Sell

One of the trainers, one that I saw most often, wanted to sell me off to another owner. “Think of how much she’d go for,” he’d say. “She can be anything you want. Doesn’t complain, stays quiet.”

My owner disagreed. “She does complain. She doesn’t know how good she has it. Besides, she’s mine. She belongs to me.”

He’d stare down at me with this indescribable intensity, like a gleeful hunger.

“Say it. Say you belong to me. Say you’re mine.”

He held my arm really tight, squeezing and squeezing, and I keened in discomfort. “I belong to you. I’m yours.”