Her Master's Voice

Editor's Note: this fictional work contains non-sexual graphic violence.

This is a short, violent BTB for ChloeTzang's Hammered event. Hey, sometimes I like a nice popcorn revenge flick, too. Thanks for giving me a chance to indulge, Chloe!

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My bitch was the best girl I could ever hope to have in my life. Greta was smart as a whip, loyal to a fault, friendly, protective of me, and came quickly when I wanted her to. She also had a shiny coat, terrible breath, and drooled nonstop. I had bought the Doberman to keep my wife, Kelsey, safe while I traveled, but she didn't want to help with the training Greta needed as a puppy.

Greta's original commands were all in German, at the advice of a trainer, but I taught her a subset of simple ones in English for Kelsey. Greta bonded with me rather than my wife; she was mine, but she watched over my wife while I was away, because Kelsey was also mine. Or so I had thought.

It wasn't any surprise, therefore, that she was waiting patiently for me as I opened the door to our home. Greta, that is; Kelsey was nowhere to be seen. I patted her head and was rewarded with a loving lick on the hand. I'd never entirely eliminated that tic, but we all have our eccentricities. The overgrown pup whined at me; she could always tell when I was stressed. "It's okay, girl. It'll all be okay." I hoped it was. I hoped it would be.

Kelsey and I had argued before I left; not for the first time, and not even for the first time about this subject. When we met just after college, we had talked long and hard about the important issues before we got in too deep. She'd had a bad breakup her sophomore year that had destroyed her trust in men and their promises. One subject we discussed was the issue of children. We both agreed that we wanted them, but she'd waffled on that in the eight years since we married.

Finally, before my latest trip, we argued about it again. This time, though, we made up before I left, and she told me she'd be ready to start trying for kids when I got back. But there was something... something off about how she said it. The words she used. Her phrasing. I couldn't put my finger on it, but they made me uneasy. And, on my return, I could tell Greta was uneasy, too, more than she should have been just from mirroring my mood. Her submissive manner bore no relation to the usual behavior of my goofy, happy girl.

I heard Kelsey call out from the living room, "We're in here, Aaron." We? Someone else was in the house. I knew why Greta was on edge. Why I was, too. A home feels different when there's an intruder in it.

"C'mon, girl." We rounded the corner from the entryway to the living room and found Kelsey sitting on the couch next to a man that seemed strangely familiar in a way I couldn't quite place. Sitting on the couch, and sitting too close to him.

They stood as I entered, and he extended his hand. "Julien St. Croix. Kelsey's told me so much about you, Aaron." Now I knew; it was Kelsey's asshole ex, the one that broke her heart. I took his hand and found that his grip was firm; then he tried to make it crushing, attempting to assert dominance. I hadn't liked him when I first saw him, and now I despised him.

He was a tall man, almost half a head taller than me. A brilliant smile manufactured by the best orthodontists money could buy. Immaculately dressed in casual clothes that would cost the entire sweatshop crew that made them a decade's pay. A muscular physique honed on the latest machines by a string of personal trainers. Blonde and tanned, like a Ken doll, with about as much character. Everything about him screamed "unearned, unexamined privilege." He was everything I hated in a person, the rich kid born on third base who insisted he hit a triple.

I started at home plate with two strikes and a crooked umpire. My parents both worked, and we still needed food stamps. I worked my way through college and was crushed under student debt. I built my muscle through hard work at my night job, then maintained it with the free weights I could use at the rec center. He had show muscle, bulk without much strength. I had real muscle, strength without much bulk.

The flesh and bone vice squeezing Julien St. Croix's hand showed him some things only come from hard work. Shithead gritted his teeth and broke away first, then clenched and unclenched a fist as he tried to recover. "Quite a grip there, Aaron."

Kelsey got in between us, voice nervous. "Aaron, how was your trip?"

I looked back and forth at them, then at how she stood. She wasn't trying to stop a fight; not really. Her stance reflected her priorities: she was protecting him from me but unconcerned with what he might do to me. "It was good until I got home. What's the prettyboy doing here?"

He bristled, but Kelsey said, "Let's all calm down. We've already gotten off on the wrong foot, and there's a lot we need to talk about." She motioned for Julien to sit, then asked, "Would you like something to drink, Aaron?"

"No. What do you mean we have a lot to talk about?"

Her smile seemed forced, an undercurrent of worry rippling behind it. "Why don't you sit, Aaron?" Not "honey." Not "babe." Kelsey almost always used a pet name when addressing me. She hadn't once since I'd gotten home. My irritation was turning to a sinking feeling.

I'm a negotiator. My work requires understanding the small changes in how people act and talk, the ways that they open up or close down as circumstances change. Failing to recognize the shifts that signify a deal going wrong can cost my employers millions. What I saw here looked like it was going to cost me my whole life.

"How long?" Sometimes the best tactic is to keep them on the back foot.

Kelsey looked stricken. "Wha-- what?"

"How long have you been fucking him?" She gawped. "You two look very comfortable. And while you haven't said 'we need to talk,' that's clearly what this is. You were sitting too close together when I came in. Said that 'we' were in the living room, not 'I.' Julien Shit Croix over there has been an aggressive douchenozzle since he opened his mouth, and you're terrified I'm going to murder him. So how long have you been fucking him?"

My wife--for the moment--started to talk, but he interrupted. "Since before you were married. You had no idea, did you?"

I kept my face impassive as I sank into my chair, a man hiding a gut wound from the bastard that had shot him. "No." I looked at Kelsey and said, "Why?" Julien started to speak, but I silenced him with a glare.

Kelsey sat next to him. Of course. "I... We loved each other, Aaron. We're in love with each other. But Julien, well, he graduated two years before me and went off to seek his fortune. He wanted me to find someone to take care of me until he came back for me. You... You were a good man. I knew you'd keep me safe, and I could keep you happy."

"So the whole 'he was a shitty ex' thing, that was just... what? A way to make me want to protect you? White knight for you?"

She looked away. "I was angry with him. That wasn't entirely... it wasn't just a put-on. And I did... we had disagreed about what our marriage should look like; that was part of why he left. He needed to be free from my expectations in order to become who he needed to be. But it was always with an eye towards him returning one day."

I turned to him. "So, how many times did daddy have to bail you out before you found your fortune?" He opened his mouth, and I said, "Shut up. I don't actually give a fuck. I just want you to know that at least one person in this room sees through your bullshit."

Turning back to Kelsey, I said, "So, what? I was your fallback plan in case he didn't come back? Just keeping his seat warm? Why the fuck did you marry me?"

"I... I care about you, Aaron. I do. I love you. You've been so... so good to me. So loving. I know this is hard, and I'm sorry. But what Julien and I share is... it's true love. The kind of love that only comes once in a lifetime. And he needed to make sure I was safe and-- "

I laughed. "But not enough to actually take care of you himself." He glared. "How did you think this was going to go, Kel? Did you think I was just going to say 'oh, go be with your twue wuv?'"

Kelsey looked down at her hands, clasped together in her lap. "I know that it's unfair to you, and I'm sorry for that. I really am. But I was hoping you could, perhaps, wish us well. I- I'm not going to stay. There's nothing you can do to make that happen. So can you please at least let me go without a fight? This is hard enough for me alr-- "

My voice dripped with scorn. The professional negotiator mask had fallen away. There was nothing to win anymore, so why play? "Oh fuck you, you self-centered cunt. It's hard for you? You've been fucking your college boyfriend for as long as we've been married, it's been a fake marriage that whole time, and now I'm supposed to feel bad for being angry at how I've been treated? Fuck, we were talking about having kids before I left and--" I stopped, looking between them. "You motherfuckers."

They shifted uncomfortably. "That's why this is happening now. What happened, you came to him and told him I'd been pushing on it, and it was time for him to put up or shut up?"

She nodded. I wanted to cut the smug expression off of his face with a butcher's knife as he spoke. "I need to thank you for that, Aaron. I might have let her slip away from me if you hadn't been so insistent. But now..."

He took her hand in his and theatrically kissed it. "She gets to have her happy ending with the man that she's always been in love with. Your desperate need for children really opened my eyes to how much I couldn't stand the thought of you raising them." He chortled, the cruel laugh of a rich asshole used to getting his way and rubbing people's faces in it.

"Raising--?" I stood, rage in my heart, ready to murder him. Greta shifted from a seated position at my feet to a standing one, body tensing like a steel trap in sympathy with my anger. "You weren't deciding whether to have my kids or leave to be with him, were you? You were deciding who should raise his kids!"

He jumped to his feet, ready to fight, a sneer on his face. "Yeah. And I decided I don't want my children raised by some beta male. Thank you for taking care of Kelsey, as meager as your efforts might have been, but I can take over from here."

Pulling Kelsey roughly to her feet, the shithead said, "We're going to leave now. You get to keep..." He waved his hand sarcastically at our home, the one I'd saved and scrimped for, the one I'd bought so we could raise my children in it. "... all of this. She doesn't need any of your 'wealth,' such as it is. That's our gift to you. You get to keep everything except her. You'll be served with papers on Monday at work."

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill her. But I knew... knew there was no way I'd win. I could beat him to death, sure. Easily. He was a paper tiger, and I wanted to watch him burn. But I knew I'd go to prison for my trouble, and Kelsey wouldn't stay. She'd never stay. I didn't want her to, knowing what I knew now. "Get out." Even to me, I sounded beaten.

She looked up at him, her alpha male asshole. He'd won. He was her Prince Charming. I was just the schmuck that had taken care of her for a decade. And then I saw it, saw in her gaze what I simply could not let go unanswered and live with myself: she adored him.

My wife had never, not once, not even at our wedding, stared in rapt attention like that at me. She might have loved me, but only like a loyal pet. Kelsey looked at me the same way that she looked at Greta. She looked at Julien like he was a god.

They headed for the foyer, her gazing at him in wonder and him sneering at me. I let them go for just a moment, then tapped my hip twice and followed with Greta at my heels. They were almost to the door when I said, "Wait. I want to have a couple more words with you, asshole."

He turned to me, rolling his eyes. "What? Jesus! You lost, cuck! The better man won. What could you possibly have to say that I could give a shit about?"

"Greta." My only loyal companion perked up her ears. I pointed at the intruder. "Töten."

Everything happened at once. My sweet girl turned into a hundred pound murder machine, a homing missile made of muscle, sinew, claws, and teeth. She was halfway to Julien before he began to react, panic in his face as he threw his arms up. I raced towards my shocked wife, a few steps behind Greta. Kelsey was trying to get between Greta and her paramour, ready to lay down her life for her spray-tanned deity.

Greta slammed into the shithead, knocking him off his feet. Kelsey was screaming at Greta to stop, rearing back to strike my dog when I tackled her, taking the metaphorical bitch to the ground. I outweighed her by seventy pounds and had a massive strength advantage. We struggled for a moment, but she might as well have been a rag doll. Within seconds, I had wrestled her to her knees, holding her in an iron grip.

Kelsey was going to watch as her idol toppled.

I would make her watch.

The shithead didn't know how to fight at all. He'd never had to protect himself from anything more dangerous than a bad canapé. Greta got him by the throat, savaging it. Julien screamed. Kelsey screamed. I laughed like a madman.

His screams died before he did, cut short into a gurgling gasp. Greta stood proudly, holding an indeterminate piece of flesh in her teeth. Julien reached towards Kelsey and I, fear in his eyes, silently begging with lips that could no longer form sounds. She couldn't help him. I wouldn't.

The breath rattled from his corpse one final time as Kelsey sobbed and wailed. I growled, "Greta." She tilted her head quizzically. "Come." Her muzzle dripped blood as she trotted the short distance to Kelsey's struggling form.

"Please, God, please, no! I didn't! We didn't, I love you, please, don't do this! Don't, Aaron! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Her words became incoherent screams of panic as she recoiled from the animal that used to sleep next to her when I was traveling; the one that had slaughtered her lover without hesitation at my command.

"Greta." My treacherous wife wailed and thrashed, begging for her life. "Give Mommy kisses." Greta lunged forward and lapped at Kelsey's face, making happy little noises. I let my former beloved fall to the floor and stood, pulling my phone out and calling 911. "There's been an accident at my home. An intruder's been killed." Then I called my loyal bitch to my side and went to sit in the living room to wait.

Kelsey followed shortly thereafter, ranting and hurling invective. Blood lingered on her cheeks from Greta's kisses. She looked like a painted doll. A puppet. Judy, forevermore without her Punch. "You'll never get away with this, you psychopath! I'll tell them! I'll tell them what you did! You're a murderer, and you'll get the needle!"

I chuckled, cleaning Greta's snout with a handkerchief as I did. "It's your word against mine. I came in through the garage. I saw a large, muscular man in my house, one I didn't recognize. I knew my wife was here alone, and I feared for our lives.

"My gun was upstairs, but my dog, who had been waiting by the garage door for me, was by my side. I commanded her to attack. Sadly, I didn't know that the trespasser was an old college boyfriend come to visit; my poor, traumatized wife hadn't told me about it beforehand. Such a terrible tragedy."

She shouted, "It won't work! I'll tell them everything, tell them what we'd done, tell them I was divorcing you!"

I smiled placidly at her. "'Oh no! I didn't know that until after, officer. She was going to have me served? Oh, what a shock. Of course, the loss of life is always tragic, but I can hardly be expected to mourn for someone so awful, can I?'" I laughed loudly at her dawning realization that, at best, she'd create a media circus that still wouldn't end in a conviction for me.

There was a dark, cruel glee in my voice that I didn't recognize, shouldn't have liked. "But you'll mourn him, won't you, Kel? For the rest of your days, every time you close your eyes, you'll see the love of your life begging you to save him, choking on his own blood as the light went out of his eyes. If only you'd bothered to learn the German word for 'stop,' maybe he'd still be alive! If only you and he hadn't chosen to treat another human being like a pet, like a resource to be exploited, maybe you'd still have him!"

She sobbed, "You're a monster!"

"Oh, Kelsey. I'm what you've made me. You and him both. If I'm a monster, what does that make you?" I stood and patted Greta's head. "C'mon, sweetie! Who wants a treat?" The best girl in the world trotted happily along behind me as my wife sank to her knees, wailing, grappling with the knowledge that she'd never hear again her master's voice.