Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
As soon as I’m seeing through the eyes of the hood, I feel like this weight has been lifted off me. I take a deep breath. Feels like the first decent breath of air I’ve gotten since Frankie caught me at the club.
Frankie leans back in the chair, smirking.
“What? Is it weird?” I ask, my voice a little muffled because of the snout. Although, even with my uneasiness, I notice there’s a confidence I have behind the hood.
“Hell no.” Frankie shakes his head. He pushes to his feet and approaches me. “You look cute as fuck in that. I think being a pup suits you.”
I laugh before he adds, “Listen, Ev. This is something you want, and fuck Peter or anyone else who doesn’t get it. This is about you.”
His expression turns serious, his jaw tensing the way it sometimes does when I can tell he’s upset. Almost like it did when he got upset about the woman who was abused by her boyfriend.
“But…honestly,” he says. “I know Z’s a great guy, but I don’t feel very comfortable about you doing this with someone who you don’t know very well. I’m your friend, and I want to be there for you, if you’ll let me.” When I don’t reply, he adds, “If you’d rather do it with someone else, I understand but if you want me, we’ll do this together.”
“Really?” I ask.
This was not how I was expecting the night to turn out at all.
“Jesus, Ev. When are you going to get it into your head that I’m kind of an amazing friend? Come here.”
He wraps his arms around me, pulling me in for a hug.
“If you’re going to be a pup, you’re going to be the best damn pup out there.”
I chuckle, and I don’t know where exactly the impulse comes from—I know, at least in part, it’s because of the confidence wearing the hood gives me—but I growl softly.
I just meant it to tease him, but the way it comes out surprises me.
Frankie pulls away quickly, apparently just as surprised by my growl. A wide grin stretches across his face.
“Oh, I like that,” he says. “Have you been practicing?”
I snicker. “I thought it would be funny, but I kind of liked it.”
“It was funny…and kind of hot.”
We share a laugh before he asks, “You mind if I…pet you?”
It’s such a strange question, but I find I’m glad that he asked. And curious about how it will feel to have him do that to me. “Go ahead.”
He pets my head, his grin as big as ever, and I appreciate getting to share this with him.
“You’re a little runt is what you are,” he notes, earning another laugh from me. “Okay, so show me some of this other stuff you’ve been looking up. If I’m going to be doing this puppy play with you, I want to be a pro.”
“Sure,” I say eagerly, reaching to pull the hood off.
“Keep it on,” he says. “Pup Evan can show me.”
Once again, I’m reminded of what a truly great friend Frankie is.
8
Frankie
I unplug the laptop and take it over to the bed. Evan waits by the desk, and I pause before saying the first thing that comes to mind, “Com’ere, boy.”
He walks over, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s smiling under the hood. I’m not going to lie and pretend this isn’t a little different for me. It’s definitely not something I saw myself doing, but I find myself interested in it—and I don’t think just for him. Even the short clips he showed me were fascinating, but also the quiet desire I saw in Evan earlier was this sort of jolt to my chest.
He’s my friend. I care about him, and if he’s going to do this, I don’t want him doing it with anyone other than me. At least not at first.
“Come on, Pup.” I pat the bed, totally winging it here. I mean, it’s sort of obvious, in a way. He’s role-playing a puppy so that’s how I’m supposed to treat him.
He climbs onto the bed, and I lie beside him—both of us on our stomachs. I put the laptop in front of us. “What else do you have for me? Any other links?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he replies, and it’s again muffled.
We lie on the bed together for hours. Evan shows me all the links he’s saved, and then we Google some more together. It’s reiterated often that puppy play is about compassion, care, playfulness, and a shedding of human worries and stress. It’s a way to be broken down into your rawest form—the part of us that just wants to play or cuddle. The part of us that longs for praise and a sort of freedom we never allow ourselves to reach as people.
There are varying stages of puppy play. Some people fuck, some don’t. Some include BDSM, some don’t. Some set certain hours to be in puppy space daily and others weekly. Some people do it in a less structured way and just find what works best for them. Others attend actual human puppy training, where they teach you how to get into puppy space, and well, I guess train you to be a good pup. Owners and handlers often have training of their own too. It truly just depends on what’s best for the pup.