Barking Dog

“Hey,” I tried to get Kelly’s attention, but she just kept on talking to Sam and Erica. The four of us stood right next to the stereo and the music was just a tad too loud for me; I could barely hear the others talk. It was already way past ten o’clock and I was tired and the flashing lights from the little disco ball kept disorienting me, so now dizziness started to get to me in addition to everything else. “Kelly,” I said to her.

She turned around, annoyed. “What is it?” she demanded.

“I need to go to the toilet.” I said it into her ear so no one else would hear.

“I told you not to talk unless you’re spoken to,” she said and yanked on my leash. It hurt a bit. Sam and Erica both laughed, but they tried not to look at me.

“How’d you even convince her to go through with this?” Erica asked Kelly. She was dressed like a nurse in a cropped top. Sam looked like an evil witch, green face paint and all.

“Oh, it already does what I tell it to do anyway,” Kelly said. “The leash and collar were really just the final step, you know.” They all laughed and went back to talking about whatever. School gossip or TV shows or something. I couldn’t have cared less.

My bladder kept getting fuller by the minute until my lower abdomen began to sting painfully and it just wouldn’t go away. I tried to shift around, but nothing seemed to relieve the pain except crouching down, but when I tried to do that, Kelly pulled at my leash again and forced me to stand up. Finally, I started whimpering to get her attention. “I think she wants something,” Sam said.

“You shouldn’t call it she,” Kelly said. “I think that gives it too much confidence.” I pawed at her arm. “Ugh, fine,” she spat in my face. “What is it?”

“I need to go to the toilet,” I told her again. I didn’t care if Sam and Erica heard it this time.

Kelly looked at me with a mixture of disgust and annoyance. “Alright,” she said. “My mutt needs to take a piss,” she announced to her friends, rolling her eyes. “I’ll be back in five.”

Once we were in the bathroom, Kelly locked the door behind us. She kept holding my leash close. “I told you not to talk while we’re here,” she said. “Otherwise our couple costume won’t work.” I could still hear the muffled music blaring downstairs. My head spun. I hadn’t eaten all day.

“I know, but I really needed to pee.”

She sighed audibly. “Fine.” She crossed her arms. I stood there frozen. “Then what are you waiting for? Go piss!”

“Can you… look away?”

“God, you’re pathetic,” she said, but turned around anyway. The whole time, she tapped her foot in annoyance. Once I was done and had flushed, she yanked me towards the door.

“Ngh, no. I need to wash my hands.”

“You’re a dog, you don’t need to wash your hands,” she said. “They’re your paws, anyway. You should call them that. And no one’s gonna let a dog with dirty paws touch them, so you don’t need to wash them.”

“No, I do. I wanna get a drink. I can’t get a drink if I don’t wash my hands.”

“They only have cups anyway,” Kelly said. “And those definitely aren’t for dogs.”

“I haven’t had anything to drink since we came here, Kelly.”

“You drank something at my place.”

“Yeah, a cup of orange juice. I’m thirsty. My throat hurts.”

“I thought you fucking agreed to this?” She got all up in my face now, looking down on me. Her eyes were like fire—and the plastic devil horns didn’t help the impression. “You wanted to go this party together, right? I was gonna be the demon princess of hell and you my little Cerberus pup, right? You said you’d like this. You want me to tell you what to do. That’s what you always say.”

“I do.”

“Tell me that you love me.”

I hesitated for only a second. “I love you.”

She patted me on the head twice. “Good girl,” she said. “Now go back to being a dog and stop talking.” She pulled at my leash with a gentle tug. “Come on. Don’t you want to be my little puppydog?”

“I do, but I want to have fun here too.”

“This is fun. I know you like being told what to do.”

“I do, but not like this.”

“I do, but not like this,” she repeated back at me in a mocking voice. “God, you’re the most pathetic, embarrassing girl I’ve ever dated. Sometimes I’m afraid to even be seen with you.” She looked aimlessly around the room. “I hope Sam and Erica don’t think we’re making out in here or something.”

I could feel my face starting to flush. The pain in my upper leg came back and I tried to gently massage it. “Can I stay in here for a couple of minutes?” I asked. I didn’t dare to look at her.

“What, so you can cut yourself?” I didn’t answer. My eyes started burning. I kept massaging my leg and Kelly must’ve noticed. “Oh my God, you already cut yourself before we came here, didn’t you? That’s why you wanted me to turn around while you were pissing. Fucking Christ.” She stomped her foot on the tiled floor. “Show me!”

“Whuh? No.”

She pulled on my leash and I almost stumbled. “Show me or I’ll fucking make you!”

“I don’t want to.”

“Feeling confident, huh?” She started by grabbing my ass and then patted down my legs. “You’ve got it with you, haven’t you? A-ha!” She pulled the box cutter out of my pants’ side pocket. “You know I could get you thrown out of this party if I told Ryan that you brought a knife? Maybe he’ll even call the police on you. Or I could scream and tell them you tried to attack me with it. You know, they’d put you in jail for that. Do you think you could survive in jail? Huh? A tiny girl like you in jail? A sad little puppygirl like you next to all these big burly men that got there because they killed someone. You think you could survive that?” She grinned at me, holding my neon yellow box cutter right in front of my face. “Now show me!”

Reluctantly, I undid my belt and pulled down my cargo pants. The band-aids on my upper left thigh had already soaked through with blood. “Aww, did you overdo it again?” Kelly’s face was beaming with glee. “Let me see.” She ripped off the band-aid in one quick motion and I had to make an effort not to cry out. The cuts were still fresh and sticky with congealed blood. “I thought I’d managed to get you to finally stop this, but I guess that whole conditioning thing only works on real dogs. Or maybe you just need more direct punishment. What do you think?” She smiled at me. My stomach felt hot, not with flittering butterflies but with the feeling of molten lead.

“Please don’t,” I said and backed away from her, but the bathroom was small and she stood between me and the door and she followed me step for step and my pants were still around my ankles.

“Oh no, I think you need this. Or else you might never stop.” She put the box cutter in her back pocket and flexed her fingers. Her fingernails were long and red as blood with little black pentagrams drawn on them. “I don’t think I’ll need to do this more than once anyway.” Kelly pushed her nails into my wounds. It felt like lightning striking my spinal cord and turning me inside out. My vision blacked out. I doubled over in pain, but she pulled me upright again and dug her fingers into the wound once more, five twisting-turning knives. My whole leg was burning up with fire. “You still want to cut yourself after this? You want me to do this every time from now on? Want me to check your legs everyday and punish you in case you messed up again?” Her face was right next to mine. I could smell the alcohol in her breath, all warm and moist and sour. “You’re gonna be a good dog after this and behave yourself, right?” I could feel the burning lead rising in my esophagus. “Do you still feel like this is better than— oh, fuck!” I had puked directly onto her arm. I couldn’t stop it. She let go of me and I fell to the ground and retched till my stomach stopped spasming. I hadn’t eaten anything, so it was just orange juice and bile that came up.

“Fucking disgusting,” Kelly mumbled to herself. She was soaking her sleeve in the sink. “God, I fucking hate you sometimes.” I kneeled in my own puke puddle. My head felt completely clear all of a sudden. “You should clean that up, by the way,” Kelly said. “I’m not gonna help you. Not after you’ve behaved like this, you stupid brat. I’ll go back to the party as soon as I’ve got your vomit out of my shirt. Ugh, this thing’s probably ruined now thanks to you.” I got up slowly. The cuts on my thigh were bleeding, warm streams of blood flowing all the way down onto my pants. They hurt whenever I put pressure on that leg.

I took the box cutter out of Kelly’s back pocket. She turned around. Her sleeve was still stained yellow. “Oh what,” she said, “you’re gonna cut yourself, again?” I didn’t say anything. She looked at me for a second before her eyes began to widen. I extended the blade as far as I could and pushed it into her stomach, just above the belly button and below the hem of her top. It took barely any force. I must have hit an artery or something because all at once the blood came gushing out of her like so much cranberry juice and spilling onto the floor. She didn’t even say anything, just slid wordlessly down to the floor, hitting her head on the edge of the marble countertop for good measure. I didn’t cut myself; I just pulled up my pants, slid the cutter back into my pocket and opened the bathroom window.