Page 12 of Bender

“Don’t worry about me, Sweetheart. You sit and eat. Wait, you’re not allergic to anything, are you? Is he?” Konrad’s worry for us is nice.

“I don’t think we do. We only ate bread. Before, when I wasn’t a pet, I don’t remember having any allergies. Grey doesn’t know, though. He was there a long time.” I don’t want to tell his secrets, but it’s important Konrad understand how very little of the world Grey and I have experienced.

We’re not children. Not in years and definitely not after the terrible things we’ve lived through. But we’re also not adults, despite what our ages would make someone think. I was in high school when I was taken and sold like a goldfish in a pet store. So I at least had a childhood and some normal life as a teenager.

Grey doesn’t remember much of anything before master owned him. He’s got a lot less adult in him than me, because he didn’t get the chance to grow up at all. And both of us are tiny because of malnutrition, though I have some of the curves women get when they go through puberty. Grey’s got the body of a teenager, all knobby knees and limbs too tall for his weight.

Since master never let us wear clothes, I’ve seen Grey’s body nearly as much as I’ve seen my own. He’s beautiful in so many ways, even without the changes that manhood should have brought for him. Sometimes, I think about what we’d look like if we weren’t so hungry all the time. If we got to dress and live like regular people.

“Eat up, then, you two. I want full bellies and clean bodies before I tuck you two into bed.” Some of the things Konrad says are so daddy-like it makes me think of when I was a little girl and some of my mom’s boyfriends were nice to me to make her happy.

But when he looks at me, I can almost feel the heat that rolls off him. He wants me, and if I’m right about how he watches Grey, he wants him, too. Which should be scary, but I can tell if either of us says no, Konrad will still be nice to us and never say a word about it.

Grey sits, staring down at the plate as if he doesn’t know what to do with all the food. I know the feeling. Neither plate has too much food on it. Like the person who made it knew not to feed us so much we’d get sick. It’s still more food than either of us has been given in ages.

“Do you need me to cut your chicken, Peanut?” Konrad reaches over to Grey’s plate and makes neat slices back and forth until the golden chicken breast is in tiny pieces. Then he squirts a little pool of bright red ketchup on the side of the plate near the tater tots.

“I don’t think I like red stuff, sir. It looks like, like, like….” Grey stutters, and when I look up, his face has gone a little green.

“Boy, I told you not to look at that gory shit back at the house. See now why you should listen to me?” Konrad grumbles, but even while he’s lecturing Grey, he’s swapping their plates and cutting up his own chicken on a plate with no ketchup.

Yeah, Konrad may want us, but he’s not going to hurt either one of us if we say no. He’s one of the good ones. I can tell.

Chapter

Eleven

BENDER

Given the option of bath or shower, both Blu and Grey chose the bath. Was I surprised their choices matched? Not at all. The two seem to do everything alike.

Some of that is because of the way Grey watches Blu for cues before he acts. It’s admirable and adorable how devoted he is to her, but my hope is that, with time, he’ll feel comfortable developing his own preferences.

“Bath is fine, but I want you both to shower off the grime, first. That way, you can enjoy the bath and not sit in dirt soup with bubbles on top.”

The pair follow me and watch from the door of the bathroom while I turn on the shower to let the water warm. I watch in the mirror as they help each other take off the sweats I gave them to wear earlier.

“Okay, who’s first?” I ask when the water is just past tepid. Based on what they’ve told me about their time in captivity, I’m guessing warm showers didn’t happen. I don’t want to scald their tender bodies with water that’s too hot.

“Can we go in together?” Grey asks. His nerves are visible in the fine tremble of his slender frame.

“If Blu’s okay with that, too. You both have a choice now. And your choices can be different.” I can tell the idea is too big for either to contemplate right now. I’ll leave it for another time.

I hustle them into the glass shower stall and push the door shut behind them. While they’re occupied squirting soap all over one another and scrubbing away who knows what filth, I send a message to Jax.

Me

Need another favor, brother.

JAX

what now? I’m working.

ME

I need you to have Blakely bring some bath shit to my room.

JAX

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