Master! Master! – Chapter 8.2

Latest fiction & first time story: Master! Master! – Chapter 8.2

by Sage_of_the_Forlorn_Path

Days later, the icy cluster-fuck finally came to an end, leaving the entire state buried in snow. Of course, that didn’t mean everything was back to normal. There were power outages as far as the eye could see, and work crews had barely been able to do anything because of the constant weather. Countless powerlines were torn or cradling fallen trees. First, electricity had to be restored to the towns, then to the suburban populations, and way down at the bottom of the totem pole was my area, out in the Lovecraftian boondocks. The truest definition of misery is having to go to work each day and come home to a powerless house.

Nearly four weeks after the first storm hit, the power finally came back on. I’ll be honest, I almost cried in joy. You don’t realize how much you take cable and the Internet for granted until they’re gone.

The weeks passed, with winter giving way to spring, and with spring came warmth, and with warmth came something beautiful. I came downstairs one sunny Saturday morning, leaving behind Momo still napping in bed. In the kitchen, I found Sonja and Chloe, wearing nothing but socks. It was 50º outside, which to a Mainer is tropical weather, and the girls had finally shed their winter garb.

Seeing me, Sonja pranced over. “Good morning, Master!”

My eyes fell to her breasts, somehow breaking the laws of physics and bouncing with much more energy than the movements that caused said bouncing. I had missed seeing those sweet pink areolas every morning.

“Good morning, Sonja,” I said as I rubbed her head. I then stepped over to Chloe who was making a sandwich and embraced her from behind. She yelped as I moved my hands across her naked body. “It is ridiculous how soft you are.” She just smiled and clutched my arms.

Momo came downstairs and stretched, groaning in joy at the feel of fresh air against her bare skin. “Master, we don’t have to do anything today, do we? Momo just wants to lie in the sun.”

“Actually, today I was thinking we could make a vegetable garden. I looked it up and April is the month to start planting. Enjoy it while you can, while it’s still the time of year for work to be done later in the day rather than earlier. Everyone, get yourselves ready and we’ll start at noon.”

“Wow, this is looking good.” I had just opened one of the bags of composted leaves gathered from the fall, which had mulched beautifully. This past winter had certainly been erratic, with constant drops and heat blooms. It looked like the frequent thawing and freezing had helped break the leaves down even faster than normal.

“Master, what is this stuff?” Chloe asked.

“Well before you appeared, we gathered all these leaves that had fallen from the trees and bagged them up like this so that they would decay. Now we’ll mix them into the soil as fertilizer.”

Chloe lowered her head and wrinkled her nose. “It’s stinky.”

“That means it’s good stuff. Ok, girls, gather around.”

I brought them to the middle of the backyard, where we were lucky to have plenty of sun. All three girls were naked, except for shoes, as the ground was still cold.

“What we need to do is mark a large rectangle here and start digging up the soil. It has to be nice and fluffy for the seeds we’ll plant. After that, we’ll start digging trenches around the sides for drainage. Now, we have only two big shovels, so while Sonja and I are digging the trenches, Momo and Chloe, I want you two to start tearing up the grass.”

We established the largest garden we could, marking it with big sticks from the woods. Sonja and I started from the same corner and moved in different directions, carving deep ravines into the earth. Out here in the wilderness, the soil was black and soft from countless seasons of fallen leaves decomposing. We might not even need our mulch for it. With small gardening spades, Momo and Chloe started peeling up the sod. They’d tear off a piece, shake off some of the soil, and toss it into the woods. Sonja, of course, gave in to her instincts and went chasing after the grass balls on more than one occasion.

I had almost finished one side of the garden when I stopped, staring at my shovel stuck in the earth. My skin felt chilled. “Girls, there is something I need to take care of. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

I took my shovel and walked off. No questions were answered. I headed into the woods, following a familiar path. The spring thaw was just about finished, with the soil unfreezing and just a few patches of dirty snow left in shaded areas. I had to walk quite a distance to get to where I was going, and unfortunately, my sense of smell helped guide me to my destination. I finally found her, the deer, but no matter how much I had braced myself for it, the sight was almost too much for me to bare.

I was staring at the poor girl, feeling sick to my stomach. She, like the forest, had thawed with the warmth of spring, but nature was cruel to her, depriving her of the dignity she deserved. Her body was in the early stages of decay and her smell had attracted other animals. The coyotes had already done a number on her and now bugs were taking their turn. But even now, she was beautiful, as if with one eye I was seeing her as she was before me, but my other eye saw her as she would have been.

Her face was cold and pale, like weathered stone, but in my mind, it was warm and tan, and she was smiling with happiness and love. Her eyes were closed, but I could see them, sparkling with her head resting on the pillow next to mine as she greeted me every morning. Her body was in the shadows of the branches overhead, but I saw it shined upon by the sunlight passing through my bathroom window as we lay in the tub, our bodies interlaced beneath the steaming surface of the water. Out here in the woods, she had only the stench of death, but my nose twitched from a scent that wasn’t there, the scent I would have found when I embraced her each day and smelled her chestnut hair. The one thing that my imagination couldn’t produce was her voice. I could only watch her silently mouth the words “I love you”.

I turned away, my face soaked with tears. It took several minutes before I regained my composure. Once my eyes were dry and my breathing steady, I began to dig. The deeper I went, the harder the soil became, still out of reach of the warmth of spring, but I powered through it. Giving her a proper burial was the least she deserved and the least I owed her, and I wasn’t going to let a little ice take that away. I hacked through frost and tree roots, and finally stopped when I could go no further. I moved the girl into the grave and made sure she was comfortable. I brushed aside a lock of her hair that hung over her eyes, then I draped my shirt over her face like a veil.

I began to cover her with soil, praying that this would be the last time. I loved my girls, and I just didn’t have it in me to bury another. Starting with Momo in July, four girls had appeared over a six-month stretch. It was now late April, meaning that if there was any sort of pattern, at least two more girls would have shown up by now. Either they hadn’t appeared or they were far off in the wilderness, probably having met the same end as the deer. Maybe I could finally hope it was over. Maybe the deer girl dying ended whatever was going on.

When I was finished, I made a cross out of two sticks and some of the string I used to measure out the vegetable garden. I wasn’t religious, but it didn’t feel right to not leave some kind of marker. I hammered it into the ground and stepped back. As a grave, one certainly couldn’t ask for better. This was a beautiful spot. I hope she’d be happy with it.

I made the hike back home with my heart now feeling much lighter. Upon reaching the house, I saw that the vegetable garden was finished, at least the drainage trenches and the sod removal were. Tomorrow we would mix in the mulch and plant seeds. I went inside and found the girls in the living room. As soon as they saw me, they rushed over and embraced me with tearful eyes. Maybe they were worried when I didn’t come back as soon as I promised. Maybe they were scared when they saw me covered in dirt and sweat and missing my shirt. Maybe they were alarmed when they smelled my dry tears or the stench of decay. Or maybe they were just sad because they knew what I had done. All I could do to reassure them was hold them close. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be said.

The next day, we finished up the vegetable garden, mixing in mulch with the soil and then planting the seeds. The girls spent the rest of week going in and out of the house, all them eager to see the first green tips. I was certainly eager as well, simply wanting to avoid the frustration of having screwed up.

Saturday saw me up rather early for a weekend, though not nearly as early as on a workday. If it’s before noon, it’s early. We had stuff to do around the house and I went out to the hardware store to pick up a few things. It was a truly beautiful day, with a warm breeze, clear sky, and blooming leaves. I was driving out on the rural road between me and the nearby town, with houses few and far between.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

The sound came from one of my rear tires. I pulled over and checked it out. Well, I was bound for a “screw you” from fate any day now. Luckily it just manifested in a nail stuck in one of my tires. Just a few rotations had completely bent it. A pain in the ass, but it could be worse. I got the spare and the jack out of the car and went to work. As I lifted up the car, the jack was making a grinding noise, louder than it should have been. It was one of those small jacks with the screw that straightens out two bent arms. I should have stopped, but I made one more twist of the screw and the sound of metal snapping broke the serenity of the morning and my car dropped back down. Ok, it’s gotten worse.

One of the metal arms had a ridged ring, which would catch the grooves of the screw and allow the arm to bend or straighten, but that ring had just broken. A flat tire and now a broken jack. My blood pressure was starting to rise. I checked my phone. Dead. And my charger was back home. After taking a deep breath, I got back in my car and proceeded to scream every swear and profanity I knew. I looked down the road, seeing a mailbox not too far away. Hopefully, someone was home and would let me borrow a jack.