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PENNY'S CAGE
TWENTY YEARS LATER
Penny gently disengaged the pup from her right
breast and laid it in the straw. The big Spaniel bitch who was suckling the
third of Penny's latest litter along with the
sole survivor of her own looked across at her lazily before closing her
eyes again. Rising to all-fours, Penny walked the few feet to where her strayed
male offspring was standing unsteadily on its tiny legs, mewing plaintively for
rescue. Lowering her head, Penny picked it up in her teeth by the flap of loose
skin at the back of its neck and carried back to where she'd been lying. The
pup she'd been feeding had now joined its sister in suckling from the bitch,
and Penny put down the pup she carried and lay down upon her left side.
Crooking an arm around the mewing little thing, she dragged it gently to her
full left breast. She felt its toothless, slimy, little gums fasten upon her
nipple, and she made a soft little sound of pleasure and physical relief as the
pressure in her swollen udder was gradually eased.
Finally the gorged pup loosened its grasp on
her teat, and Penny pushed it gently away to join its sisters and the bitch's
own pup, now curled up asleep together in the protective curve of the Spaniel's
furry belly. Penny stretched herself on the straw in sheer animal contentment. She'd
been vaguely aware she'd been watched for some time by a man and two woman
standing just beyond the bars, and she mewed with pleasure as one of the women
crouched and put her hand through the bars to fondle her head. She rolled
lazily on to her back, her knees drawn up and her elbows planted on the floor
on either side of her chest, her fore-arms upright and her shapeless hands
dangling from her wrists. The woman began to scratch Penny's belly with her
gentle, slender fingers, and Penny made a repetitive, deep, contented noise in
the back of her throat, rather like the purring of a big cat.
But the 'Gods', as Penny increasingly thought
of them, finally walked away from her cage as they always did. Penny rolled
over and came to all-fours, yawning as she looked down at her pups, now safely
corralled by the long fore-leg of the big bitch. She padded over to the
litter-box and eased herself before going to the trough and lapping up its
water thirstily. Life was much better when her pregnancies were advanced and
when she was feeding her pups; then she was fed more often, usually two or
three times a day instead of once. And, on this occasion, when she'd given
birth to three pups instead of her more usual two, a large lactating dog was
put in her cage to help her feed them, sometimes with a pup of its own,
sometimes not.
Penny drank all the water in the trough, too
fast for its automatic mechanism to replace it. She and the bitch were
perpetually thirsty, striving to replace the liquid lost by their bodies to
their insatiable offspring. Then she sat in front of the trough, staring
absently out into the familiar Shed, always with one eye out for a 'God' who
might stop and pet her.
For Penny loved being petted. She loved being
scratched behind her ears and at the back of her neck just above her collar
through her thick mane of dirty hair, and she loved being stroked by the warm,
clean-smelling hands of the 'Gods' and 'Goddesses' outside her cage, knowing
they were proud of her, and of the pups she produced so easily and so often.
She thought about her pups for a long time.
She couldn't remember bearing her first ever litter of two, nor her own
reactions to the unusual shapes of their bodies; shapes which now seemed
entirely normal to her. And nor could she remember how many litters she'd
borne. It seemed to her sometimes that she'd spent her entire life either
pregnant or satifying the needs of an endless sucession of greedy little
mouths. But the continual swelling and emptying
of her udders, and the feeling of mindless happiness when she was lying on the
straw with her pups at her breasts were so enjoyable!
Penny's mind was unusually lively today, and
she pondered again for a moment on the antecedents of the male donors of DNA in
the genetic make-up of her pups. Sheep, she'd decided long ago, thinking of the
short, blunt, muzzles and the mild eyes. Their tiny bodies grew immensely fast;
in less than three months time they would be eighteen inches high at the
shoulder, and she would have to stand on all-fours to suckle them, and in six
they would be fully grown animals, as big and heavy as herself. But Penny had
rarely seen one of her adult offspring; taken from her at three months of age,
they grew up somewhere else on the premises. She had not the slightest idea of
what became of them once they were taken away from her, or for what purpose
they'd been bred. Perhaps they were used for Medical Research, she thought
hazily, or even sold as unusual pets. They would make good pets, Penny thought;
easy-tempered, docile and intelligent, bred without front teeth or claws. She
had seen several of them over the years, led past her her cage on leashes. Or,
perhaps, it was the same animal each time, for she couldn't tell them apart once
they'd passed a certain age. Like her they were hairless of body apart from a
thick thatch on their heads and between their hind-legs, though their's were
hind-legs were very different from hers; short and muscular, the same length as
their fore-legs. She might have been able to identify them by the serial
numbers tattooed in blue ink on the rear of their left upper thighs if she saw
them often enough, but she seldom had the opportunity.
Thinking of their identification tattoos
reminded Penny of the time she'd had her own number imprinted under her skin, a
long, long time ago. Two 'Gods' had stood in front of her cage, one carrying a
broad wooden cylinder studded with tiny needles and smeared with thick blue ink
along with a large, flat box holding a thick, ink-saturated pad. Penny had been
called to the corner and tethered by the short chain, then they'd entered her
cage. They'd walked straight over to her; one had seized her by her collar and
forced down her head while the other, after a few seconds, had struck her
violently from behind on the rear of her left thigh. The initial pain of the
blow had mostly hidden that of the needles entering her skin, but afterwards
she'd itched unbearably, and her flesh where she'd been hit swelled up
painfully. The irritation had subsided, and the swelling too, and she might
never have known what had been done to her until she saw one of her pups being
tattooed in the same crude manner. She no idea of her own number; try as she
might she couldn't twist her head and body far enough to see it.
She yawned. The water in the trough had now
reached its usual depth of an inch, and Penny bent her head and lapped again.
Then she returned to the pups where the bitch was waiting for her, wide-awake
and ready for Penny to take over the task of protecting their pups.
Penny lay down on her left side, close to and
facing the dog. The bitch rose carefully, and Penny extended both her arms to
surround the four little bodies. The dog walked away, and Penny closed her eyes
and dozed off only to be woken by the insistent pressure of a tiny muzzle
pressing against her left breast, blindly searching for her nipple. She looked
down at it. The Spaniel puppy mewed piteously, and Penny gently pushed
sidewards an inch or so, guiding it to her breast. The sharp, pointed, little
jaws closed over her nipple and it began to suck sleepily. Sighing with
contentment, Penny closed her eyes again.
The dog woke Penny from her light doze by poking its
leng nose into the protective arc from by Penny's left arm and beginning to
lick their pups, both the short, downy fur of her own and the little hairless
bodies of Penny's. Penny withdrew her arm and rolled onto her back, then upon
her right side. She stood, thirsty once more, and walked over to the trough. After
drinking, her first thought were, as always, for her pups and she glanced
anxiously across the cage. She relaxed, seeing the big dog lying facing her,
all four of their pups suckling at its teats.
Penny strolled
slowly over the bars nearest the big open doors, walking easily and naturally
on all-fours, perfectly used to this means of locomotion by now, so used to it
that she never stood upright any more and her calf muscles had grown thin and
wasted. She sat in that dog-like stance she now found so comfortable and stared
through the bars into the yard.
The sun was
out, and an occasional gust of warm air blew upon her. She ondered idly what it
felt like to feel the sun on her skin; she couldn't remember ever doing so, but
surely she must have done when she'd been as free as the 'Gods', all those
years ago. Like them, she'd worn clothing, and she'd walked where she would, as
free as the air. Penny could vaguely remember the feeling of silken cloth on
her skin, but, try as she might, she couldn't imagine ever seeing the outside
world except through the bars of her cage. The thought brought her to speculate
idly on just how many years she'd been here, and how old she was now. It was
summer outside; how many summers had she seen in this cage? She had no real
idea, except that she knew she'd just turned twenty-one when she'd been Taken.
She dismissed her thoughts, yawned, and try to estimate from her degree of hunger
when she'd be fed. Then, coming to all-fours, she lowered her head a trifle to
enjoy the touch of the silky smooth leather of her collar sliding forward on
her neck before lifting her head again to make it slide back again to encircle
the base of her throat, something she would occasionally spent hours doing. She
found herself wondering idly just how many years she'd worn her collar – she
didn't even remember it first being put around her neck – and what it looked
like. Penny suspected that it was a normal leather dog collar, plain leather,
not studded, but whether it was the usual buff colour, or perhaps black, she
didn't know. Its colour would almost black by now, anyway, particularly on the
inside where it would have collected, over the long years, a fine patina of
dirt and the oils from the skin of her neck. Anyway, it was now as much a part
of her body as one of her limbs and she no longer resented this indicator of
her true status.
So unusually active was her mind that Penny
even began to ponder her future, something she rarely did. Sooner or later, she
knew, she would become too old to carry further litters of chidren; what would
the 'Gods' do with her then? She tried to recall what fate awaited old and
useless animals in the world she'd left so long ago, and failed. Probably, she
thought hazily, nothing would really change. She would grow old, and, in the
usual course of events, she would die, here in the cage where she'd spent
nearly all her adult life.
Penny went and squatted over her litter-box,
then returned to her pups. Her breasts were beginning to swell with milk again.
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