Chapter 26

TWENTY-SIX

ASHLEY

SIX MONTHS LATER

S pring flowers sprouted around the edge of my lawn. It looked like it might need the first mow of the season.

I didn't have a mower.

Gosh, there really were a billion more items I needed for my half empty ground-floor apartment. Inside was a touch too empty, my belongings still sparse after starting again.

I let myself in, smiling at the one part of my home which was overflowing with stuff. With Jerry, and the anchor of perpetual disappointment gone, I painted again. Canvases stacked along one wall, a desk bursting with tubes of paint in every shade beneath the sun. Paintbrushes, thin and chunky, fanned and straight.

My paintings were smutty depictions of pet girls and their owners, but stylised to be striking and up for interpretation.

At first, I'd painted in secret, working by day as a barista and spending evenings rediscovering my artistic side. Amy had walked in and seen one piece, and after giving me a ribbing about it, suggested I post them on Aimly.

Just like that, I had a new career. People wanted my pictures. Jerry had long told me that no-one ever would, hence why I'd given it up.

And I'd almost obsessively watched one particular leather-worker's store while I was there. I read the reviews. Had he chosen one of them to replace me?

My time with Bobby seemed almost a wild dream, a sordid vacation from my former life. I could trick myself that I'd imagined the entire thing to stave off the desire to reach out to him.

A relationship couldn't last based on stalking. It was the most ridiculous meet-cute to exist.

Yet, in the depth of night, when I lost myself to pleasure at my own hands, it was his I imagined. Repeating his dirty words and losing myself in sharp memories of him. I stoked them, feeding the hungry flames that consumed me until I came moaning his name into my pillows.

Bobby .

My laptop dinged, dragging me to the present. Another painting purchased, heading off to grace the home of another kinkster.

My fingers brought Bobby's page on screen before my brain had registered what I was doing. He'd changed the picture of his delicious arms to a new one. One I'd recognise in an instant.

It was the collar he'd made me, the one he'd buffed with his cum. The one that started everything.

The one that sat on my nightstand.

Biting my lip, I clicked through to his store and made a purchase. I replaced my old address with my new one.

There was a note box which asked for any personalisation on the leather paddle I'd bought. Tapping my chin, I considered it.

Eventually, I settled on one word.

PET.