This story was made by Todd E. Sutherland.
His shoes scuffed as he reached for the next marbled step; his every misstep was her heartfelt torment. She reached her toes down in advance of him, holding his arm. "Six more steps," she said softly, stepping down in front of him, bringing him gently.
"Is there a coffee shop in the waiting area? Can you see yet?" he asked.
She kept her eyes on his feet; the expensive foreign shoes that housed and protected them. They found the next step, and she slipped her pads down one more. "Pay attention to the stairs, please, Master," she reproached gently.
The boy sighed, features obscured by the dark glasses. She dared a glance at his face. He seemed more impatient with the situation than with her, and she felt relieved. Her tail wagged softly, for no one.
Why would they put the train platform downstairs? she wondered. Just to make it inconvenient? As if reading her mind, the boy said, "I hate this.
This is such a bother. Why couldn't you just drive me, Faith?"
"We're almost there... two more steps." She concentrated on the boy, letting the stares and sudden changes in gait of the humans around her pass over her almost unnoticed. Almost.
The boy held to her and not the handrail. That was the most delightful compliment she could imagine. "Last step, Master." The boy reached his foot down and found the ground floor. Faith led him to one side and stood him by an ancient-looking fluted column. She felt his hand take the swivel harness strapped to her hips.
"It's a large room, as you can hear," she observed. "There are eight gates, evenly spaced; odd numbered ones down the left side, even numbered ones down the right. Ours is gate three on the left. There is a gift shop at the far left, and two restaurants on the right, and yes, one of them is a coffee shop. According to the monitor, our train is on time, and will be arriving on track 3 in just over half an hour. The men's room is around the corner here on our right, and the women's room is over there on our left."
"Good, take me to the men's room."
"Yes, Master." She stepped forward, tugging the harness, and he followed.
The men's' room was large, mostly bank upon bank of urinals. There were one or two men in there. The reek of urine, faintly exciting, spun biographies out at her like bees attacking a hungry bear. Scents of health, disease, feast and famine, illicit relations... They all rushed to sing their choruses in her nose. She trotted the boy over to do his business, feeling the dampness of less careful visitors under her feet, and stepped back.
One of the men down the aisle a bit looked up at her as if she'd come in toting a machine gun. She heard the trickle of his urine dry up like a river bed in Death Valley. She tried not to look at him. Or anyone.
"I'm done," the boy called to her. She padded back over and guided his hand to her harness, and then showed him to the wash basins. She could feel the eyes on her back.
The boy sighed, letting her bring his hands to the soap dispenser and doing the rest. "Faith, why didn't you just drive me?"
"Now, Master, you know I'm not allowed to drive on the big highways. Just in the city. Between the fingers, please. Do a good job, now."
"Why don't you just lick him clean?"
It was muttered. The boy would never have heard it, but she did. Her mind raced with clever replies, but it was not her place to make them. Her place was to look after the boy, and picking a fight with a rude man in a washroom was hardly the way to go about it. She swallowed the insult, one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, and helped the child dry his hands.
