I’ve gotten used to the leash. Besides the occasional irritation from the thin wiring and the more frequent zap of electricity, the leash was tolerable. It’s the complete nudity that I’ve never particularly liked, or understood for that matter. For one, I am borderline obese. (You’d think being nude all the time would be ample enough motivation to lose weight. Nope.) In addition to my blubbery mass, the nudity made it very hard to find anyone attractive (not that I’d be able to do anything with the attraction). It is very rare to come across beauty when no one you can SEE is allowed to wear any form of make-up or clothes. And even if I do come across such a person, they’d be afraid of me eating them before thinking about me in that way. But, above all my not-so-rare idiosyncrasies, the main reason for my animosity towards the nudity is the fact that it hasn’t always been like this.

I am Brad Linslow’s. I’m relatively lucky, to be honest. I could’ve ended up fetching for a much more wretched brute. Brad told me he wanted a fat one. Looking past the humiliating auction, I was flattered.

Many others like myself have told me, during the rare times it’s possible to talk, that they no longer feel. Most of them, I have noticed, don’t quite remember their original names (they give a different answer every time they’re asked). We meeks, as they have started to call us, are beginning to lose our original capacity to think. I have stayed relatively the same (never being the sharpest tool in the shed, but having my head on straight), which somewhat sets me apart. I look at it as a curse. My ancestors have always been known for their intensely emotional personalities; I am no different.

In my world, emotion is pointless. No one cares how I feel. So, even more so than one does in a normal life, I hide my feelings.

Brad’s family is horrendous. Sarauh (yes, pronounced ‘sair-ahhh’) and Amy, Brad’s “magnificent” daughters, never give me a break. The first person to market the concept of fat as a child’s toy will have enough money to buy a thousand meeks. I am poked more often than I can blink. Brad’s wife, Helen, makes the girls look like angels. I can take her lashings, just as I suck up the leash, but I am heavily affected by her humiliating comments (thanks to my delicate ancestors).

All this may sound awful, and it is, but it used to be worse. I am lucky to have been labeled and treated as a meek. The lashing, leashing, and nakedness are nothing compared to what I could be going through.