XVI.

 

In those days I just followed my nose and I didn't get far. It was my

mother who escaped us all, after all. I might have stayed in the one

place if master hadn't taken me in. I had habits of following and no

ideas of my own, none that I remember.

Anyway I followed another person. I think it was that time I began

noticing other men's reactions to me. My companion noticed too, but he

pretended not to understand. Sometimes he got angry at me because I did

not think of the future, I did not know how to plan ahead, I made many

mistakes. So I began learning human things.

 

I will write the story of our journeys. The story will tell of some men

he made friends with and brought to our rooms. I would roll about on the

floor and they would pounce on me, come down on me, grab me and pin me

down, tie me up with string and laugh when I struggled. They always

ended up fucking me, or me them, while my friend watched. I thought this

was part of what happened at parties, and anyway, rolling and tumbling

has always aroused me, so I did not dislike this type of fun he made.

 

But one day he became quite angry over something and told me suddenly

that he had got money from those friends, but he had not told me this

before. He said he could never love or respect a thing with a tail, or

any thing that men kept looking at all the time, any thing that was so

open to any person's touch. He didn't touch me then, but a pain came

into my stomach. I was always thinking that he was bringing friends to

me for playing and we were sharing our bodies. I was happy and his

friends were happy and I was being a partner for his watching. I did not

know that he hated me for it. I noticed then that actions and words can

be different from what people are really thinking. It made my stomach

hurt, which is strange another part of my body in the middle.

 

He went away, left me in the room and I waited. I waited for two days

until the pain became very bad and I started vomiting. Also, I began

crying. It was very upsetting as water had not come out of my eyes

before that, and I did not know what to do. I cried so hard that my

stomach turned inside out and little bits of liquid and the dried

biscuits I was eating came out again in dribbles.

I got better though, and I think it was good to have such a thing happen,

because it made me know that I am a human as well, I can get pain from

emotions.

But a bad thing is that I can never believe words are real things

anymore. It reminds me of the lines fireflies make in the air in the

dark. They look pretty of course, but you can't catch them.

<-- scene XV

--> scene XVII.

pre-face