Pets: Bach's Story by Darla Phelps Page A

both her wrists behind her back and hugged her close to still her struggles. Lifting the back of her dress once more, he revealed the cluster of purplish lines cris-crossing all over her otherwise cream-colored buttocks from the top of her crack to the top of her thighs.
    “My, my,” Ralhan said. “Are those switch marks, or cane?”
    “We had a bit of a tantrum yesterday when it came time for her daily stretching. It took two switches before she’d settle down enough for me to strap her over the chair.” Bach patted her hip when he let her go, and Pani, blushing furiously, pulled her panties back up in one yank.
    Facing his chest, she sidled herself back into his embrace and stared off down the hallway. Binnie’s cries were loud and gaspy sobs, and the crisp smacking sounds, while no longer landing as frequently as before, could still be heard quite well.
    Pani’s chest heaved as she breathed. She glanced up at Bach with wide, solemn eyes.
    “Good girl Pani?”
    “Yes,” he reassured, caressing her long mane. “Pani’s a good girl.”
    Ralhan’s eyes bugged. “She said that so clearly!”
    “I told you. She’s building quite the vocabulary. She says something new almost every day now: more, potty, night-night, bowl, cup. Just this morning, she had the nerve to say ‘Bad Papa’ when I spanked her for going back to bed after I’d already got her up twice.”
    Ralhan laughed.
    And in the back of the house, the spanking stopped. The only sounds still audible were Binnie’s breathless sobs and the low murmur of Etle’s voice as she comforted and lectured the thoroughly punished pet.
    “When she comes out,” Ralhan said, “you’ll be astonished at the transformation one little hairbrush can make. Binnie gets a good one like that at least once a week. It’s a good training technique.”
    “Speaking of which,” Bach said as he patted Pani’s back and let her go. “I could use some advice.”
    “On?”
    “Eating,” Bach said simply. “Pani won’t. I have to force her just to get her to take a bottle, but when it comes to solid foods, she won’t even try it. So tell me, Sir Ralhan, and I will bow to your expertise: How do I get Pani to eat?”

    *
    Pani was positively swallowed up by the sheer size of the table and chairs Ralhan had set up for the pets. There were now five, plus one child. Ralhan had placed a call to his neighbors, who’d sent over their daughter, Rasha, and her pet, Mot. Mot was a dark-haired, dark-eyed male, dressed in a soft blue-and green-striped dress, floppy floral hat, and holding a matching hand pouch two-sizes too large for him. When they all sat down to tea, on Rasha’s command Mot poured. Mot was a very long-suffering pet.
    Party or no, Pani did not look like she was having a good time. Every time she blinked, her eyes shifted from Mot to another pet to the child—which made Bach a little nervous, since Pani was still considered quite wild and not very predictable under the best of circumstances—
    then to him, then back to Mot again.
    “Biscuits all around,” Rasha said as she extended the plate of cookies to each pet in turn.
    They all took one except for Sassa, who took two. When the plate was offered to Pani, she made no move to be cooperative.
    Finally, Bach said, “Pani…”
    Her gaze slid across the room to his, then she made a face and took a cookie.
    “Everybody eat,” Rasha said, and she began very delicately to pick up her biscuit, a messy piece stuffed with cream, and neatly bit into it.
    Leaning back in his chair, one hairy leg swinging idly, Mot unfolded one arm from across his chest long enough to snag a cookie and all the pets ate. Except, of course, for Pani, who stared at hers.
    Bach sighed. He had to pick out the most difficult pet. “Pani,” he warned again.
    She ate, but very grudgingly.
    “She’ll get it,” Ralhan said. “Patience is the key, you know.”
    “With her stubborn streak, it’ll take the patience of Booj to gain her