“Yes!” I replied as he approached. I used the light from my cell phone again to shine it on Dusty. “I was on the walking path and heard whimpers. I found him like this. Can you go up to the house and find someone to help? I’ll stay here with him.”
“Shit! Yes, I’ll be right back,” the man said and took off toward the path.
“How long have you been coming here?” I asked Dusty to keep his mind off his injuries.
“A few years.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six. I’m not a puppy anymore,” he offered up.
The barbed wire had caused a lot of damage to his skin, and there was blood and dirt residue all over him. Beyond the blood and dirt, I could tell that he had a well-muscled frame.
I reached over his side to see if I could undo his gloves. His fingers flexed, and he wrapped two of his fingers around my thumb.Trust.I’m sure whatever he’d endured was scary and humiliating. He’d trusted people here and ended up assaulted and left for dead. Right now, though, he recognized me as being someone who wouldn’t hurt him.
The man returned with a few other guys; one of them was one of the owners, Ted. He had bolt cutters and lightly joked about it being a little overkill, but it got Dusty out of the wire. We carefully unwrapped the wire, and as we got toward the end, we discovered they had taken his harness off and weaved the wire around his chest. Ted unbuckled Dusty’s harness at his back, and as I slowly pulled it away, we discovered blood from wounds had pooled inside the bottom of the harness. Trails of blood ran down his abdomen to the waistband of his jockstrap. Once he was free of the wire, we helped him stand.
“We’ve had the occasional evening or two where patrons have had an accident or needed some medical care. But never have we had something like this,” Ted said as we walked slowly with Dusty toward the main house. “When we get inside, we can take you to the first aid center and then we’ll file a police report.”
“I don’t want to file a report,” Dusty said.
“Dusty, you need to,” I urged. “Whoever did that to you might do it to someone else. They disgrace the dynamic between a master and their pet.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Dusty, they tied you up in barbed wire, beat you, and shoved a stick in your ass,” I reminded him.
“Was your consent violated, Dusty?” Ted asked.
“I had my pup gear on. That was my consent,” Dusty said quietly.
Once we got inside under the lights, I could see his body more clearly, and he was an absolute mess. He was in so much pain that he could barely sit on the exam table in the first aid area. Dusty still had his fingers wrapped around my thumb. Everyone saw it, but no one tried to pull his hand away from mine. The man who I had stopped on the trail stood back in the doorframe and watched as the medic began to clean Dusty up. I held an ice pack over his cheek and eye on the right side of his face while the medic and owner worked on his arms and torso.
“Dusty, who did this? Was it someone who checked you out from Zack? Remember, I can go down there and find out who checked you out.” Dusty remained silent, and Ted relented some and switched gears. “If you won’t file the report with the police, then you need to at least confirm the individual, or individuals, involved so I can ban them from playing here.”
“Then word will travel that I was a pussy. Then masters won’t want to play with me. Then I’ll never be someone’s forever friend.”
“Dusty, you will be. You have a heart of gold, and you are a favorite to so many masters here. One just hasn’t been worthy of you,” Ted told him.
I tried to look more closely at him beyond the puffy eyes and swollen jaw. I recognized him now. The times that I had played here, Dusty was never available for me to play with. I had heard wonderful things about him and how he truly embraced his inner pup. Even though he had been a puppy during my prior visits to The Pound, he had an exceptional reputation. I would have pushed the fact that he was a puppy aside to experience him for a weekend. Had he ever been available, I would have checked him out from Zack.
“Was it that group of college-aged guys that were teasing you on the patio?” I asked.
Maybe he was afraid to bring anything up or point anyone out. But, fuck, they’d almost killed this kid. The owner looked at me and then to Dusty.
“Was it them?” Ted asked Dusty to confirm.
Dusty eventually nodded, and I looked at the owner.
“I can describe them if you need. I saw them spanking him. Some guys climbed all over them for throwing the stick way out in the open field for him. They weren’t in the fetch area and were blindly hurling the stick around.”
“I’ll take a look at the surveillance footage and make sure they are banned from the property.”
As the medic finished cleaning the cuts and scrapes, the owner told Dusty he would put him in one of the rooms in the masters’ house for the night.
“It’s okay. I think I want to go home,” Dusty said as he stared down at his dirty and banged up pup mask and hood.
“It’s a long drive back to the city, Dusty, and it’s late. You’ve had quite the evening, and I don’t think it would be very safe for you to be out on the road. I’ll have a room ready for you shortly. Go down to the pound and get your things from your locker and bring them up to the house,” Ted insisted.
