Chapter 85: Dog Show
The blindfold came off with a soft whisper of silk.
Rupert blinked, his eyes watering in the warm, firelit glow of Agnes’ living room. The world resolved itself slowly, swimming into focus as a tableau of utter, surreal normality. Agnes was pouring tea from a floral pot into delicate china cups. Dolores was laughing at something, a crystal glass of sherry in her hand. Georgina was adjusting a speck of lint on her sensible skirt. The fireplace crackled.
He was on his hands and knees on a soft, Persian rug. And he was naked, save for the cage and the ridiculous, humiliating weight of the silicone tail that still emerged from between his buttocks. Its tip, he saw with a hot wave of shame, was dark and damp.
“There he is!” Agnes chirped, as if he’d just popped in from the garden. “Cup of tea, Rupert? You’ve earned it.”
A gentle chorus of feminine laughter rippled through the room. It wasn’t cruel. It was warm, appreciative, conspiratorial. His face burned. He saw their shoes scattered around him – sensible flats, leather boots, one discarded high heel. The air, thick with the scents of perfume, woodsmoke, and spiced cake, also carried the unmistakable, musky tang of sex. His sex. Their sex.
Margot appeared before him, holding out his robe. Her expression was one of pure, unadulterated delight. “Marvelous effort, darling,” she said, her voice low and thrilled. “Five for five, Julia tells me. A perfect score.”
She helped him into the robe, her hands brisk and possessive, tying the belt snugly around his waist. The soft fabric was a blessing, a shield. As he stood, his legs trembled. The tail shifted inside him, a constant, alien reminder.
Julia, seated in an armchair with a ledger book on her lap, gave him a curt, professional nod. “Satisfactory compliance. The auditory targeting exercise was executed with commendable… dedication.” She made a note with a fountain pen.
Rupert’s mind was a storm. The darkness. The bells. The desperate, blind crawling toward jingling sounds that had guided him to warmth, to wetness, to gasped instructions and clenched thighs. The fifth one… the taste had been different. Familiar and unfamiliar. More complex. The faintest hint of latex, of the sterile tang of lubricant that wasn’t the natural kind. And the scent, buried beneath the arousal—her arousal.
He looked at Margot. She met his gaze, her green eyes bright and unreadable. She smoothed his collar, her thumb brushing his pounding pulse.
“Right then,” Agnes said, clapping her hands together. “Party games over. Time for a proper nibble. I’ve got a lovely fig and stilton wreath.”
The women drifted toward the dining table, chatting about the upcoming church fete, the price of heating oil, the vicar’s new hat. It was bizarre. Surreal. Rupert stood rooted to the spot, the animal of his body still thrumming from service, his mind reeling.
Dolores paused beside him, leaning in. Her voice was a hot, confidential murmur. “Mi hombre,” she purred. “You have a very talented tongue. Paolo was watching from the hall. He is… very excited.” She winked and followed the others.
Paolo. The voyeur. Rupert’s stomach tightened. He hadn’t been alone.
Margot looped her arm through his and led him, unsteady, toward the table. “You’re wondering about the last one,” she whispered, her lips close to his ear.
He could only nod.
“It’s more fun if you wonder,” she said, popping a canapé into her mouth. “But I will say this… a good craftsman always tests her own tools.” She chewed, smiling. “And you, my love, are being honed to a very fine edge indeed.”
He sank into a chair, the tail plug making it impossible to sit comfortably. He perched on the edge. Agnes passed him a plate. “Eat up, dear. You’ve worked up an appetite, I’m sure.”
The cheese tasted like ash. The tea like tepid water. He was surrounded by the cheerful, mundane chatter of the Women’s Institute, these women whose bodies he knew intimately in the dark, whose pleasure he had just serviced like a well-trained hound. And Margot, his wife, sat beside him, radiating possessive pride.
“Two weeks until Libby,” Georgina said from across the table, sipping her tea. “She was asking me about… preparation. I lent her a book.”
“Oh, she doesn’t need a book,” Dolores laughed. “She needs stamina! Rupert, you must build your strength. Eat your protein.”
They all laughed again. Rupert felt a bead of sweat trace down his spine.
Later, bundled in the car, the village dark and silent under a blanket of stars, Margot broke the quiet. “You see now, don’t you?” she said, her hand on his thigh, squeezing. “It’s not just about release. It’s about belonging. You’re theirs now. A village resource. And on Christmas, you’ll give Libby the gift she’s been dreaming of. And you’ll do it magnificently, because you’ll be so desperate to perform, to finally have your own.”
She leaned over, her breath warm against his cheek. “And after Libby,” she whispered, “after you’ve had your precious prize, you’ll still be mine. This,” her hand moved higher, pressing against the cage through his trousers, “this just reminds you who holds the key. To everything.”
He stared out at the frozen road, the hedgerows glinting with frost. The tunnel Margot had spoken of felt deeper, darker. The light at the end was no longer just a promise of pleasure. It was a performance. An examination. And the audience, it seemed, was growing.