Chapter 24: Six Months In

Six months.

It felt like a lifetime and no time at all. The shelter parking lot, the air conditioner, and the toilet paper rules belonged to someone else. Another woman. Another life.

Internal: Six months ago, you were a homeless bitch with a stolen tablet and a death wish. Now you have a job, a home, a daughter who loves you, and a man who spanks you when you need it. Life is weird.

The morning of our six-month anniversary, I woke up in the outdoor kennel.

Emily was pressed against me, her face between my legs, still asleep. The sun was just rising, painting the mesh roof gold. Somewhere in the house, Aaron was making coffee.

I didn’t move. Didn’t wake her. Just lay there, breathing, feeling the weight of her against me.

Internal: This is what peace feels like. Not the absence of struggle, the presence of something worth struggling for.

Aaron found us an hour later.

He walked across the yard, two mugs in his hands, and knelt beside the kennel.

“Morning, ladies.”

“Morning, Master,” I said.

Emily stirred, blinked, and looked around. “What time is it?”

“Almost eight.”

“I slept late.”

“You needed it.”

He handed us the coffee, black for me, sweet for her, and sat on the grass.

“Six months,” he said.

“Six months,” I echoed.

“Doesn’t feel that long.”

“Feels like forever.”

“Good forever?”

I thought about it. The pain. The humiliation. The kennel nights that left us bruised and crying. The warehouse days left me exhausted. The arguments, the tears, the safe words we never used.

“Yes,” I said. “Good forever.”

Internal: Good forever. Because forever is just a series of nows. And right now, you’re happy.

Emily’s GED test was in three days.

She’d been studying every afternoon, her laptop open on the kitchen table, her naked body hunched over the screen. Aaron helped her with math. I helped her with writing. She was ready.

“Are you nervous?” I asked.

“Terrified.”

“Good. That means you care.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“Because it’s true.”

She finished her coffee and crawled out of the kennel. The morning light caught her body, the scars from the cane, faded now to white lines. The curve of her hips. The small breasts that had grown heavier in the months of good food.

Internal: She’s becoming a woman. Not the angry, snarling creature who arrived here, a woman. Strong. Capable. Ready.

“What’s on the schedule today?” she asked.

“Warehouse for me. School for you. Kennel tonight?”

“Kennel tonight,” she agreed.

The warehouse was quiet.

Gary was long gone. Janice had been promoted to shift supervisor. Marcus had given me more responsibility for inventory audits, supply orders, and training new hires.

“Amber,” Marcus said, appearing at my desk. “Delores wants to see you.”