Taken.....

I'd always led a pretty uneventful, unexciting life. I think the word most appropriate would be mundane. I was an average guy with an average job, an average life, and an average build. I stood about five foot eleven, two hundred something. Average for a guy in his late twenties, an average age. The only thing ever spectacular in my life was how unspectacular it was. Getting older though I was beginning to show the effects of time. I was putting on a little weight and a little hair. I had a good build with a broad chest and shoulders. Just enough weight on me to keep warm at night with a bit of a paunch of a belly that seemed to be getting bigger by the year. Light smattering of chest hair covered it all and kept me warm at night. This seemed to be popular with the older crowds but with the younger girls I'd always been attracted to before... not so much. The only thing I can stomach less than an average life was a life of outstanding disappointment. So it wasn't too monumental a decision to start getting in shape again and start shrinking my slowly expanding waste before I had to start buying bigger jeans.

The idea of working out in a gym didn't appeal to me at all. Too many people who'd been there too long who looked far too better, ultimately too many distractions. Plus, getting into the gym during the day was proving to be far too big a hassle. So I decided to head out on my own. Jogging around the neighborhood was the most logical choice to start out with. Work up a little and build up some stamina until I could feel comfortable in the big pecs, big bicep world of the gym.

Things never happen quite as you plan. It was late before I could finally get a start. Gym shorts, a sweatshirt, and a bandanna to keep the sweat out of my eyes. A little light stretching and I was out the door, ready or not.

It was a struggle at first. I was discovering muscles long since forgotten. That's not all I was rediscovering. I loved the rhythm of the earth moving beneath my feet, the steady breath coming like a train stack from my breath in the cool night's air. It took me back to my younger days as a kid in the countryside, jogging alone in the woods feeling a sense of freedom and independence that I'd never had quite before or since.

This wasn't quite the same though. I was in much better shape then. This was a struggle to get going. I could feel every muscle step after step. In the cool night air and the dark of night I was more on edge than I'd been in a long time. In a way it made more alert, more on edge, more a part of nature around me. I was aware of the dogs barking down the block, I could sense the birds flying over head, and knew the cat was there before it came bounding out of the alley in front of me. The hair on the back of neck raised when I heard an engine bark and growl to life somewhere behind me. That's when I snapped back to reality. I was just being silly and indulging too much in some flight of fancy. If I were ever going to survive this to jog again I needed to concentrate on the task at hand.

The growling sound behind me grew louder by the second. My heckles, as they were, raised with the veracity of the approaching mechanical beast but again lowered as the big white van causing the commotion passed and proceeded down the road. Task at hand, focus on the task at hand. My breathing slowed as did my speed. This jog was turning out to be tougher than I'd first thought.

My steady pace had slowed to a slow jaunt as I came up on the corner of an approaching block. I almost came to a dead halt when my eyes glanced upon something weirdly unsettling. The great beast, a white van with black tinted windows parked in the nearby alley. It could have just been a coincidence that this was the same van that passed me earlier. Still I couldn't help but feel myself moving away from the van towards the other side of the street, my feet moving away from the beastly machine, my eyes locked firmly on it. I couldn't have known until too late being so intent on watching the van that I was moving towards the darker side of the street and a darker alleyway opposite where my preoccupation was.

I could feel it before I could see anything, turning my head just in time to see a mass moving from the shadows and tackling me to the ground. The hood of my sweatshirt flopped down over my head and covered my eyes obscuring what was going on. I felt mass all over me and all around me as I was forced to the ground. I flailed about, fighting back as best I could. Something was placed around my neck as I struggled to get off my back and roll over to regain some semblance of balance. No sooner did I reach my hands and knees than the mass around me was gone. I heard what sounded like giggling and tried to yell back in response. Instead of the threatening yells I intended nothing came out but a choked growl as the thing around my neck tightened pulling me off my belly and up onto my haunches. I barked out my best protest as I was drug, choking, crawling on hands and knees across the alley still unable to see anything through my sweatshirt but the ground passing beneath me.

I managed to reach up and grab the chain that was holding me, still spewing and spitting, gasping for air. Being a burly fellow may not have been kind to my waistline but it was good for other things as I felt myself at the bumper of what could only be the white van, braced myself against the rear end and wrapped my forearm in the chain holding me and pulled with all my strength. I felt the chain give way for a second as I pulled back. Just then something large struck me in the back of the head from behind. Suddenly my sweatshirt wasn't the only thing obscuring my vision as I fell face down into the van and everything went blurry. The singular giggling voice I'd heard earlier was now clearly two voices. "Boys got some fight in 'em". "Sure does, gonna need to muzzle this one". A knee came crashing down on my back. Two fingers grabbed me by my nostrils and pulled back hard. A hard leathery object was forced hard into my mouth and down my throat. I remember tasting a bitter flavor on it, burning my nostrils, as I passed out. Hearing that same giggling from before as everything went black around me and two distinct words "Good Boy".

I woke up fuzzily. I stretched to try and shake the cobwebs, the realization of my new surroundings coming slowly. The hard object in my throat gave way to hard plastic covering my mouth and leather straps pulled taut around my head. It looked like a standard dog muzzle with a snout and straps but the gag pressed down my lips and tongue and kept me from making anything more than muddled noise. My clothes were gone and I could feel a slight chill that caused all the hair on my body to stand upright. I couldn't my feel fingers as I tried to stretch them and found I couldn't. I looked down and saw two black leather lumps where hands used to be. I turned them over and found that where palm and fingers should be was a leather pad shaped to give the imprint of a dog paw. Kneepads were placed over both knees, wrapped tight enough to keep both legs slightly bent. And a leather jock strap was rubbing in between my thighs and just across the crest of my belly. More than anything though what impressed on me was the thick leather collar I was wearing. It was oddly alien but still somehow comforting in how tightly it held me making me intensely aware of even the slightest movement of my head. It was almost as if I was viewing my life through a zoomed lens as every sense, every touch against my skin was brought sharply into focus.

My mind was groggy, I tried to stand to quickly and was violently jerked back to the ground not but a few inches off the ground. In my haze I hadn't noticed the chain attached to the collar around my neck. My eyes began to clear and I could see the chain lead to an eye bolt firmly drilled into a concrete floor. I further examined the leather pads where once I had hands and saw locks firmly clasping the leather straps surrounding my wrists. I couldn't make a noise, I couldn't move more than to crawl on my hands and knees in about a 4 foot radius, as far as my chain would allow me to stretch.

I was in a basement though who really knew where. The only light I had shown in from small slits of windows high on the walls that looked up into what seemed to be surrounding forests. The basement was bare brick walls with nothing but an old mattress nearby me on the ground. The windows were cracked and barred and the air held the sinewy stench of mildew, all leading me to believe this place was probably pretty remote and abandoned.

So there I sat bound and haunched on all fours like the dog I was dressed as. My eyes transfixed on the leaves blowing gently through the cracked window. My nose fixed on the sharp smell of the leather gag firmly strapped over my mouth. My skin was alive as it felt even the slightest movement of my body amplified thousandfold through the leather bonds. The wind played a symphony for me howling through the cracked panes of glass. I'm not sure how long I sat there lost in my new surroundings. Oddly this was the most tranquil and peaceful I'd truly been in, well, this was the most peace I had ever felt. Lost in all my senses, cut off from everything I'd thought was important before and oddly unaware that I'd been brutally kidnapped I sat there with my mind totally blank. There's really no telling how long I sat there transfixed. The only thing that seemed to bring me crashing back to my waking reality was a gruff giggling voice from behind me, "Good Boy".

I snapped around at the sound of the voice suddenly once again oblivious to all but the sound of the voice. The chain snapped taught and once again I found myself crashing to the floor. I tried to regain my position on all fours but as soon as I began to lift myself off the floor I was met with a boot heel on my shoulder pushing me back down face first to the ground. "Down Boy. Let me explain something. You seem like a smart dog and I'm not a patient Master so I'm only going to say this once. I had a good childhood. My folks done provided me with everything a kid could want. Can't say there's any reason for me being the way I am. But I always wanted two things to play with that I never got as a child: a little brother and a dog of my own. Now heel Boy, up on all fours, I want to look you in the eyes when I say this". The boot heel came off my shoulder and down to the ground right in front of my eyes. There was a jerk at the chain. As I pulled myself and was simultaneously pulled up by the chain I slowly took in the image of the man before me. This was the first time I got a look at the man who had beaten me down and abducted me.

I couldn't help but be impressed at his build. Dirty leather work boots and dusty jeans covered huge, thick calves and thighs. He was a large heavy set man, tan with a slight layer of extra weight on his belly and a tattered flannel shirt covering a broad chest and shoulders. He was kneeling now just in front of me. A thick black beard covered much of his face and a pair of dark round rimmed sunglasses covered much of the rest. Partly in anger and rebellion, partly in fear I held my head down not wanting to look at him. He sneered and angrily jerked at the chain at my collar with one hand and swiped the glasses from his face with the other.

"LOOK AT ME BOY!!! They say a dog only truly ever knows his place when stared down by his Master". I sheepishly looked up, trying to muster as much of my rapidly fading 'anger and rebellion' as I could. His sharp brown eyes bore through me with a sort of anger and determination I'd never seen before. "You and I are going to play now boy. You're going to be a good dog or I SWEAR that I will leave you here bound and naked... to starve and die. Be a good boy, be a good dog and by that, by pleasing your Master, will be the only means that earns you your freedom".