#bbu romantic
Caution for: BBU, pet whump, conditioning and associated tropes, “romantic” pet, noncon
Just Acting - Reflection
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There were chains in the Facility. Gleaming silver things reserved for pets who needed more correction than a brief round of discipline. 651 has hazy memories, somewhere in the white light that swallows early training, of posture correction, a chain linking her hands to the floor, her collar to the wall.
The chains in the Facility were cold and hard and unforgiving, but they were always clean. Bethany imagines a handler scrubbing the shining links with the same meticulous thoroughness that they use to scrub the pets clean.
The chain round her ankle now is black with filth – gritty, sticky, clinging oil that has left stubborn smears all over her skin and her clothes despite her best efforts not to touch it. She hatesit, with a depth of loathing that she hasn’t felt for anything since they took the shock collar away and swapped it for the one that is meant to be safe.
The other end of the chain is locked around the pipe under the sink. Bethany can reach the toilet easily, but not the shower. She can reach the door, but she knows she isn’t allowed to open it. Mostly she sits on the floor, and lets the hours slip away from her.
The decision to keep her in the bathroom wasn’t unanimous. Miss Mosley wanted to keep her in the kitchen, so that she could do the washing up and Miss Mosley wouldn’t have to unlock the pet every time she wants to use the bathroom. Mr Stefan said that she couldn’t be trusted in the kitchen, because of the back door.
Sometimes Bethany cleans the floor or the sink or the pipes – although she only has her hands and the soap, like a naughty pet who has had the cleaning cloth taken away for misusing it – just to give her something to do that isn’t losing herself in memories of training.
Sometimes she peers at her reflection in the mirror.
Sometimes it makes her cry.
No one has given her makeup since she was bought. She didn’t need it to be Handler Smith, and she didn’t need it at Johann’s place either. His hungry gaze made her feel beautiful without it, just like the handlers told her she was gorgeouslong before they started having her paint her face.
Now, though, for the first time she can remember, she feels ugly, and she wishes she had makeup to try and hide the damage.
Her lip is split and swollen. Her cheeks are always blotchy from tears. Bruising has gathered in the hollows under her eyes and trickled down the side of her nose in hideous shades of blue and green and violet.
She cries when Kyle fucks her, rough and greedy, against the lino floor.
“For fuck’s sakes, Beth, stop snivelling,” he scolds her. “You could be in my bed right now if you hadn’t run off.”
She should be glad to be used. It’s what she’s for. But she’s not glad at all. She hates it. She wants her real owner back. She wants Liv, and Johann, and even Mr. Green. Mr. Green is cold and terrifying but he let her sleep in a real bed and shower with hot water every day and wear clean clothes and feed herself out of the fridge. Here she’s lucky if they remember to bring her a sandwich a day.
“For fuck’s sakes, Beth,” she whispers to the ugly, ungrateful, miserable pet in the mirror. “Stop snivelling.”
The first day that she thinks might be the fourteenth, she is hopeful. She fidgets and paces all day, even though good pets sit still when they’re not needed. Bethany, she is starting to think, might not be a good pet after all.
Liv said two weeks at most. Liv is coming back for her.
But the light outside the grimy frosted window dims and gives way to black, and Miss Mosley drags Bethany out so she can use the bathroom and then drags her back in and locks her ankle back to the filthy, hateful chain, and the house goes quiet, and no one has come for Bethany.
She’s not sure it’s been fourteen days. It might only have been twelve. It could have been fifteen already.
“Stupid pet,” she hisses at her reflection. “Can’t even count to fourteen. Empty-headed slut.”
She doesn’t feel like Bethany, saying those words. She feels like a handler. Angry. Aggressive.
It feels better than crying on the floor.
The second day that might be the fourteenth comes and goes.
So does the third.
Where is Liv? Did she forget about her pet? Did something happen to her? Does she not want Bethany?
Looking at the weepy, ugly, misbehaving pet in the mirror, she can’t see why anyone would want Bethany. Anyone but Kyle, who just wants a warm body to fuck and doesn’t care at all if she’s pretty or well behaved.
On the first day that definitely isn’t the fourteenth any more, the pet doesn’t cry. She washes her face and her tangled, greasy hair in the sink, and she looks herself dead in the eye.
“Stupid pet,” she says. “What are you crying about?”
Her voice is cold and mocking. She watches her lip curl with contempt, and for a shocking second the woman in the mirror doesn’t look like a pet at all.
[Next]
Caution for: BBU, pet whump, conditioning and associated tropes, “romantic” pet, noncon
Just Acting - Reflection
[First | Prev| All | tbc]There were chains in the Facility. Gleaming silver things reserved for pets who needed more correction than a brief round of discipline. 651 has hazy memories, somewhere in the white light that swallows early training, of posture correction, a chain linking her hands to the floor, her collar to the wall.
The chains in the Facility were cold and hard and unforgiving, but they were always clean. Bethany imagines a handler scrubbing the shining links with the same meticulous thoroughness that they use to scrub the pets clean.
The chain round her ankle now is black with filth – gritty, sticky, clinging oil that has left stubborn smears all over her skin and her clothes despite her best efforts not to touch it. She hatesit, with a depth of loathing that she hasn’t felt for anything since they took the shock collar away and swapped it for the one that is meant to be safe.
