—
Darby sneezed as he dusted the shelves, and then he sneezed again. But he kept at it, bearing through the sneezes, until the shelf was done. Then he did the next one, and the next one, until all the shelves were clean and he thought that if he sneezed one more time his eyeballs might fall out.
He stood back, admiring the shelves, now free of dust, and grinned. That was good. That looked really good.
Darby couldn’t possibly care less whether or not the shelves were dusty.
Now that they weren’t, though, Darby nodded to himself and sniffed the air, darting off to find Owen and Gavin. They were sitting together on one of their couches—the one Darby didn’t like to nap on—and barking at each other. Darby went in front of them and got Owen’s attention. “I dusted the shelves!” he said.
Owen smiled at him, yapping to Gavin, who didn’t know how to talk. “Thanks, that’s thoughtful of you,” Owen said, slow and clumsy as usual, but slightly less so than when they’d met now. Darby had done a good job in helping him get better at talking.
Darby nodded, and then he stood there, waiting. His tail was swaying back and forth a little in anticipation. Eventually, Owen got the hint, reaching out and patting Darby’s head, his big hand resting between Darby’s ears and ruffling his fur, even scratching him a little behind one ear.
He did that for a few seconds, and when he was done, Darby’s tail was wagging like mad, a nice warm feeling in his belly like syrup on his heart. Owen chuckled at him, but Darby just leapt up from the slouch he’d fallen into. “I’m going to go do more chores!”
“You don’t have to,” Owen said. “We have servants and stuff.”
“Don’t care!” And Darby turned around so that Owen couldn’t talk to him anymore, and looked around the room for something else to help out with.
He put their boots away from when they were outside, then he picked up the dirty laundry in their bedroom and made the bed, then he came out and cleared away the cups they’d been drinking out of when they were done, then he went and fetched a book for Gavin when asked. In between each task, Darby returned for a head pat, which Owen always gave out. It was one of the reasons Darby liked him so much—he knew how to do the right thing.
The real surprise, though, came when Darby delivered the book. Gavin took it with a smile—he was friendly, even if he didn’t know how to talk—and then pulled Darby into his lap without warning and started to rub his belly.
Darby gasped, ears twitching as it happened. He loved belly rubs so much! Small chores didn’t really warrant them so he hardly got them, but he wasn’t going to tell Gavin that, and instead he just closed his eyes and let it happen, kicking his legs a little as he did. That syrupy feeling spread all over his body and Darby loved it, and he especially loved it when Owen started scratching behind his ears again.
It was all Darby could do to stay in Gavin’s lap, and he was in heaven for a good few minutes before they stopped rubbing him and Darby, totally content, didn’t even try to move and just went to sleep right there for a nap.
Owen and Gavin were gone when he woke up, and he was just on the uncomfortable couch by himself. Darby pouted a little, sniffing the room and finding it empty.
But instead of getting up right away he just recalled the awesome pets he’d gotten, thinking about how much he’d liked that. He wanted that to happen again. He wanted it to happen again right now.
He was hard thinking about it. Darby lifted his shirt and started to touch himself, jerking off to the memory of what had happened earlier. The feeling of hands on him, praising him, telling him without words that he’d done well, that they loved him and he was good, that was so amazing, so much, so powerful and Darby wanted it all the time, and…
He came hard, squirting more than he usually did, balls pulling tight as he emptied them to the memory of the attention he’d received. He wiped off with his shirt and then wiped his hand on the couch, laying back, looking up at the ceiling. And planning how to make all that happen again.
Darby was going to clean so many things tomorrow.
—
How Best to Use a Sword 