The Pet Shop (5 page)

‘May I make a suggestion,’ Anne said, still studying Stella.

Stella knew she would, no matter what her response was.

‘Try a different Pet next time.’ She forced an unconvincing smile. ‘Variety is the spice of life, after all. If you liked Tino, who knows, you might like some of the other Pets even better.’

‘It’s a moot point, isn’t it?’ Stella ran the spoon around the edge of her soup bowl. ‘I don’t have access to any of them.’ She could feel Anne’s steely gaze boring into the top of her head.

‘Eat your soup, Stella. I know for a fact the Boss gave you lots of homework, and you have an early day tomorrow. You’ll need your strength.’

For some ridiculous reason, Stella found herself fighting back tears.

Neither of them ate. Stella toyed with her soup spoon and Anne stared at the top of Stella’s head. At last Anne released a heavy breath. ‘When you get home tonight, check your personal emails. You’ll find an email marked simply “ps”. There’ll be a link. Follow that link and you’ll be able to retrieve a password. Then once you’re into the website with access to the Pets, you’ll receive further instructions.’

‘Thanks, Anne. You’re a star!’ Stella felt as though her chest would burst with the relief of knowing she would see Tino again. Suddenly she was ravenous.

‘You will consider my advice.’ Anne held her gaze. ‘About trying a different Pet.’

‘Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t expect the Pet Shop to become a habit or anything. It’s just that I’ve had so little sex for so long that one weekend just wasn’t enough, you know.’ She offered a shaky smile. ‘Guess I didn’t know how much I was missing it. I’m sure one more weekend will do it for me.’

‘Then a bit of variety should be just the ticket to get your libido all sorted, don’t you think? Besides, I should warn you that Tino isn’t easy to get.’

Her stomach knotted again. Tino had to be available. He just had to be. ‘Of course, variety’s nice.’ She avoided Anne’s gaze and shovelled the now tepid soup into her mouth. No doubt variety was good, but it was Tino she wanted. She wouldn’t even bother with anyone else. Just one more hot weekend with him then she’d be content to fall back into her old routine, a good fantasy and an occasional encounter with her vibe when there was time.

I
T WAS LATE BEFORE
Stella got home. She kicked off her shoes, poured herself a glass of wine, and sat down with her laptop. Just as Anne said, there was an email marked “ps”. She opened it to find nothing but a link, which led her to a password. She copied it quickly to her BlackBerry then entered it.

That was it. She was in.

The design of the site could not have been more simple. It had the look of a daguerreotype photograph with a clean san serif font. The only image was a lifelike pen and ink drawing of a leopard lounging in a relaxed sprawl which curved around the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Beneath that was some small copperplate writing that barely registered to Stella. Only one urgent matter concerned her. With fingers that were ridiculously shaky, she followed the prompt to Pet Diaries. She scrolled down through the alphabetical list of Pet names, holding her breath until at last she came to Tino’s diary. She clicked on it.

Anne was right. Tino only had one opening for the next three months, and that was because of a cancellation in two weeks. Even though she could find no price list on the site, Stella took the cancellation and scheduled the Pet for the whole weekend. She barely felt the knot that tightened in her stomach at letting go of some unknown chunk of money that would definitely not be small. Strigida paid her extremely well for the life that now pretty much belonged to them, and she was not without her own resources if she needed them. She figured she could afford one last blow-out weekend with Tino. She’d ask Anne about the price tomorrow.

It was when confirmation of her weekend with Tino appeared on her email that she realised not only had there been no listing of prices, but there had been no mechanism set in place for payment. She left a query on the “contact us” space and wiped unusually sweaty palms on her trousers. She would check with Anne in the morning. But surely the confirmation was enough.

That done, she clicked back on to Tino’s profile, hungry for any bits of information she could glean about him. Strangely there were no photos of any of the Pets. His Pet Shop bio said only that his full name was Valentino. That didn’t surprise her. Nor did the fact that his keepers chose to call him Tino. There was nothing formal about Tino, rather everything playful and relaxed. Height, 6'1", weight 190 pounds. Most of that solid muscle, she knew from experience. Hair auburn. And outrageously soft and unmanageable, she thought. Eyes brown. And expressive. Deep enough to drown in, she recalled.

Then the bio got personal. At least physically personal. It contained a detailed listing of his physical attributes right down to size of his circumcised penis – diameter, and length, erect and flaccid. She didn’t think she had ever seen him totally flaccid, and she found herself smiling at the problem that must have presented for the measurers. By the time she got to the description of the half-domed globes of his bottom, the ever so slight curve to the right where the cleft between his buttocks met the small of his back, her hand was in her knickers. She parted her labia to find the slippery place in between, which had been moist and quivery most of the day. Her fingers plunged and tweaked as she recalled the physicality of each of those attributes and how they had affected her. She squirmed and wriggled free of her blouse and unclasped her front-loader bra to thumb her nipples and cup and caress the weighty swell of her breasts.

Next to the list of physical attributes was a brief personality profile stating that Tino was headstrong, independent in nature, and though very affectionate and responsive, with considerable stamina, he had a tendency toward misbehaving. Not a Pet recommended for first-timers.

Stella came at that point. She shuddered and jerked her orgasm while the words on the screen blurred in front of her eyes. As she slid down in the chair like butter melting on toast she wondered who had chosen Tino for her. Had they somehow understood that she would have sent a less forceful, better behaved Pet home with cab fare before the weekend had even begun? That had been her intention. The aftershocks of her orgasm spread upward to a butterfly dance in her stomach. Maybe it was that they saw in her the ability to handle Tino in a way the Pet would understand and best respond to. She liked that idea even if it was just wishful thinking.

There was a long list of testimonials from Tino’s previous keepers. They were all rave reviews. Suddenly Stella didn’t feel so special any more. This was the rude reminder that she was just one more satisfied customer. That made her pretty pathetic she supposed.

Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She thought about Tino nibbling smoked salmon from her hand, Tino curling up on the floor by the bed waiting patiently until she invited him to join her, until she told him how she wanted him to touch her, to taste her – what she wanted him to do with his cock. Tino so obedient in such delicious ways. Tino so disobedient in even more delicious ways. No matter how ridiculous it was, she missed him. She missed the way he listened to her, the way he seemed to hang on her every word, the way he looked at her with those adoring eyes, the way he stretched and moaned and offered himself to her when she caressed his perpetually heavy penis.

He had only been with her for a weekend, she reminded herself angrily. And what was he anyway but a glorified prostitute? Yet how would she endure being without him for two long weeks?

Before she shuffled off to bed in the wee hours, Stella explored every area of the website multiple times. It hadn’t taken long, especially since she had no interest in any of the other Pets. There were profiles of a dozen-and-a-half active Pets, including Tino, along with a dozen more who were inactive or available only upon special request. A quick glance showed that, as with Tino, there were no photos. Instead each Pet’s physical attributes were expounded upon in detail, all guaranteed to be exactly as per description.

There was an extensive system of tagging and cross referencing to best take into account all tastes, fetishes and preferences, from erect penis size to sizes and shape preferences for breasts, nipples and areolae. Pets were classified according to height, muscle mass, curviness, roundness of bottoms, hair and eye colour, body hair, even size of feet and hands. Their personality profiles ranged from very shy and submissive to Pets who played rough and bit hard and everything in between.

There was a wealth of information presented with the understanding that anyone accessing the Pet Shop site would be willing to take the time and effort to do the research involved in choosing their perfect Pet. And from the testimonials, whatever the Pet Shop was doing seemed to be working very well indeed. There were several areas on the site reserved for VIP members. Stella had no idea what that meant and no way of finding out.

Before she headed off to bed she checked the news feeds as she always did, especially now that her job depended so much on her keeping abreast of any situation at any time. She was about to shut down when an article on one of the more obscure environmental sites caused her to do a double take, and she quickly brought the link back up, her heart pounding in her chest.

The caption read:
Vincent Evanston does it again.
But it was the photo that caught her attention. In spite of the poor quality of the image, which was labelled as an archive photo, the man standing at a podium with an arm raised in some grand victory gesture looked just like Tino – a little younger perhaps, and the hair was a little shorter. She squinted hard and readjusted the reading light. She enlarged the image, but that only made it worse. When her eyes began to water from her efforts, she turned her attention to the short blurb underneath.

Reclusive philanthropist, Vincent Evanston’s, crack team of lawyers and investigators have found discrepancies in the contracts that would have allowed the Bear Grass Corridor to be ploughed under and replaced by a luxury apartment complex by Collins Development. The Bear Grass Corridor is a habitat for several endangered species of invertebrates and insects. Though the stay of execution is temporary, a spokesman for Evanston says it will buy much-needed time to find other legal routes to save the corridor.

The article said the Bear Grass Corridor was someplace outside Portland, Oregon, someplace a very long way from London. Evanston couldn’t possibly be Tino, though there was no denying that he looked enough like Tino to make her heart beat fast and her pussy tighten. Stella gave the image one last long squint, then as an afterthought, she saved the article to her Favourites folder.

As she shut down the computer for what was left of the night, she wondered what Tino did when he wasn’t being a Pet. What did he like? What music did he listen to? What did he believe in? What was important to him? A photo of Tino, she thought to herself as she cleaned her teeth. That’s what she needed. She’d be sure to get one next time he was here. In the meantime a Tino lookalike would have to do.

‘S
HE CHOSE
T
INO AGAIN
.’ O’Kelly drummed her fingers on the desk and stared at the phone which was now on speaker.

‘Oh really?’

‘You don’t sound surprised.’

‘Should I be? Tino’s one of the most popular Pets for good reason.’

‘That’s just my point.’ She gestured wildly to the phone as though it were actually the Boss sitting there across from her. ‘Tino’s next to impossible to schedule a weekend with. And yet, here he is with two cancellations in three weeks. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?’

‘Well, I for one am glad Stella was able to get Tino again. Knowing Stella, and knowing Tino, I think they’ll do each other a world of good.’

‘That’s not the point. You know as well as I do that if we offer her the position, if she takes it, she’ll have to be able to maintain objectivity.’

He offered her his usual don’t-take-life-so-seriously chuckle. ‘O’Kelly, she doesn’t know that, does she? Just a few weeks ago you were convinced she wouldn’t even accept Tino. I’m not stupid. I knew that it would be a big leap for her, a frightening leap for someone of her restraint. But she took that leap, didn’t she? She feels safe with Tino, that’s all. Most people are only willing to nosedive into the unknown when absolutely necessary, and for Stella, this time it isn’t necessary. Let her enjoy Tino. She’s earned it. And stop worrying.’

‘Yes, sir.’ It was a lie, of course. She never stopped worrying. It was a part of her job.

‘Oh, and O’Kelly, I think I’ll send Stella to meet with the Vanguard folks over in Portland.’

‘Really? Seems a strange thing to do under the circumstances, don’t you think?’

‘It’s time we let our little bird fly. And there’s no place nicer for her maiden flight than the American North West. I was going myself, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Stella should handle Vanguard. Most of the best suggestions are hers anyway.’

‘If you’re sure, then I’ll make the arrangements,’ O’Kelly said, feeling the tension beneath her sternum. That little edge of mystery in the Boss’s voice when he changed plans in the middle always put O’Kelly on her guard. He was up to something. The question was what, and how many sleepless nights would she spend worrying about it?

If Stella hadn’t worked for Strigida, the days would have dragged waiting for her weekend with Tino. But the Boss made sure she had little time to dwell on her upcoming hot weekend. Anne had reassured her that the Pet Shop would see to the proper billing for Tino’s services. And though Stella was relieved that her weekend with the Pet would not be cancelled for lack of payment, the niggle was there in the pit of her stomach that she was, in essence, paying for a glorified prostitute.

In spite of the long hours and the super-human schedule, the Boss dismissed her promptly at five on Friday. The disembodied voice she had now grown used to communing with on the speakerphone ordered her to go home and enjoy the weekend. She’d earned a break. She’d worked long enough at Strigida to learn that if she didn’t follow orders, he’d know. He always knew. Strange that it should be more difficult to manage anything sneaky behind the back of a boss she seldom saw in person. Even stranger that most of her sneakiness had involved doing more work rather than less, a testament to how little life she actually had even when she had a life. None of that mattered though, not with Tino coming in just a few hours. When he dismissed her the Boss didn’t mention Tino, but she suspected that he knew.

She’d had time to stock the cupboards and fridge with yummy morsels, all tidbits she thought it would be fun to feed Tino. She had bought several exotic shower gels, along with oils and lotions and a soft-bristled body brush that she was dying to try on him.

She couldn’t decide whether to wear clothes with easy access or to wear clothes that Tino would have to nibble and tug to get off her. She settled for a bit of both. She wore a loose-fitting summer dress that flounced around her body to mid thigh. It was a soft jersey print patterned in tiny mauve and melon flowers. If she moved just right, her braless breasts played peek-a-boo at the easy-access plunge of the front. She was sure Tino would have fun with that. Beneath it she wore French-cut knickers of ivory satin that she figured he could sink his teeth into.

When the doorbell rang, she gave her make-up and hair one last check in the hall mirror, willed the butterflies rampaging in her ribcage to settle and opened the door.

A Pet handler in an immaculate black suit offered her a businesslike smile. ‘Are you Stella James?’ Once Tino caught sight of her, the man had to strong-arm him into standing quietly.

‘I am, yes.’

He handed her the official Pet Shop rucksack and his smile broadened. ‘Based on this big boy’s reaction, I thought you must be.’ Then he released Tino, who practically catapulted over the threshold, taking an immediate position on the floor at her feet. He wrapped both arms around her leg and commenced with a deliciously ticklish tongue bath over her right kneecap, working his way to the inside of her leg where the sensation was far more than just ticklish.

The man in the suit smiled down at him as Stella ran her fingers through his hair and placed a heavy hand on his head to temporarily slow the progress, at least until the door was shut. ‘Yep. I’d say he’s definitely glad to see you.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘I’ll be back for him the same time Sunday evening.’ He gave her a stern glance. ‘This time try not to keep me waiting.’ Then he offered another smile, turned briskly on his heels and was gone.

By the time she managed to shut the door, Tino was already shoving at the hem of her dress, his hands moving up to cup her arse cheeks beneath the fabric. His enormous erection was fully visible through his trousers.

‘Tino. Tino! Behave.’ She couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice. ‘At least let me get you out of these clothes before you maul me.’ She joined him on the floor, but instead of sitting quietly while she undressed him as he had for Anne, he sprang. He pulled her into a rough and tumble across the floor of the lounge, biting and nipping and raking his fully clothed cock hard against her every time there was contact.

‘Tino. Tino! You’re a bad boy!’ Her voice was breathless, accentuated by the hammering of her heart threatening to jump out of her throat. Fear, hunger, loss of control, animal lust all jumbled together inside her and so much more. ‘Tino, am I going to have to spank you first thing?’ The slight tremor in her voice was now clearly evident.

But before fear could dominate the cocktail of emotions Tino pinned her splay-legged beneath him. Her dress had ridden up around her hips in the romp on the floor. Fully clothed, he insinuated his body so that the erection threatening the integrity of his fly rubbed shockingly against the satin gusset of her knickers. Then he began to rock and shift and rub against her, his barely restrained penis pressing the damp crotch of her panties into the deepening trough between her swelling labia. ‘Oh God, Tino. You’re so, so naughty,’ she managed to gasp before he took her mouth. His tongue ravaged hers and danced across her teeth and hard pallet, and her body found his rhythm very pleasing. She matched the rocking and shifting of his hips, intensifying the sensation by wrapping her legs around him and lifting to meet his thrusts as his enthusiasm grew.

‘Tino,’ she gasped, as his tongue forsook her mouth for the soft hollow of her throat, nipping the tender flesh just hard enough to make her suck in a harsh breath, which caused everything to tense. ‘I’ll have to punish you. You know that?’ Her words ended in a little shudder as he nuzzled aside the fabric to expose her left breast, which felt like it was mostly nipple as he took it into his mouth and suckled like he would draw the very heart of her up through it and into himself.

She was riding the edge, unable to concentrate on anything but the liquid heat between her legs. Tino was a Pet, she reminded herself, her Pet, and it was way too soon to give over the reins. But any thought of controlling her Pet was completely lost when he lifted himself onto his hands in a modified push-up position, which gave him more driving force against her grasping cunt. The shifting of his hips became a delicious battering. She could smell the seashore scent of her arousal, wet and demanding, and the smell of animal heat not masked by deodorant or soap radiated off him in an olfactory feast that made her hungry all over. Whatever was human in her took a holiday. She responded to his grunts and growls with growls and mewlings of her own.

Then all sound stopped, all breathing stopped. Only the hard friction of cloth raking against cloth broke the silence. Tino’s pupils dilated with desire, his gaze locked like a homing beacon on hers. His face was dark and drawn tight around the intensity of his need. The hard mechanics of animal desperation hammered them against each other, each grasping, each straining until joints popped and muscles ached.

Then Tino came. His face shattering into a grimace that could have been pleasure or pain, and the growl that burst from his lungs offered no evidence as to which. But the convulsing of his cock through his trousers told the true story, and it was a story that sent Stella growling and clawing into her own wild release. She pulled him down to her in a hard bear hug, her orgasm raging through her pelvic girdle and up over her belly with him still thrusting and trembling all over before collapsing on top of her, his face and arms sheened in the sharp sweat of animal heat.

‘Bad Tino,’ she managed to gasp before he covered her mouth in a playful rain of kisses. ‘You’re such ...’ kiss, kiss, nip. ‘A naughty ...’ Nip, kiss. ‘Pet ...’ Kiss, kiss, lick. ‘You should have at least let me take your clothes off.’

As previously stated, Pets prefer to be naked. It is best to remove clothing as quickly as possible once your Pet arrives. The Pet will, naturally, be very excited to see you, and since your Pet is already aroused upon arrival, occasionally an overly stimulated Pet will break control and come in her or his clothing before the keeper is able to remove them. Though this doesn’t happen often, the Pet Shop has provided for such incidents, along with a Pet’s natural disregard for clothing and tendency toward untidiness. In the official Pet Shop rucksack, you will find a complete change of clothes in addition to those in which your Pet arrived.

Note: You should only need clothing for your Pet if you take her or him into public places and when you return him or her to the Pet Shop handler at the end of your Pet’s stay with you.

Suddenly Tino was the perfectly behaved Pet. He rolled off her and lay very still while she peeled off his damp shirt. The he lifted his arse so she could pull off his trousers, wet with the combined results of his ejaculation and the rub of her sopping cunt.’ The piquant musky scent of sex and sweat filled her nostrils and she was hungry for him all over again. As usual, his cock was still erect, sticky and shiny with his ejaculate, a situation that didn’t seem to bother him in the least. When he was completely naked, and even more exquisite than she remembered him to be, he held her gaze for a brief moment, then rolled over onto his hands and knees and presented his bottom to her, an act that made her pussy tense and caused a strange mix of emotion to fill her chest.

‘I suppose I do have to punish you, don’t I? After all no matter how nice the end result, you still broke the rules. She brought her hand down hard enough to sting on his left buttock. His cock surged. His anus clenched, and the smell of body heat and sex bloomed, filling her brain, making her ache with deep needs, ancestral needs, need that had been around long before humans walked the Earth. She spanked him again and again until his arse cheeks each bore the blurred pink print of her hand, and his erection looked as though it would burst.

Suddenly she no longer cared about him taking off her clothes. She shoved the dress off over her head and yanked at her knickers. ‘I need you to fuck me, Tino. Be a good Pet and take care of me.’

This time, he took her from behind in true Pet fashion, mounting her doggie style. This time her cunt was ready for the breadth and the depth of him as he hammered her, cupping her tits and raking her clit, bathing her neck in hot animal grunts accompanied by the occasional possessive nip. She had already come twice more when he convulsed into her, and they collapsed in a heap on the floor.

When the shuddering finally subsided, Tino pulled free from her pussy, unselfconsciously dribbling her inner thigh with warm come. As though he were unaware of the embarrassment or the mess, he manoeuvred her onto her back, then licked and suckled his way over the curve of her hip down to the juicy flood between her legs.

Blushing hard, she tried to push him away, but once his mouth made contact with her drenched slit, she was lost. He pushed her knees open and licked and slurped while she ground her bottom, shifting and rocking against his face. He suckled and lapped and tongued her, not stopping until he licked up every last drop of their combined pleasure – at least what was on her legs. She reckoned that, if anything, he’d made her pussy even wetter. All that remained of their coupling was what slicked his cock and dried on his thighs. That bit, he happily wore.

She had come again during his efforts to clean her. He was well and truly hard once more and very aromatic with the combined scent of their heat and the tangy smell of hot perspiring flesh. It made her want him again. She had seen her share of nature programmes. She knew how it was. Often mammals in the wild let their body fluids dry on them, creating a feral cologne unique to each individual and designed to drive the opposite sex mad by advertising animal virility, in pungent pheromonal blasts.

When at last there was the energy to move, she stood and offered him her hand. ‘You need a bath, Tino, and so do I.’

Pet Hygiene – Bathing: Be sure to bathe your Pet regularly, as Pets cannot bathe themselves, and they tend to be rather messy. All Pets enjoy frequent bathing. The Pet Shop recommends twice a day unless activities demand more. Most Pet keepers, as well as their Pets usually find the experience enjoyable.