Page 4 of Caught Up

I pulled up short and tried to sound stern. “That is not a toy, Walter. Drop it.”

“Technically...” Ryan began.

I pointed a finger in their general direction, unwilling to look away from Walter in case he noticed my distraction and booked it. “You’re already on my shit list. Don’t make it worse by siding with the dog.”

Behind me, Taylor began to laugh.

Walter, taking that as his sign that this was definitely play time, gave the whip handle a chew and started prancing toward me, shaking his head side to side in typicalI have a toy and you can’t get itfashion. Unfortunately, that sent the five leather straps attached to it flying through the air. At us.

“Fuck!” Taylor yelped, dodging sideways.

Ryan leapt from their seat, barely avoiding a strike to the arm.

Walter woofed around the handle and plowed toward us with what could only be described as maniacal glee. We scrambled out of the room and went barreling downstairs, tripping over one another in our haste to escape.

I broke right at the bottom. Ryan swerved left.

Taylor vaulted the living room couch.

“Go get Ryan!” I ordered Walter. “Avenge me!”

“Hey!” Ryan shrieked, sprinting for their life, our deranged canine hot on their heels.

Thankfully, our place was athree-storybrownstone, so there were no neighbors below us to complain about the sudden chaos. We’d chosen it for its superior insulation because it helped with soundproofing—our line of work came with a lot of very visceral noises. The hidden bonus was that the occasional outburst of barking, yelling, and fleeing from awhip-baringcanine wentmostlyunnoticed.

Since the toy was mine, it was probably my responsibility to fall on the metaphorical sword, despite how much fun I was having watching Walter torment my roommates. There was one thing we could count on to get him to behave, so while Taylor and Ryan kept him occupied (see, ran from him in terror), I headed toward the biscuit jar we kept on the kitchen counter. The second I popped it open, I heard nails clattering on hardwood and knew Walter was headed my way.

He rounded the island and tried to slow down, but he was moving so fast that he went into a full slide. The thing about being five feet tall and on the slimmer side is that when your dog is half your height and almost your full weight, you don’t stand a chance against them. Walter seemed to realize we were on the cusp of catastrophe the same time I did but there was nothing we could do to prevent it.

Our eyes caught, and we shared anOh, fucklook that transcended species before he took me out at the knees.I went down with a strangled yelp, landing hard on the tile floor and taking the brunt of the fall on my elbow and shoulder to keep from crushing my idiot dog.

“Oh my god,” Taylor wheezed. “Are you okay?”

I looked up to see my roommates standing over me, Ryan with their hand covering their mouth to smother their laughter, Taylor bent over at the waist, openly cackling.

I rolled onto my back. “I think so?”

Wetness coated my left hand. I glanced sideways to see Walter gently take the biscuit from my fingers and then slink away like he hoped no one would notice him.

At least he’d dropped the whip.

An hour later, the apartment was cleaned up, Taylor’s asshole was camera ready, and she and Ryan were shut in her room.

Tonight was my turn to cook, and while my roommates filmed, I got to work in the kitchen with my laptop open on the island so I could watch the progress bar while my weekly video uploaded to my Me4U page—this one of me doing pole work in our spare bedroom turned kink palace.

I hoped my subs liked it. My pole work had greatly improved since I’d first started posting, thanks to the weekly classes I attended, but I was by no means an expert. I just did it because it was fun, made for great content, and was a surprisingly good workout—multitasking at its finest.

Every Me4U creator was different and had varying levels of activity, but since this was myfull-timejob, I posted a spicy picture to my page at least once a day, and along-formvideo every Wednesday like clockwork to my main page for all my paid subscribers. Usually, I had my posts scheduled ahead of time, but this past week had been especially hectic. I was down to the wire and didn’t like it. This wasn’t just a job to me. My subscribers weren’t just random people; they were my community.

I’d received countless messages over the years from subs thanking me for one post or another because they’d had a terrible day or were going through a hard time. My videos made them feel good, helped them briefly forget about all the ugly shit. Many had come to depend on me and my strict schedule. It gave them something to look forward to, and the thought of disappointing any of them by being late weighed heavily on my mind.

A hissing sound had me jerking my gaze up just in time to see the pot of water on the stove start to bubble over. If I ruined dinner right after giving Ryan a hard time for doing the same, I’d never live it down.

I stepped over Walter, who was inconveniently sprawled in the middle of the kitchen floor (plotting his next attack, I was sure), and turned the burner to a simmer before slowly adding pasta to the pot. Once it was stirred in, I set a timer and started working on the sauce—butter and shallots and garlic and white wine with a small tin of clams mixed in at the very end.

The wine was just starting to cook off when my phone chimed with a notification. I scooped it up to see a message through the Me4U app from NT95.

Excited to see what you have in store for us tonight,it read.

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