Caged - A pet-girl's story

The Pact

"I'm sorry about earlier," Alex said still looking too embarrassed to hold Gipsy's gaze and avoiding it by pretending to look at a nearby flower, but her movements were too deliberated and awkward, and there was a blush in her cheeks. "My parents like to believe they're really kind and humane for saving me from going to the Pet Academy when I was a baby..." Alex said irritated, kicking one of the many rocks in the floor, which flew away into the bushes. "They think they're so different from everybody else, but they're too stupid or too shallow to understand that if they work all the time and we barely get to see each other for half an hour a day during the meals, they're being just as cruel as every other owner in the world." She held Gipsy's gaze now, her courage too inflamed by her indignation to avoid it.

The blond girl didn't look away and there was a certain look of challenge in her eyes, as if she partially agreed or, at least wanted to keep on listening to someone criticize the hypocrisy she had just thought of a few minutes earlier, while talking to the Vances.

"I mean," Alex continued less sure now that Gipsy's savage gaze had intimidated her quite a bit. "Why have a pet if you're going to ignore it all day because you work overtime and travel a lot? Well... it's the same with a kid." She blurted out looking at the flower again, after she realized mid sentence that it was probably not the same and started to feel stupid for having started talking like that to someone like Gipsy.

Alex's "pet" looked really irritated now, which gave her face a scary look, as if she were a caged wild animal who could just attack its trainer at the smallest provocation. Alex sank her head into her shoulders involuntarily, trying to become smaller or prepare for an attack, but it didn't come. Instead, there was a verbose explosion, which startled her, as she was used to her school mates' pets who never talked back.

"Do you really think it's the same!?" The blond spat furiously. "You might have been on the verge of becoming someone like me but you and I are nothing alike! You think your life is harsh because your parents don't pay attention to you!? At least they care about you enough to have rescued you from a horrible fate! They gave you a home and practically an apartment of your own... and the right to be a free citizen, to be educated and to choose what to study, where to live, whom to marry!!" Gipsy didn't realize when she had started yelling, but Alex was backing off slowly, too intimidated to defend herself or even look at her "pet".

"You're just a pampered rich girl who has no idea of what the real world looks like, of what kind of hell you've been saved!" The tomboy had started to get tired of yelling and seemed to be talking in a more normal volume now. "If you weren't you and your parents weren't pro pet liberation I would be chained to the wall... or even worse, still caged in that tiny hell of a cell where a perverted teenager would use me to experiment and fulfill all his darkest fantasies without even stopping to think for a moment that it's a human being he's dealing with, not an object! Have you ever thought of that!? Haven't your friends told you what they force their pets to do!?" She had started to yell again as indignation rose welled in her chest again at the memory of the stories her cell mates who had been returned told her at night. Those were true horror stories Gipsy had gone to sleep to for years and she couldn't believe someone Alex's age wouldn't know what she was talking about.

Alex was now beyond all fear, too fascinated by that scary young lady to take her eyes off her despite the fact that she was completely terrified of what Gipsy might do next. She wondered how someone who had looked so innocent and lost at her arrival could have become such a fearsome view in a matter of hours, but, then again, she could have been using her doll-like features to get her way in the cold, cruel world she was describing or, at least, to have an easier time than most, since everyone knew the prettiest pets didn't get beaten as often. You just couldn't damage the most valuable merchandise.

Gipsy took the stare as a provocation and kept on talking. "Hypocrite. People like you disgust me! Do you think you'd have lasted a week in the hell hole I come from with that kind of mind-set? You complain about the people who give you everything you could have possibly want. Do you even know the kind of things I've been through!?" That seemed to make Alex snap out of it and get defensive herself.

"No. You're right, I don't." The tone of her voice was definitely challenging now, and she was holding Gipsy's gaze with fury, because she had always thought that each person's pain was to be measured according to his or her life experiences and not compared to other people's, but now that she was being insulted so openly, Alex found herself unable of letting it go as she would in school, just to avoid an argument. She wanted to defend herself, she wanted to prove her wrong but, above all, she wanted to understand Gipsy, because she had asked for a friend and now it seemed they were both stuck with each other, so there was up to both girls to find a solution to their own problems. After all, Gipsy was the closest thing to a friend Alex had, even if they were yelling and arguing. "But I want to know," she added after a pause where her eyes locked on Gipsy's and challenged her to keep on talking down to her.

Gipsy was stunned, not sure she had understood right. A half smile had started to appear in her face, which would surely be followed by an ironic remark, but Alex went on before she could say a word.

"I want to understand what you're talking about and to know the kind of things you've been through." She defied her. "We're friends, right? We're supposed to understand and support each other, but I have no idea of what your life has been like, though it sounds very tough." "That's the understatement of the century," Gipsy ironized. "Well, then. Teach me." Alex ordered firmly. "I'll be the pet and you can be the master. Do what you want with me, make me understand..." She said defiantly, her eyes burning with determination. "You have three months to bring me up to date on what's it like at the Pet Academy and what I'm likely to expect from a master."

Gipsy laughed presumptuously and Alex tensed up, furious for not being taken seriously. "Don't laugh! I mean it! You say you're better than me because there's a lot of things I don't know about the terrible life in the Academy or after you're adopted. Fine! Let's swap places. You say I wouldn't last a week. I disagree. You wanted a chance at freedom? Prove me wrong, MASTER!" She spat irritated, but still tended Gipsy her hand to seal the deal with a shake.

"First of all, you're out of your mind. No wonder they wanted to place you at the Academy," she said openly, her arms crossed over her chest. "And, second, do you think that your activist parents will ever allow this experiment of yours?"

"They don't need to know about it. They're never home anyway and, when they are, they don't come up into my chambers anyway." Alex explained as if talking to a five year old, her hand still stretched towards Gipsy.

The blond looked at her, studying Alex as if looking for a hole in the contract. "And you won't resist, complain or call it back, no matter what I do to you, just to prove me wrong?" She asked unable to believe such a nonsense. A pampered girl could never stand all the pain and strain... Alex nodded, stubbornly. "Don't tell me you're afraid of being on charge for a change?" She taunted.

"You kidding!? I've been waiting for this all my life. You want to know what a slave life is like? Fine! Suit yourself! I'll show you what it means to be a human pet." And Gipsy shook Alex's hand firmly a couple of times before letting go. "You've got ten days to mentally prepare yourself." Gipsy warned her.