I Became the Pet of the Man Who Saved Me

My name is Vera, and I’m twenty-two years old. My life, up until that summer, had been about as close to normal as someone like me could hope for: I was finishing my penultimate semester of university, I’d been with the same boyfriend for two years, I shared a small apartment near downtown, and I worked part-time at a bookstore. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing worth telling anyone about.

The only thing different in my routine was Don Aurelio. An older, sick man who lived alone in a secluded house on the edge of the city. To almost everyone, he was just a kind stranger. To me, he was the reason I was still standing.

When my parents died in that accident, I was a teenage girl with nothing. He paid what my family couldn’t afford, covered my studies without ever asking for thanks, and never let me go without a roof over my head. He had money to spare and, as he used to say, no debt more urgent than caring for the people the world had cast aside. When his nurse moved to another province, I didn’t think twice: I offered to take care of him myself.

That afternoon I was walking him around the back patio. It was a large, quiet stretch of land, far from the noise of cars. I pushed his wheelchair slowly while I told him how I was finally wrapping up my degree, how everything was falling into place at last.

—I’m proud of you —he said, turning his head just enough to look at me—. Like a father. I hope I live to see you graduate.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. His latest tests showed no improvement, and both of us knew, even if neither of us said it, that the time to give him something back was running out.

That night I didn’t sleep. I turned an idea over in my head for hours, an idea that filled me with shame and fear in equal measure. But by morning I had made up my mind.

***

I arrived at his house early, taking advantage of the university break. Don Aurelio was still asleep. I went in quietly and, in the foyer, I began to get ready.

I took all my clothes off and left them folded on a chair. I pulled the things I’d bought the previous afternoon out of my bag, my hands trembling in front of the cashier. A headband with ears that blended into my brown hair. A collar with an engraved tag. A pair of long stockings that imitated legs, fingerless gloves that covered me to the elbows. And last, a small plug shaped like a tail, which I fitted into place, breathing deeply, biting my lip so I wouldn’t make a sound. I lubricated my finger with saliva and opened my ass myself, pressing the tip of the plug against my tight hole until it gave way and swallowed it in one sharp motion. The sting made me close my eyes, but the feeling of having it inside me, of feeling the tail hanging between my ass cheeks, made my pussy clench hard all at once.

I knew what I was doing. I knew that he, at one point, while I was fixing his old computer, had left visible things that spoke of that world—of masters and pets, of surrender and obedience. He’d never told me. It wasn’t necessary.

His dog, Trufa, had died a few months earlier. Since then I’d watched him fade a little more every day, as if the whole house had lost a heartbeat. I was going to give that heartbeat back to him. In my own way.

I slipped into his bed beneath the warm sheets until I felt him starting to wake. He opened his eyes slowly and found me on top of him.

—Good morning, master. Woof.

My body was shaking. I was bright red with embarrassment, sure I was going to run out of there at any second. But I didn’t. I stayed.

—What… what are you doing? —his voice cracked between shock and confusion.

—I owe you so much —I said, and it cost me to hold his gaze—. Everything I am, I owe to you. And I know that since Trufa died, you’ve been sad. So… now it’s me. Your new pet. For however long you have left. Woof.

—No, Vera, I can’t allow you to…

—I know what you like —I cut him off—. I figured it out a long time ago. And I chose this myself. Nobody forced me.

—But this is…

—Master —I insisted, lowering my head until it rested on his chest—, now I’m Trufa. Your little dog. Woof, woof.

I felt him tense, and then, very slowly, give in. Not willingly, at first. More like someone realizing he wasn’t going to win the argument. But he accepted it. And that, that morning, was enough for me.

***

Three days passed. Three strange, new days in which I learned how to live another life.

I learned how to bring him the ball when he threw it from his wheelchair. How to sleep curled up at the foot of his bed. How to accept pats on the head and return them with awkward licks on the back of his hand. The hardest part was eating from a plate on the floor without using my hands; it took me days to stop feeling humiliated by it and start feeling, instead, a kind of calm I couldn’t have named.

The first night I barely slept at all. Lying on the rug at the foot of his bed, I listened to the hallway clock and my own breathing. I wondered what the hell I was doing, what my boyfriend would think, what anyone would think if they saw me like this. This is insane, I kept telling myself. And yet every time he reached out in the dark to stroke my hair and make sure I was still there, something inside me loosened. When I heard him drift off to sleep, I’d slide a hand between my thighs and rub my wet pussy against the rug, clenching my teeth so I wouldn’t moan, coming silently with the plug buried in my ass and my face pressed against the sheet hanging from his bed.

By the second night it no longer felt difficult. I had stopped thinking. The silence of the house, the brush of his hand, the weight of the collar against my neck: all of it put the world in order in a way my outside life never had. I turned my phone off when I came in and didn’t switch it back on until the next day, when I put my clothes back on and became Vera for a few hours.

Those returns were the strangest part of all. I walked down the street, worked at the bookstore, answered messages, and felt like I was acting. Like the truth, my truth, had been left behind in a house on the edge of the city, in a bowl on the floor and in an engraved tag with a name that wasn’t mine.

Don Aurelio changed in those days just as much as I did. He laughed again. He ate with appetite again. One afternoon I found him in front of the bathroom mirror, shaving for the first time in weeks, and when he saw me reflected behind him, on all fours, he wasn’t frightened or ashamed. He just smiled.

—Look what you’ve done to me —he said, and I couldn’t tell whether he meant the shaving or something much bigger.

I still could hardly believe it when I caught myself running on all fours across the patio, naked except for the ears and collar, while he watched from his wheelchair with a smile I hadn’t seen on him in months.

That afternoon we were playing exactly like that. He was tossing a toy bone with the little strength left in his arm, and I would spring after it, catch it in my mouth, and bring it back so he could rub my head.

—Good girl —he murmured—. Very good girl.

And then, resting against his lap, catching my breath, I felt it.

His illness had stolen, among so many other things, the ability to enjoy his own body. For a long time now, he had expected nothing from that part of his life. So when I saw the bulge slowly growing beneath the fabric of his pants, both of us went still, startled.

A good pet makes sure her master is happy. I kept repeating that to myself in silence while I used my mouth to tug down his pants, without hands, clumsy and determined at the same time, until I freed the cock that was pushing hard against the fabric. The first erection in a very long time, thick, the tip already shiny with a clear drop.

—Vera, you don’t have to…

—It’s my duty —I said, lifting my gaze for a second—. Making the master happy is my duty. Woof.

I licked his balls first, slowly, with my tongue flat, like a hungry bitch sniffing out what belonged to me. I moved up licking the thick vein from bottom to top, from the base to the tip, and when I reached the head I kissed it with parted lips, sucking up the salty drop that had formed there. He let out a rough groan, as if the sound had been stuck in his throat for months.

I opened my mouth and took him in all the way. Slowly, to the back of my throat, until I felt the tip pressing against me and the gag reflex forcing tears that spilled out from the corners of my eyes. I pulled back with a thread of saliva hanging from him and slid him in again, this time with rhythm, my tongue curling around the base each time I came up. My head moved on its own, bobbing up and down between his thin thighs, and every moan he made clenched my pussy tighter, already pouring hot between my legs while the plug stayed firm in my ass.

—Oh God, puppy —he panted, and a trembling hand settled on my nape—. Good girl, good girl…

Him calling me that drove me crazy. I took him out of my mouth for a second and ran my tongue all along his length, looking up at him from below, my face red and my chin slick with saliva.

—Woof —I whispered, and took him back in until I was choking.

I started sucking his cock with hollowed cheeks, squeezing it with my lips, milking him hard, with that wet, obscene sound filling the whole patio. I took his balls into my mouth when I pulled back, licked them one by one, and went back to taking him all the way in. I was short of breath and I didn’t care. My only job in that moment was to squeeze out every last drop of pleasure left in him.

I felt him tense beneath me. His thighs started trembling, the hand in my nape closed into a loose fist in my hair, and that cock inside my mouth grew even harder.

—I… I’m about to come —he panted, and he said it with shame, as if asking my permission.

I answered by taking him down my throat and staying there, my nose flattened against his belly, breathing through my nostrils. He let out a long, animal groan and filled my mouth with a hot, thick jet of semen that nearly made me choke. Another, and another, until I could feel his cum slipping out from the corners of my lips. I took it all, without letting go of his cock, sucking slowly, swallowing every drop as if it were the tastiest thing in the world. When he finally finished, still hard but spent, I stuck out my tongue and cleaned the tip with short, precise licks.

—Good girl —he repeated, voice broken—. My good little dog.

I rested my cheek against his bony thigh and stayed there, breathing hard, his taste still in my mouth and my soaked pussy dripping down the inside of my leg.

That night I put him to bed early. Before he fell asleep, I climbed onto the bed for a moment, still on all fours, and let him caress my tits and ass with that trembling hand that no longer weighed him down so much. He slid two fingers into my wet pussy and moved them slowly, clumsily in that old-man way but with a master’s tenderness, until I came silently over his hand, biting the pillow so I wouldn’t bark too loudly. Then I licked his fingers clean, one by one, like a grateful bitch. I curled up at the foot of the bed, like a good pet, and for the first time in a long while I heard him sleep peacefully.

***

On the day of the medical tests, I went with him to the clinic. I pushed his wheelchair, dressed, of course: a simple skirt and a thick sweater that hid what I almost no longer wanted to take off underneath. I’ll admit this with some embarrassment: I had gotten so used to going naked in his house that clothes made me uncomfortable. Under the skirt I wasn’t wearing panties, and the plug was still firm in my ass, tightening with every step; the only thing I never took off was the collar with the tag, hidden beneath the sweater’s neck.

I waited in the waiting room with my heart in my throat. When the doctor came out with the results, his face was pure disbelief.

—I can’t explain it —he said, going over the pages again and again—. The heart, the blood pressure, the blood values, the heart rate… everything has improved. At the last appointment I was giving him a month, maybe less. And today I’m looking at a different person.

I lowered my eyes. I couldn’t look at Don Aurelio, because both of us knew, without needing words, what that improvement was owed to. Or at least that was what we wanted to believe.

He was even able to leave the wheelchair at the hospital. We walked out slowly, me holding his arm just in case. And it was he, this time, who broke the silence.

—We both know why I’m better —he said quietly.

—No, it’s not that, we can’t…

—Sir —I cut him off, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk—. I practically owe you my life. And I’m going to make every day you have left worth it. Every single one.

—Vera, we don’t know what…

—No, master —I smiled, and squeezed his hand between mine—. I’m Trufa. Until the end. Woof.

We walked back to his house unhurriedly, under a sky beginning to turn orange. I knew perfectly well what the promise I had just made meant. I knew what I was committing to and for how long. That I was going to spend months, maybe years, kneeling between his legs, sucking his cock every morning, letting him fuck my pussy and my ass with whatever strength he had left, living naked at his feet and wearing the collar. But I owed him that.

And, to my own dismay, I had to admit something else, something I found hard to acknowledge even in silence: I liked living like that. I liked being his spoiled pet, his obedient little dog, the secret owner of every good day he had left. I liked having my pussy always wet, waiting for his hand, my mouth always ready for his cock, my ass always open because of the plug. I had given him back his will to live, and he, without meaning to, had given me mine.