Caged - A pet-girl's story

Mr. and Mrs. Vance

Alex felt grateful for the interruption. For some reason, she had started to feel a little awkward around Gipsy. It wasn't the fact that she was older and sassy, or completely different than she had appeared to be in the beginning. A strong woman, not a little girl who needed protection. It was something else.

When she had asked for a pet, what she really wanted was a friend, someone who shared her interests and views about the world. Gipsy came from a dissimilar background and her life had been radically different from hers. There weren't many things they could share and they certainly wouldn't be able to talk as equals, since she knew a lot about books and the real world, while Gipsy's experiences had made her more mature in another aspects.

That thought made Alex sad. It was something she should have thought about before asking for a pet, but it had just occurred to her in that moment and felt like she needed some time to think about the matter. Maybe she would be able to find a solution to that problem, but, in the mean while, she just felt awkward.

During her daydreaming sessions, Alex had pictured herself as the superior being, kindly but condescendingly teaching her new pet about the real world. She wanted to be a good owner and give it freedom to choose of course, but there was something comforting about being the one with the higher ground. However, when it came to Gipsy she found herself in a disadvantage position. The girl knew words she had never heard of, had a personal opinion on The Company, the world's economy and morals, among a long list of other things as she discovered while cutting her hair. It made her feel inadequate and childish and she was supposed to be the master.

Alex knew that thought was unfair. She knew that after spending half her life criticizing all that people who thought that they were better or superior to their pets, she had no right to think like that without becoming a hypocrite, but she couldn't help the way she felt. And she didn't want to be a hypocrite. Of course she would try harder to become humble and a good master for Gipsy, but she couldn't help feeling guilty about that tiny part of her head that declared that she would have been better off without her in the first place.

"We're coming!" Alex answered through the intercom, then turned to Gipsy. "Ready to meet my parents?" She asked a little nervous at the though of the impending scolding. "Sure. They're pro-pet-liberation, right? How bad can it be?" Gipsy joked, happy to be in a house where she was allowed to talk and to have an opinion instead of sharing her cell mates' fates. All those stories about having to endure whatever the master -or mistress- ordered them to and all those classes where the trainer insisted that they should always ask for permission before doing anything seemed like a scary tale for kids now and she was glad. Ending up in a house where all the protocols applied, where she wasn't allowed to smile or laugh without permission or wear whatever clothes she liked, had always been her worst nightmare.

"Gipsy?" Alex asked her from the trap door. "Huh? Sorry," she apologized coming back to Earth. "What did you say?" "I said let's go before dinner gets cold. I'm already in enough trouble for having my aunt buy you for me. I don't need to give my mother another reason to be mad at me." For some reason, Alex's genuine concern about her mother's opinion made her smile. The worst the woman could do to her was probably grounding her and she was worried. After all that Gipsy had been through, that made the girl look like a nervous Nelly, getting all nervous even though people wouldn't hit her or lock her up no matter how bad her behavior. "You're cute, you know?" Gipsy told her as they walked to the dinning room.

Alex looked at her puzzled and then shrugged with a laugh. "If you say so." She didn't really see what Gipsy meant or what her line of thought had been to arrive at such conclusion. She was too young and immerse in her own reality to realize her worries could have looked stupid to someone who had been in to The Company's Academy for human pets.

"So, should I behave... you know... like I was taught at the Academy?" Gipsy asked slightly nervous despite her huge effort to hide it and appear confident and relaxed. Alex noticed she was tense and smiled at her warmly to ease her fears. "Nah, you don't need to act in front of them. They're good people..." she said and then lowered her eyes for a moment. "What is it?" Gipsy asked noticing her reaction as well. "I just wish they worked less and spent more time with me. Sometimes I feel like the only way they know how to show affection is buying me expensive stuff..." she felt stupid to be complaining about having too many nice things when Gipsy had probably spent her whole life in a cage without anything she could call her own, not even her own body.

"I... I know it sounds silly..." she added quickly. "And I don't mean to sound childish or ungrateful..." "I know," Gipsy interrupted her in a friendly way, with a warm smile on her face. She knew where Alex was going, but she didn't care about it. She was older and could put things in perspective, so she understood that for someone whose world was pretty close to perfect, every little drama probably seemed like a tragedy. It made sense for someone like Alex to worry about inoffensive stuff and she even remembered a lesson or two about that in the Academy. Her trainer had said something about masters having a tendency to call little issues terrible problems and advised that they should never let them know just how wrong they were. They were supposed to never mention their own realities or anything that happened within the Academy in general. Obviously, Gipsy had always had a certain disdain for rules, so she didn't care and was sure Alex wouldn't denounce her to The Company.

The house was huge. It had many wings and rooms and a couple of servants even lived there all the time, in their own rooms. They weren't required to wear an uniform, but their clothes were always neat and clean and they were polite to everyone. Apparently, Alex's parents were very high in the government, Gipsy thought. She found ironic the fact that a couple working for the government, which was obviously in bed with The Company, would be against human pets, but then again, life was ironic.

They entered the dinning room side by side, then Alex stopped by the table to make the introductions. Her parents were looking at Gipsy with obvious curiosity, but were polite enough as to not harass her with questions.

"Mom, Dad, this is Gipsy," Alex said with a little smile, not wanting to appear too enthusiastic about a pet-girl in front of her pro-pet-liberation parents. "Gipsy, this are George and Kate, my parents." Gipsy smiled at the half-bald man with the squarish glasses and the prominent belly and then to the much younger blond who was beaming at her in a maternal sort of way. 

"Nice to meet you George, Kate," Gipsy said making a small courtesy just to annoy Alex, who felt uncomfortable when her mother, after seeing that, glared at her. Only a second later, Kate had turned to Gipsy and was smiling warmly again. Gipsy was trying her hard not to giggle at the whole situation and managed to just show a smile. "It's our pleasure, my dear. Please, you don't need to do that for us," she said kindly before turning to Alex.

A frown appeared in Kate's face as soon as she did that. "How come you haven't told Gipsy that she doesn't need to act like a trained person in front of us, Alex? I had expected more from you," Her mother complained and Gipsy suppressed another giggle, but Alex noticed that her eyes were reflecting her amusement and stomped on her feet subtly. Nobody else noticed and Gipsy turned to Alex and smiled innocently, making her giggle.

"I'm happy to see that you two are already getting along," George said in a way that showed that he was trying his best to be polite when he clearly didn't agree with the arrangement to begin with. It wasn't that he didn't want a pet eating at the table like the rest of the family, but the fact that she existed as an animal to the system, not the normal girl she should have been, that bothered him. "And I hope that you feel welcome to our family, Gipsy," he added then, in a ceremonious tone. "Please feel at home and do as you please."

"Thank you," Gipsy said with a smile. She didn't care his obvious inner debate, the one causing Alex to put an angry face at her father for not being nicer. He was being much kinder than any other male she had met in her entire life and that was enough for her. "I hope I'm not giving you too much trouble. I wouldn't want to..." she was too excited about the idea of finally tasting a little freedom and couldn't find the right word to express her gratitude.

Alex noticed that Gipsy had radically changed her behavior again. Ever since they got downstairs, she had been acting like an overly excited teenager, hyper about being allowed to go to a party she really wanted to attend. She was barely able to refrain from grinning and looked like she was about to start bouncing with excitement any moment. She didn't really understand why Gipsy would act like that after having acted like a sassy girl and a scared little orphan before, but she found it interesting and couldn't take her eyes off her, listening to her every word intently. Gipsy was different from anything and anyone Alex had seen before.

N/A: Please keep reading. Three chapters from here it starts getting really hardcore and much more interesting. Thanks for your time.