Sit, Stay, Good Dog

He takes her for a walk in the woods. They hold hands at first; a couple out for a stroll. It’s a bright day. Sun-dappled. Pleasant. Half a mile down the track, having seen not a single other person, he puts the collar on her. The metal one, which locks with a screw. She makes sure to keep pace just a half-step behind him. Bad puppies tug. Good puppies heel.

A way further on they leave the path. He has her hold the leash in her mouth while he takes her dress off her and helps her step out of her underwear. Sunlight on naked skin. He takes the leash back and leads her away through the undergrowth.

There are brambles. She whines when they catch her thighs, open scratches on her skin. She doesn’t speak. She knows what she’d get if she did: a swift tap on the nose, an admonishment. “Puppies don’t speak,” he would tell her. Remind her, actually, since she knows the rules already.

They pick and poke and scratch their way through the forest until they arrive at a small clearing. A tree lurches crooked in the centre. He marches her up to it, loops the end of the leash around a limb and clips it into place.

He unshoulders his bag, and from it takes a shallow metal dish. He put it on the ground and decants an inch of water from his flask into it. He pulls out one of her chew toys too: a rubber bone that squeaks when you squish it. He places it beside the bowl.

She feels… uncertain. Wary. She wants to rub her head against him and have him touch her and maybe talk to her. She would really like him to talk to her. To explain the game that they’re playing. But she doesn’t want to break the game either. She pulls on the leash, trying to reach him. Absently, he pats her on the head.

“Good girl,” he says. “Sit. Stay.”

She sits. He shoulders his bag and, without a backward look, leaves the clearing.

She can hear him moving away from her through the trees for a long time. He’s going far away. Is he really going? She looks around her. The clearing is sun-spotted and pleasant, but terribly, smotheringly quiet. She has exactly one metre of play in her leash. He’ll be back soon, surely.

She sits for a while. Probably, she thinks, he is watching. This is a test. She is a dog. What would a dog do? A dog might bark for its owner. She barks for him, feeling stupid as she does. She stops quickly, too. The noise feels loud out here in the forest. She’s worried about who or what might hear it. She whines a little instead.

Ten minutes pass. Twenty. She sits. Waits, bored. Dogs wouldn’t get bored, would they? She curls up and tried to sleep, but it’s not happening. Dogs wouldn’t worry either. Dogs would wait, patiently and faithfully. Good dogs, anyway. That’s what she’ll do. She’ll wait for him, however long it takes.

She tells herself that. Repeats his last instructions to her. Sit. Stay. Uses those words as a mantra to quash the rising unease (almost panic) in her stomach. She is a naked woman, alone in the woods, chained to a tree. An absurd situation to be in. Anyone could be out here. Men or animals. The sensible thing to do would be to undo the leash. Find her way back to the path. The sensible thing to do would be to do something.

But she’s a dog. A dog couldn’t undo the leash. It couldn’t plan. She sits. Eventually she picks up the rubber bone (with her mouth in case he’s watching) and worries at it for something to do. She’s thirsty. She eyes the bowl. Stupid not to just pick it up and drink her fill. Utterly, utterly stupid. She thinks about it for far too long, until the thirst gets to be too much. Then she gets down on hands and knees, lowers her face to the bowl and laps up some water.

Her bladder she ignores for the longest time. She won’t. Not that. It’s undignified. Stupid. An hour passes with her ignoring the swell and pull in the pit of her stomach. Then it’s too much to ignore. She moves around the trunk as far as the leash will allow and squats. Her piss patters on the dry leaves. Relief.

She feels calm for a while after that. Truly dog-like. A little creature naked and tied up in the forest, waiting for her master. He’ll come. She thinks wordless, doggy thoughts of him.

The day dies. Sunlight gives way to a dim, lazy warmth that radiates up through the forest floor. It’s getting dark, way up above her, the sky turning blue to black to void-colour. If this is a game it’s gone too far. She places a hand on the clip of the leash. Pauses. Thinks. Not a hand. A paw. She lets it slip. Dogs trust. She curls up again and chews her bone, ignoring the human worry squirming in her lungs.

Cold comes with the night. Slow, creeping cold. Her joints get stiff. Her skin goosepimples. Nothing to cuddle up under. Naked, naked, naked. She hugs herself and whines.

It’s fully night before she hears movement in the trees. Her heart races. Hunters? Deer? Smaller, snuffling animals? Forest men? Criminals? The noise of movement becomes all these things. More and worse things. She shakes. Fear not cold – a big shiver of it that grips her from head to toe.

She hunkers on the forest floor. Small and dog-like. Panicking. But dogs don’t panic. Dogs trust their humans. Implicitly. Dumbly. And so she takes a breath. Paws at the loam beneath her naked skin. Feels the collar around her neck.

Through the dark of the forest, someone is coming. She cannot see who, but she trusts it is him.