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“Good girl. Before too long, I want to work up to you leading the workouts in the mornings, too.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know. It’s okay to be scared. But you can do it.”
He really believed in her. She tested him from time to time, criticizing one aspect of herself or another, but Trent always picked her up on it, and reminded her to be kind to herself.
“If you don’t know how to be kind to yourself, how are you going to be kind to anyone else?”
The goat enclosure was a mess. It was clear nobody had properly cleaned it for days — probably since the cryptosporidium outbreak began. Goat droppings were everywhere, and an overpowering smell of animal waste filled the air.
This was not going to be pleasant.
Patti took in a deep breath and stepped into the enclosure. Trent had insisted that she wear a full-on biohazard suit for any animal enclosure cleaning, just to be safe. Luckily, neither of the goats who lived here — Bert and Ernie — had showed any sign of infection. Still, better to be safe than sorry. She donned a pair of protective gloves and picked up her trusty brush. She started cleaning — sweeping away the visible muck, then scrubbing the walls and floors with disinfectant.
As she cleaned, her mind roamed. This was actually quite soothing work — it gave her a chance to think about life: what had happened in the past, what was happening now, and what she wanted for the future.
She thought about her Daddy, and how much he had changed her life in such a short amount of time. Before she met him, she was lost and unsure of her place in the world. Now, she felt like she had a purpose, and that purpose was to be his Little. It was a role that she embraced with her whole heart.
She thought of her ex-boss at the hedge fund. Brandon Grouse. He’d been a legend in the financial sector, and Patti remembered how excited she had been to join his team, and how that excitement had quickly faded as she realized what a difficult man he was to work for. Her last memory of him was when he yelled at her in the office, and the final words he left her with: “You’ve ruined my life.”
“Funny how I always end up thinking of you when I see poop,” Patti said to herself, as she struggled to remove a particularly stubborn stain. She strained the rag she was using into the bucket. “When are they gonna invent a robot that can do this?”
Bert and Ernie watched her dolefully from behind a fence. Patti wondered what they made of this strange, alien-looking person, talking to herself and scrubbing their floor.
When she was done, she stood and admired the transformation she’d made in the enclosure. Then, she stepped forward, slipped on some goat poop she’d missed, and fell to the ground with a crash.
*
Why did he miss her so much?
It was ridiculous. He’d only been getting to know the damn girl for a week or so. And yet…
Trent should be wrapped up in his work right now. He was deep in it, trying to work out treatment plans for each individual animal, based on their symptoms and risk profile. He had to think about rehydration solutions and nutritional plans. There were no drugs approved for the treatment of cryptosporidium, but Trent had to think about medications that could help to alleviate symptoms, and of course, he was the only person qualified to administer those medications.
His brain should have been whirring with the puzzle of it, the challenge of managing all of these separate considerations would normally be what Trent lived for.
But right now, he was living for something else.
He’d already seen a marked difference in Patti over the few days he’d been taking the lead as her Daddy. And, so far, that was all he was. He was keen to explore the kinky side of their relationship, too, but things had been too hectic. It just hadn’t felt appropriate.
That didn’t mean that he didn’t think about it, though…
Even though they hadn’t even kissed each other since they’d signed the contract, he still loved to be near her, to see her smile. He looked forward to their daily check-ins with so much excitement that he felt like a kid again. In fact, since he came clean to Patti about his feelings, it was like he had been reborn, like he was seeing things for the very first time.
Take the animals on the farm. He was so used to seeing them as problems to be solved. As groups of symptoms to be analyzed and collated. But now, he was seeing them through Patti’s eyes. They weren’t symptoms anymore — they were living, breathing creatures with agency and personalities. There was Lulu, the strangely yet definitely cantankerous hamster. Sunrise, the dependable, stoic horse. Bert and Ernie, the comedy double-act goat brothers who — tragically — would never know just how funny they were.
It wasn’t just the animals. He was remembering how to laugh. How to enjoy the company of others again. Heck, he was even remembering that once upon a time, he’d been interested in things other than his work.
“Don’t worry, girl,” he said to the Bess, the cow he was giving fluid therapy to. Bess wasn’t doing badly, but hadn’t been eating for a day or so. “You’re going to be just fine.”
There were other animals, though, who Trent wasn’t so confident about.
Thunder was the main worry. That horse had been through a lot. When he’d first arrived at the ranch, Thunder had been wild, unrideable. Takis had rescued the stallion from a ranch where he’d been treated incredibly badly — beaten, denied food, half-starved, and cruelly taunted.
Under the care of Chuck and Millie, Thunder eventually began to thrive. Not only did they work with the angry horse so that he’d let them ride him, but he also grew to love wearing a saddle and working with the Littles who visited the ranch. He’d become a gentle, lovely soul, who enjoyed nuzzling and snuggling up to staff members. The horse held a special place in everyone’s heart.
And now, he’d been hit hard by the infection. The poor thing hadn’t eaten in days, he was unsteady on his feet, and his normally bright eyes were dull and sad.
