasn’t that a bit excessive?

He clenched his eyes shut. There wasn’t another choice. He wasn’t making rent this month, and his looming student loans meant he was backed into a corner. So what if a nose ring was going to have to come with a permission slip from a boss he hadn’t met yet? This was the last opportunity he had, brought to him through a friend of a friend of a friend, the very last strings he had to pull to save his ass.

Finally, Chicory flipped to the very last signature line on the back of the intimidating stack of papers, scrawling his signature. When he completed the motion, he heaved a huge sigh of relief, slumping slightly as the representative beamed and slid the contract back across the table. “Excellent! I’m delighted to be working with you.”

-

“He seems to be in good health,” the doctor announced, eyes still looking at the man in a suit instead of Chicory. He was rolling his gloves off, the snap of rubber loud in the cold room as Chicory shivered in the thin covering he’d been given.

Lots of jobs require physicals, he insisted to himself, trying to ignore how he felt flayed open, like he had been inspected like little more than livestock in front of a prospective buyer.

The doctor – Chicory was unclear whether or not he was partnered with Marjoram Networking or someone his prospective employer had contacted – had done the normal things, such as having a nurse check his height and weight before taking his vitals.

But… Having his reflexes tested with that little rubber hammer, his teeth inspected with a small flashlight, and even his eyes checked to see how his pupil dilated was bad enough. Chicory shuddered. The flimsy cotton gown he’d been told to change in to was soft enough against his skin, but the violation of having a stranger spectate his testicular and prostate cancer screenings lingered.

Chicory’s eyes flickered over to the prospective employer lingering in the corner, quickly darting back away. These things were private – he knew they were, but with the amount of deference everyone was showing to this man – who still hadn’t introduced himself - had made it impossible for Chicory to request for him to leave the room.

He couldn’t risk offending the mystery man. The end of the month was creeping closer, nearly a week passing before the representative of Marjoram Networking had reached out to him about a potential placement, and his benefits wouldn’t come into effect until an interested party took him on.

The plastic lining the garbage can crinkled as the doctor tossed his used gloves inside, bending to wash his hands in the sink set into the countertop. The actions came as a relief. The invasive exam was over, and Chicory’s fate would finally be decided.

The besuited man’s dark eyes skated over Chicory’s form one more time, lingering on the curve of his neck before he nodded, then turned to open the door he’d been blocking. The same, bland representative that had recruited him still hovered outside the room, plastic grin still fixed firmly in place.

“I’ll take him.”

“Wonderful!” the representative crowed, “I’m sure he will be a wonderful addition to your lifestyle, sir. We can discuss terms, if you’d just follow-”

“That’s unnecessary,” The man interrupted. “Give me your exclusive package. I want him delivered by Tuesday.”

Chicory barely caught the rep’s wide-eyed look. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Spit it out.”

“It’s already Saturday, if you’d like the implants by Tuesday, the timeline is a little-”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way.” The suited man’s tone was condescending, turning sharp as he sneered. “If you can’t manage it, I’ll just find another Networking Company.”

Implants?

“Of – of course, sir, my apologies. We’ll do what we can to meet your requests. We’ll send your selected candidate in for your chosen package, and have delivery on Tuesday.”

“Excellent.” The man nodded in approval, and brushed past the representative as they scrambled out of the way.

“Wait!” The word escaped Chicory’s lips without any conscious thought even as the rep cringed. “What implants?”

The man paused, glancing at the representative with his lip nearly curled in what Chicory could only read as disgust, amusement, or both. “You really did bring me your fresh hire.” He waved a hand, breezily. “Just some basic cybernetics. Make sure you can wear ears and a tail, with feedback, among other things.”

Chicory’s eyes grew wide as his new boss – his sugar daddy? Was that something he was going to have to get used to? - spoke. “Cybernetics?” he asked, aghast, “I can’t afford those!”

The man lifted a pale hand, pinching the bridge of his nose as he heaved a sigh. “As your employer, I will cover all charges, and the implants are yours at the end of your tenure.”

Chicory swallowed. People could save for their entire life to be able to afford a high-end set of cybernetic ears that fed the user tactile feedback. If this man was as important as everyone made him out to be, there was no doubt that the augmentations Chicory would receive would be almost real, not the type of stuttering machinery that was actually in his budget.

He could think of more than one friend that would happily sell themselves into servitude for top of the line cybernetics, let alone the salary.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, Chicory steeled himself, lifting his chin as he desperately tried to scrape together a facade of confidence. “And if I say no?”

The man’s eyes skirted over Chicory’s form again, lingering on the curl of his hair, the slope of his neck, the curve of his sides. Dark eyes flitted up to meet Chicory’s green, and he fought not to break the eye contact. “I’ll find someone else.”

Even as Chicory came into this knowing that he was unqualified, easily replaceable, the dismissal stung.

“Fine,” he declared, “I’ll do it.”

A ghost of a smile passed across the man’s face. “Excellent.”

-

He struggled to awareness, the aftereffects of anesthesia bogging down Chicory’s mind to the point that even the concept of trying to wake up was one he had to continually fight to grasp. His eyes were leaden, but he could still feel something crusting his lashes as he lay sprawled on his side.

It couldn’t be a hospital. He wouldn’t be waking up like this if it was. Chicory fought to remember. A private clinic. They were installing cybernetics for his new employer. The man in the sleek suit.

He had pretty hair, the thought came unbidden, as Chicory’s drugged mind conjured what it might feel like to be able to run his fingers through the pitch black hair. It had looked fine, soft. Well-cared for.

The sense was so vivid that Chicory felt his hand twitch.

Or.

Well.

Something that his brain interpreted as a hand.

Panic spiked through his groggy brain, sending his eyes shooting open as he struggled to sit up. His arms felt heavy and unresponsive, his legs even more leaden. He scrambled, an irritating noise filtering through the fog being decoded achingly slowly as the ringing of metal on metal. Everything was a blur, indistinct colors as the sedatives still in his system refused to let him process what was going on.

Chicory panted, open-mouthed and panicked, forcing himself through the dream-like state he was trapped in.

Paws.

He craned his neck, his eyes wide as he struggled to parse what they were trying to tell his brain. The smooth, white skin of his shoulder ended abruptly, transitioning into what looked like fur. It was a silvery gray, long feathering trailing down from the elbow to the paw.

Chicory started to feel sick, a leaden weight sinking in his stomach.

He flexed his hand.

The paw moved.

He flinched back, flinging what his brain was still desperately trying to read as a hand away from him, sending the limb crashing into a metal grate along his side. The ring of metal filled the air once more at the impact, and Chicory felt something flatten itself to the top of his head in an unthinking instinctual response.

Cybernetics, the thought came, drifting through the panicked emptiness of his mind, ears and a tail, alongside other augmentations.

Chicory was going to puke.

“There you are.” The voice of the man he had met before briefly pierced the cloud of panic. “Taking a while to wake up, aren’t you?”

Chicory gasped for air, trying to fumble his tongue into shapes resembling words, only for a pathetic, animalistic whine to escape.

The previously icy man cooed wordlessly as Chicory thrashed, doing his best to throw his body weight to sit up. His eyes still darted around, finally beginning to parse that there was a metal kennel blocking his view of an otherwise ludicrously lavish bedroom.

“Puppy is having a hard time waking up, isn’t he?” the man asked, voice high and sweet.

“Wha’” Chicory finally managed, “wha’ did oou do to meee?”

The man laughed gently, as Chicory finally managed to get a – a paw underneath himself for leverage. He couldn’t ever remember being so uncoordinated.

The door to the goddamn kennel rattled as the man opened it, a hand snaking inside to grab Chicory by the chin and lift his head, tilting it from side to side as the man inspected him. “You wouldn’t be much of a pet with hands, would you?”

With. With hands. Even having seen the paws attached to him at his shoulders, hearing his new employer voice the words sent a chill down his spine. Chicory fought against the man’s grasp, trying to look at the rest of himself, only for the drugs still in his system to render him weak and helpless against the grip.

“You really didn’t know, did you?” There was a touch of wonder in the man’s voice now, even as he forced Chicory to look at him. “Here I thought that little performance was for my benefit.”

Another whine escaped his throat as Chicory tried in vain to wrench himself away, unstable paws sliding across a thick, plush blanket below.

“Where’re m’hands?” he managed, forced to mumble around the grip he was held in.

“In storage,” the answer was supplied easily, “they will be returned to you at the end of your contract.”

Chicory’s drooping eyes shot open as he tried to force his sluggish mind to work through the information he’d been given. One of the perks of the contract he had signed. All his possessions would be kept in storage.

His stomach churned, his organs revolting against his reality even through the haze.

“How-” his words failed him, leaving him panting against the hand still wrapped around his chin as he tried again, “how long?”

“You’re mine, pup, for the next five years.”

Chicory didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything. Suddenly, with immense clarity, he understood what he had missed. Body modifications at employer’s discretion. Free room and board, everything taken care of and nothing to worry about. A generous salary for a full-time position. It all took on a new dimension.

His empty stomach heaved, and the man quickly withdrew his hand from the kennel.

Chicory hadn’t signed on to be a sugar baby.

The contract had been for a human pet.

He retched, acid flooding his mouth before he could swallow it back down. The man crouched in front of the kennel clicked his tongue, before standing up. “That’s enough. I won’t have you sick already.”

The kennel door had been left open, and the man – his new employer, no his new owner – took a couple of steps back. Even as Chicory was glad he was no longer being touched, the skin that had been held in the man’s grip was quickly growing cold, his unfamiliar paws slowly slipping out from beneath him without the extra support.

“Come,” his owner commanded. Chicory struggled with his new paws, tangled in the soft bedding of the kennel. “You must move to insure the cybernetics were put in correctly. Come.” Even as Chicory wanted to bristle as it, he knew that resisting such a simple command would make things worse. And, well, if he was stuck with the implants, he definitely had a vested interest in them connected into his nervous system properly.

As Chicory finally got his paws underneath him, human torso suspended between the legs of a feral dog, he became acutely aware of the tail hanging limply behind him. He forced himself to take unbalanced, teetering steps forward, unfamiliar joints bending wrong as the robotics worked to bear his weight.

The man heaved a sigh, and Chicory tore his gaze away from the large silver paws beneath him to see that he was pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Fine. Fuss.” The unfamiliar word – the twist of the pronunciation foreign to his English-speaking mind – forced Chicory’s new, furred ears upright, and suddenly – he was in motion. The legs beneath him moved smoothly, confidently, and without his command. Chicory’s breath picked up again as he tried to command his robotic limbs to listen, only for them to ignore him entirely. He squirmed uncomfortably, trying to use what little leverage he had as he involuntarily trotted towards his owner, only for the synthetic limbs to easily correct for the change in weight distribution.

It took mere seconds, even as they stretched into something that felt like hours as Chicory was forced to cross the room, helplessly dangling in the air as the cybernetics that had been involuntarily attached to his torso bore him forward.

The legs, mercifully, came to a stop, just a couple steps in front of the man. Even then, as Chicory desperately tried to lift a – a forepaw nothing happened. The obscenely expensive robotics slotted into his frame ignored his inputs, holding him still and alert in front of his owner.

The man’s lips curled into a smile, ignoring the way Chicory’s breath was coming in short pants as panic overtook him once more. “Good boy,” he praised, affection laced through his voice as if talking to a beloved pet, “bravo.”

That final word was like someone had set a firework off in the pleasure centers of Chicory’s brain. The burst joy, affection, the pure, unfiltered feeling of a long, hard task finally being accomplished, of finally being able to bask in success was unlike nothing he had ever felt before. It was strong, nearly overwhelming in its intensity with just a single word from his owner.

Behind him, Chicory could feel his new tail begin wagging behind him, the unfamiliar weight of the new limb barely registering as disconcerting even as the soft fur brushed across his lower back, completely unable to break through the nearly blissful fog the praise had conjured.

His owner bent, rifling an affectionate hand through Chicory’s mussed hair, fingers curling around the base of one furred ear. “There we are,” he said, deep voice gentle once more, “it doesn’t take much to make a dog happy, does it?”

As much as something within him begged the rest to object to the address, Chicory was still riding the high of praise, unthinkingly leaning his head into the scratching fingers. It was nice to be touched, to have someone so willing to give him physical affection when he had to fight to seek it out before.

“Now,” the man said, withdrawing his hand, the commanding tone returning, “sitz.”

Once more, Chicory’s limbs moved without his input, his new back legs folding easily beneath him even as his tail still wagged behind him. The unfamiliar position of a dog’s sit should have felt awkward, but with the augmentations it was shockingly easy.

“Platz.”

This time, his front half dropped, elbows tucking into his side as the robotics lowered Chicory to the ground, his skin laying against the thickly carpeted floor. The high of the praise was finally wearing off, and the realization set in.

The man that Chicory lay at the feet of, peering up at in a position that should have stressed a human neck uncomfortably, had more control over Chicory’s own body than he did.

Even worse, a single word was enough to set sparks off in his brain like nothing else before. Chicory tried to squirm, uncomfortable with the dawning realizations of just how deep the modifications that had been made to him ran. His robotic limbs held fast, keeping him in place.

How long would it be until he was like putty in his owner’s hands? Until the implants puppeting him around were unnecessary as he did everything he was asked to get that high, just one more time?

His owner clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “Attention on me, pup. We’re not done here.”

Chicory struggled, fighting to put his attention on the man in front of him instead of his crisis. The revelations were terrifying, and there was no way around it but – he’d unpack it later. He couldn’t deal with more. The paws were bad enough, he couldn’t allow himself to think of the implications of the rest. Even as bile crept up the back of his throat, he fought to swallow it back. Later, he insisted to himself, trying desperately to deal with the current situation, later.

“Now,” the man said, dropping into a crouch, his crisp suit crinkling with the movement, “rolle.”

Chicory’s limbs moved, twisting his spine without pause as they forced him to roll over, baring his soft stomach to his owner above, forepaws held tucked against his chest, head against the carpet as his eyes strained to keep the man in his line of sight. He really was nothing more than a dog.

The hand came back, a rub under the chin before skating down Chicory’s neck. “Excellent,” his owner said, obviously pleased with the cybernetic’s performance, “braver hund.”

If the single word of praise was fireworks, this one was – it was indescribable. Chicory’s mind was involuntarily flooded with such pure, unadulterated pleasure that it immediately whisked away any and all conscious thought. His mind was completely blank, devoid of anything except the nearly excruciating joy those two words had wrought on his modified nervous system.

He barely registered that his tail was wagging again, ferociously enough the friction of the carpet was generating enough heat for the cybernetic’s sensors to feed back to his brain. The force of it was even forcing his back half to squirm against the carpet, the sheer joy at the praise managing to override the lock to robotics had on Chicory’s motions that his intentional movements had proved futile against.

“Such a good boy,” the man above him cooed, reaching half-beneath Chicory’s skull to scratch once more at the base of his furred ears. This praise wasn’t near-violently hooked to Chicory’s very being, but the tone was close enough that he could feel himself almost want to react to it, to search it out once more.

“Don’t worry, boy,” his owner assured him, “we’re done testing now. Go, los.”

Chicory didn’t have a clue what the word meant, but the lock on his limbs was suddenly gone. Brain still fogged by praise, he didn’t even try to regain his footing, using what he could of his back to squirm closer to the man that had managed to bring him such pleasure with merely two words. It was truly better, more rewarding, than anything he had ever experienced – could imagine ever experiencing.

His owner easily obliged the silent request. “Such a good boy,” he repeated, his second hand playing with where the synthetic fur of a foreleg met the smooth skin of Chicory’s pale shoulder. “We’re going to have an excellent time together, aren’t we, pup?”

Silently, Chicory leaned into the touch, tail still wagging furiously against the carpet.

Later, once the synthetic high of the praise had finally worn off, as Chicory lay locked back within his kennel, form cradled by luxuriously soft blankets, he fought not to vomit.

Five years.

Five years of his life at the beck and call of a man whose pet – whose dog – he was, who had the ability to completely turn off all his higher brain function with one simple word. Someone who could override his autonomy at any moment, wrenching the intricate robotics woven into his nervous system away from his control with a single syllable, forcing him to do tricks without any recourse.

He shivered despite not being cold. Would there be anything left of him after this? By the time he finally had his hands returned to him, would he even still be something that could be counted as a person anymore?