Man's Best Friend - Chapter Two
#3 of Man's Best Friend
Chapter two!
I couldn't see anything when I woke up, but I could feel that walls were pretty close. That weird, tingly feeling you get in your ears, sometimes. Maybe that's just me. Either way, the space felt enclosed. My head throbbed with every breath I took, and I could feel the beat of my heart just behind my eyes. I was also standing up, somehow, and it took me a moment to figure out exactly how that could be. My hands were bound, and strung from what I assumed was the ceiling. A quick shuffle brought with it the hazy realization that my ankles were similarly tied.
It was dark enough that I couldn't see anything; and I was SO tired. Tired enough that were it not for an obsessive need to figure out where I was, I would've passed right back out. Standing up, or not. I gave my wrists a tug. No give. Another one, harder this time, but still nothing. Setting my feet as best I could, I threw the entirety of my considerable body weight against the bonds. Not even an inch. I was stuck.
Oddly, it made me want to cry. My night had gone so bad. I couldn't understand why I wasn't mad. By all accounts, I should've been foaming at the mouth, but I was having trouble holding back tears. Words can't express how much I wanted to go home. To be in bed, pleasantly sloshed, and snoring away instead of hanging in someone's closet. The thought brought to mind an image of the prostitute I'd hung earlier that night, and with it, the notion that that could easily be me before the night was over.
Footsteps pulled me from my macabre reverie. Someone was shuffling around outside. Miserable and groggy, I stifled my tears and steeled myself for the worst. I had no idea whose prisoner I'd become, but I wouldn't let them intimidate me. No sir. A light came on outside, the brightness filtering through the sides of and underneath a door in front of me. I saw the shadow of shoes. Then the door opened, and I winced away, temporarily blinded. My eyes never fully adjusted, but I could see, smell, and hear enough to know that my captor was male -- and that he had a familiar scent about him. One that I couldn't quite place.
I growled weakly as he got closer, still just a dark silhouette to my bleary eyes. I must not have looked very threatening, though, because he didn't stop. He lifted his hand, I unintentionally cowered back and squeezed my eyes shut in anticipation of a blow; but it never came. Instead, I felt a firm grip on my muzzle, and gloved digits rubbing my cheek. Up the side of my head, pausing briefly to tickle my whiskers, then a knuckle at the base of my ear.
"Good dog," came a quiet voice, a voice that sounded to my tired mind like that of someone I'd never see again. Tissimo. It sounded exactly like Tissimo, and my mind was quick to associate the familiar scent with the coyote as well. It had to be him. That I was standing at his bedside when he passed on didn't matter. My fears and aggression melted instantly, and for the first and probably last time, I was acutely aware of how much I had missed him. "Good puppy."
I tried to answer, to tell him never to leave me again, and found that I couldn't. I was gagged. It didn't matter so much, though. I didn't need to talk. I grunted and whined around the cleave-style gag, and rubbed my head affectionately against his hand. I think I cried a little bit, but that wasn't important anymore.
"Shhh, puppy," he whispered, holding my muzzle comfortably in both hands, and sounding weirdly surprised; as if he hadn't expected my antics. "Don't cry. Everything will be alright." Fingers delicately wiped my tears away. "Go to sleep, puppy. You're so tired. Sleep -- and we'll take care of everything in the morning."
I was exhausted. I drifted off with my head rested in his arms, my snout burrowed down in the smooth leather of his gloves, more at ease than I'd been in a long time; despite hanging in someone's closet.
It's funny how an unusual situation can send your mind down an equally unusual avenue. I'm sure you've figured out by this point that it wasn't Tissimo that lulled me to sleep in the closet. Barring paranormal intervention, or some bizarre act of reincarnation, there's no way it could have been. I can't recreate that mindset, how I felt that night when whoever cradled my head in his arms, nor can I stress how real it was to me in that instant.
It's probably better that way, though. I don't think I'll ever be able to let him go. Not completely, at least. Part of my mind will see him forever; but that's okay. I never wanted to forget Tissimo -- just to move past him, and get on with my life. Until that night, I'd thought I had. A dog's devotion is apparently stronger than I'd thought.
My sleep was mercilessly dreamless.
The uber-elusive chapter two. ;) Probably not as interesting as you might've thought it would be, but hopefully not too much of a disappointment either.