by SA Payne
sure he's taken care of like any good owner should. He's trainable, if you don't want him coming
on to you, I'm sure you can train him not to."
That made logical sense but he sat and tried to think of a logical debate against it. When none
emerged he nodded. "Alright, you win, at least until I can think of a better solution."
Amanda let go of the breath she hadn't know she was holding. "Good. Now, I've sent his care
instructions to your home system. He's housetrained, and he knows several commands. You're
only supposed to feed him the provided kibble and it's considered bad for discipline to let him
sleep in your bed. Mark and Henry were putting his crate together and they said they'd drop it by
your rooms tonight."
"Wonderful."
"Ichi, this is serious."
"I'm the one with a pet that looks like a man, I think I understand how serious this is."
She sighed. "He's a little sick right now, and disoriented, so he's out of sorts and might be for a couple of days. I don't know how he survived being in storage for so long but it's going to take
him time to recover. Also, you're going to need to think of a name for him."
"What?"
"He didn't come with one. You'll have to name him. Anna wanted to call him Fluffy so pick one
quickly before something stupid like that sticks. And, he came with a set of kilt like skirts,
apparently that's standard dress for pets. We got him into one here so he's ready to go."
"Of course."
"Now, I've work to do, can you take your pet home so I can get to it?"
He opened his mouth to protest about his beetles and their nest but the look in her eyes was
stubborn. She wasn't just his friend, she was technically in charge of the entire station. "Of course." He surrendered.
"Good." She smiled now and stood up. At the side of the medical bed she brushed back loose threads of dark red. "Hey there pretty boy, wake up now, thata boy, wake up."
The grey eyes fluttered and squinted open. A slender hand rose up to rub at his face and he half
sat up. Those dazed, amazing, eyes slid from Amanda to Ichi and they widened in some quickly
hidden emotion before a yawn split the handsome face.
"That's unnerving." Ichi found himself whispering. "Can it, he, understand us?"
Amanda shook her head. "No, his brain isn't built that way. Like a dog, he'll know only that the sound of his command word means to do a certain action and like a dog, he should respond to
tone." She produced a slender silver silk rope from beside the bed and offered one end to the pet and his hand wrapped around it. "His leash." She offered the other end to Ichi and he took it carefully. "They recommend you use it until he figures out who his owner is."
"And what?"
"And walk, he'll follow."
"Just like that? He'll hold on to his end and follow?"
She nodded. "He's trained, remember? This isn't just a pet, someone spent a lot of money
making him a very high end pet. Now, take him home, let Mark and Henry help you get his crate
in place, feed him, name him and let him get some rest."
Experimentally, Ichi took a step or two back until the cord between himself and the handsome
pet was tight. The pet slid from the medical table with graceful ease and landed softly on bare
feet. His head automatically bowed, his eyes went downcast but his grip on the rope was strong.
"This is wrong on so many levels."
"Read the files on him, once you study the science behind it, you'll see pets only look like
people." She tried to smile but her belief wasn't as firm as Will's.
"Okay." He took an small step toward the door and the pet mirrored it. Still shaking his head, he led his newest pet out into the hallway, he followed always at the same distance, always with his
head down. It made Ichi uncomfortable beyond words but he led the creature back to his own
apartment of rooms, one careful step at a time.
Part Four:
The sound of the pets bare feet made only the smallest of slapping sounds on the deck floor but
the sound seemed impossibly loud to Ichi's ears. He knew he was blushing, he just couldn't help
it. The sexual aspects of the pets design function alone would have had him embarrassed but
adding in the overtones of bondage and how placidly leash trained the thing was, well, it was far
kinkier than Ichi was comfortable with.
Fortunately, the only people he ran into while leading his new pet home were Mark and Henry
and they were pulling a supply cart loaded down with the walls of the pet's crate as well as boxes
that Ichi didn't know about yet.
"Heya Ichi, how is he?" Mark nodded to the silent follower.
"Wow, that's amazing." Henry circled the unresponsive pet, poking at it's arm occasionally. "He looks so human. There's no way Rosie is going to give me the time of day now with this pretty
thing on board."
Mark elbowed Henry and shook his head. "Engineers, so uneducated."
"Hey!"
"Stupid, it's designed to be gay, it won't even know what to do with Rosie. Ichi's the lucky winner this time. Have you named him yet?"
Ichi stood as silent as the pet as both of the men turned from the pet to him. He forced himself to shake his head. "No, and Amanda says he's fine and just needs rest and he's not staying. There has to be some group or something that takes these things in when they're unwanted. I just need
to find them."
Henry tipped the pet's chin up and peered into his face. "I've a buddy with some shady contacts that could probably sell him for you. The secondary market for these critters has to be huge,
given the costs involved. Be a shame for you to just give it away when you could get some
money out of it."
"Thanks, I'll think about it." Avalon and it's black market. When he'd first arrived, it had surprised him until he'd learned that even now the Concord still had a partial ban on the trade of goods to
the smaller system. He unlocked his room and got the door open. "I'm grateful for your help."
Mark just laughed and pulled the cart in behind him. "No thanks needed, this is the most exciting thing that's happened since, well, since you arrived! We're easily amused."
Ichi got out of the way while the other men filled his living room and started unloading boxes.
When they seemed to have picked their workspace, he moved forward, the pet following and got
the two of them inside his actual rooms. He dropped his end of the rope and moved to the small
kitchen. "Would you two care for some tea?"
"Naw, thanks though Ichi, Anna's expecting me back and Henry, well, he's going to be going to
the kitchen and drooling over Rosie. Like normal."
"I do not! It's just, she's so... so..." He sighed and held the side of the crate in place while Mark fastened it.
"He's so smitten." Mark teased and laughed but he glanced up to where the pet still stood where he was left. "Is he supposed to just stand there?"
Ichi followed Mark's nod to where the pet stood, swaying lightly in place, still clutching his end of the rope. "I don't know." He crossed around the growing clutter of crate parts and pet supplies to stand and study the creature. There were dark circles like smudged pain under the downcast
eyes, the smooth skin looked a little ashen and if he was to assume the pet would show human
like reactions, he looked unwell.
Carefully, Ichi slipped the pet's end of the silver cord from it's grasp. The pet shivered and
instantly dropped to the floor. He literally folded up and sat right where he stood, bowing forward over his legs.
"Huh." Ichi glanced to the leash and down to the pet but when he went to ta
ke a step away the thing skittered backwards, startled and pressed his back to the wall. "Jumpy fellow."
"He'll settle in, just will take a day or two."
Ichi nodded to Mark and moved to put the leash on his coffee table. "He must be trained to be
tethered. If the leash is dropped, so he stays put."
"Useful, wish I could do that with Anna when we're back home and she wants to go shopping."
Mark teased again, trying to get the tense entomologist a little more at ease and failing. "There we go, crates all together."
Ichi peered at the oblong box that looked too much like a coffin for him. Long and rectangle,
even pressed against the wall it took up space. The upper half of the sides and back were a
mesh screen as well as the top and one end was open. The whole thing stood no more than two
feet tall, about three wide and less than six long. The floor inside had a thin, plastic coated mat but nothing else.
"The rest of these boxes, they're yours too. We only brought up one carton of kibble but the rest are in storage." Henry nodded as he worked the cart back into the hallway, tossing another
glance to where the pet sat, knees pulled up to his chin, against the wall.
"Thank you, both of you."
"No troubles, just call if you need help."
"I will, I think I have a lot of reading to do tonight."
Henry nodded and smiled softly. "Have fun."
Ichi couldn't swear it, but he thought the tone of words and smile had a lewd undertone. He
chalked it up to being over sensitive and nodded at the face value of the statement but when the
pair left, he locked his door. That left him alone with his new pet, who sat pressed to the wall
watching him from behind his wide grey eyes.
"Absurdity." Ichi whispered and moved to open the boxes of supplies left.
One that stood knee high and was a foot by two feet wide was filled with walnut sized lumps of
kibble. Ichi lifted one up out of curiosity and sniffed it. It didn't smell unpleasant but neither did it smell like food. He dropped the round back in the box and lugged the entire thing to set it along
the wall by his kitchen.
He pried open the next box and found in it two metal bowls and guessed they were feed and
water bowls so they got stacked on top of the food bin. Below them, he found a small box of the
thin fabric kilts, all in plain ivory, and the storage box they were in was obviously designed to clip onto the pet's sleeping create. Another small, clip-able box held grooming supplies. It looked to
him like shampoos and soaps, a wash cloth and towel but he didn't root in it too much, just
snapped it on the crate next to the first one.
"Great, have to bathe it too." He sighed and wondered how he was going to drag the taller, obviously stronger pet into the shower or how he'd manage to remember it wasn't a thinking
creature when something that pretty was wet and naked.
The rest of the box had what looked like a hairbrush and collar, different color leashes and other
types of harnesses but what caught his attention was a tiny box lost in the bottom. When he
fished it out and opened it, two shiny gold bars tipped in faceted gold glittered inside.
Ichi picked one out and turned it over in the light. "What the?"
The hint of movement out of the corner of his eye made him glance over but when he glanced
down he jumped, startled. The pet had crept silently over to him and now sat, watching him,
almost at his feet. Grey eyes met brown and before dropping submissively again. One slender
hand extended outward, palm up and simply waited.
"What?" Ichi glanced around, uncertain and confused. "I don't understand." But he saw he was still holding the gold bar. "This?" He carefully set the bar onto the pet's hand, prepared to snatch it back if he tried to eat it or something.
The pet didn't try to eat it, instead he popped one of the faceted ends off with deftly skilled
fingers. Ichi watched with the same fascination that he did his insects as the pet glanced down,
and than shoved the bar through one nipple. The bar went halfway and stuck, the hole that had
obviously been in place had partially healed while the pet had been in storage. Instead of
stopping, before Ichi could react, the pet forced the bar the to pierce the newly healed tissue.
Ichi swore he heard a popping sound and he grimaced even if the pet's expression never
changed. He did shiver, a slight rippling that twisted across the lithe body that Ichi couldn't swear was entirely from pain. The sight was disturbingly erotic and Ichi licked his lips without thought.
The slender hand extended again and Ichi glanced from it to the second waiting gold bar. There
was a small trickle of blood, tracing it's way down the pet's pale skin and that made Ichi close the box. If he'd known what the bars were for, he'd never have let the pet have the first one. "No." he said in a firm voice and dropped the box with the bar back into the shipping bin.
The pet gave him a confused look which he ignored. Instead, he fetched a damp towel from his
kitchen and knelt down to wipe the thin trail of blood away. The pet shivered again and arched
backwards, exposing his chest to be petted or touched, his eyes going half shut in open pleasure.
Ichi didn't notice right away but it did sink in and when it did, he blushed and grew very hard.
He stood up quickly and moved to the sink in his kitchen to rinse the towel free of the blood and
try to settle his nerves down. "Bad, Ichi, bad of you, you've just been alone too long." He whispered to the running water before shutting it off. He turned around and startled backwards
against the edge of his counter top.
The pet had followed him again. It knelt in front of him, eye level to Ichi's groin and those grey
eyes weren't downcast. Having the beautiful creature kneeling there, openly studying his aroused
state, left Ichi clutching the counter top. In his mind he knew he should step away but he stood
frozen, even as the eyes slid upward to meet his own. In his world, beautiful men simply didn't
kneel and lick their lips at him.
Carefully, the pet leaned forward and slid the side of his face against Ichi's groin in a slow,
sensual nuzzle. It startled Ichi so badly that he jumped backwards far enough that he was almost
sitting on his counter top. His hands snapped from their grip out and he caught the sides of the
pet's face and pulled the head away from his body.
"No." He said firmly and was met with a confused look. "No, don't do that. No! Bad." Good, very good, too good, his mind whispered back. He shivered a little but stepped to the side and got
himself out of being stuck between the pet and the counter. He hurried to the crate and patted it.
"Here, now, here, this is yours."
The pet tilted it's head and still looked confused. Ichi patted the top of the crate, which he saw
was hinged and could be lifted up, and this time the pet carefully moved. Silently, gracefully, the creature crossed over and than almost darted into the tiny space. Ichi wasn't even sure how he
did it, let alone so quickly. One moment he was a few feet away, the next he was turning and
bending and quickly disappeared into the confines of the crates small space.
Having the pet safely tucked out of sight did a world of good for Ichi's fraying nerves. He sighed
and moved to fill the food and water bowl before setting them down near the front of the crate.
He peered inside and saw pale flesh and dark hair and that was about it, the pet was curled up
near the back. That was fine by him, having the skittish creature out of the way was a good idea.
He sighed and moved
to finish making his own tea, picking a soothing blend of mints to settle his
uneasy thoughts and stomach, before he dropped himself onto his sofa to start reading the care
manual that came with the pet. Long moments passed as Ichi balanced his personal notepad on
his fingertips as he read.
The sound of the pet moving in his crate drew his ears but a subtle glance out of the corner of
his eyes showed him the creature was still hidden from sight. Another long pause came and went
before the pet moved again and this time, Ichi saw a long slender arm extend from the crate to
reach into the food bowl. The hand grasped and the kibble rattled before the arm quickly
disappeared back inside. A moment later, Ichi heard crunching sounds and an odd smile twisted
at his lips.
The manual was divided into two books, a plain over view and a more in depth version. Ichi
tackled the overview first, scanned it fairly quickly and found most of it to be simple sales pitch propaganda.
He learned from the overview that it was recommended that all pets eat only their kibble and not
human food. That they sleep in their crate on the provided mat and not in a bed or with blankets.
A collar was provided, which was highly suggested to be worn until those that might come in
contact with the pet learned what it was. There was also supposed to be a discipline stick in the
supply box, it sounded awfully like a cattle prod to Ichi.
The pre-trained commands ranged from useful and fascinating to down right embarrassing.
Change would have the pet putting on a kilt, either removing the old or if naked dressing outright.
Bathe would have the pet stripping and washing, again, useful. There were normal commands
like sit, and stay and heel to get the pet to come and stay near the owner. The order of crate
would have the pet returning to it's crate instantly. All useful commands, logical too.
But there were commands like Present, which would have the pet assume a position for sexual
intercourse. Ichi wondered just which position and than figured his imagination didn't really want
to know. Mouth would give the pet the command to please it's own sexually. Both commands