As they held the pups later at the reception desk, Mimi and Ronnie agreed that careful observation at home and fresh air was all they needed until anything more concrete presented itself.
Ronnie cradled the little girl in her arms, flipped onto her back like a baby. As she rubbed the dog’s tummy the pup was looking up at her with clear, bright eyes.
“They’re pretty amazing little guys,” Ronnie said. She took a small furry plush toy that looked like a chicken from the display board behind the desk. It was as large as the pup, and when she waved it the little dog reached out for it. Ronnie brought it closer and the pup pulled it to her, nuzzling it under her chin and hugging it in her paws. Ronnie smiled and the pup licked her fingers, leaned her head against the toy and closed her eyes. Ronnie snapped the tag off it and placed it and the girl pup back into the box next to her brother who was watching them carefully.
“So I guess the chicken is hers now,” she said as Ben and Mimi laughed.
Mimi was happy to see Ben had been smiling almost constantly for the last two weeks. She realized the wee pups certainly brought that out, and not just in Ben.
He had also been an angel helping out with the pups. He insisted taking fair turns with the constant care and extremely precise feeding procedure. The formula could only be made in small batches and patience was needed as the pups only took in milliliters at a time. They also had to be vigilant about checking the heating pad and the pup’s little towel blankets as normally their mom would regulate their temperature. Mimi and Ben had to ensure the pups were warm enough in the cool morning and evenings, and the chilly nights, and also keep them from getting too hot during the warm days. Keeping the pups warm was also a good excuse for cuddling them, which they each did for long hours at a time. Ben even caught Mimi softly signing selections from her catalog of nursery rhymes to the puppies napping on her chest.
Mimi had been a little concerned she signed up for something that was going to go horribly wrong, or at the very least be a massive pain in the arse, but Ben turned out be to a much smarter boy then even she had been giving him credit for. They tried not to bother Ronnie unless they were stumped so Ben would go online using her tablet for any little thing they were not certain about. He would do the research and then carefully walk Mimi through the sea of opinions and suggested solutions. He was able to navigate the seemingly endless sources of information, and she was impressed that he didn’t get frustrated when they hit road blocks and conflicting opinions. Even when they argued amongst themselves she noticed he never got flustered. He just pulled up more facts to back up his position, and more often than not he was right.
The fact that they were also very good pups made things a lot easier. They took formula fine and napped soundly and often, almost like clockwork. Mimi also noticed they seemed to fall asleep and wake up together, almost to the second. They didn’t whine or cry, not ever, and Mimi found that to be a little odd. At first she was concerned they may have been developmentally impaired as they just never whimpered or yelped like normal puppies. But as soon as they opened their eyes she could see they were alert and very in touch with their environment.
She also noticed something else that seemed a little strange. Before the pups had opened their eyes the only time they fussed at all was when they weren’t physically touching. After they opened their eyes they were fine as long as they could see each other. Mimi and Ben learned early on that as long as the pups were side by side they could pretty much do anything to them without a bother. When they started walking they were never more than a few steps from each other.
Mimi placed a wee pad outside their box on the floor when they started walking and they only had one accident not on the pad. It wasn’t determined which one had done it as they were so close together but Mimi swears one looked pretty guilty when she was cleaning it up, which Ben thought was hysterically funny.
When they returned from their checkup Ben had let them play outside for the first time. Mimi noticed they were starting to increase the distance between them, but they were still never out of sight of each other. She also noticed they tended to start and stop exactly in sync. They both ran at the same time, and then stopped at the same time, even their little legs seemed to move at the exact same gate. She admitted to herself it was more than a little peculiar.
Aside from their advanced maturation they were like regular puppies in every other way. They played and wrestled and were extremely affectionate to one another, and to Mimi and Ben. They liked to be held and cuddled, and as they started walking they followed Ben wherever he went. As soon as they figured out what a tongue could do they never stopped giving kisses. They also liked to share her cup of tea.
Mimi was falling for the little buggers, and told Aila, “How could you not?”
Ben and Mimi sat at the table together, chatting as Ben finished his lunch and Mimi sipped her tea.
“So, will we be announcing their names soon, lad?” Mimi asked him.
“Tonight at dinner,” Ben said, looking very serious, “I’ve narrowed the list down to five possibilities.”
Mimi smiled and asked, “And you’re sure you not be needing any input into the selection process?”
“Nope,” Ben said, “I think I have the right ones picked out, just need to observe them a little more today and make a decision about who’s who.”
“Observe them, aye?” she asked.
“Of course Mimi,” Ben said, shocked she didn’t know how important it was, “Dr. Herriot?”
He paused waiting for her to acknowledge the name.
She didn’t.
“The famous Scottish vet?” he said.
Another pause and still nothing from Mimi. Ben sighed dramatically like he was being asked to explain how to breathe.
“Dr. Herriot said to wait to name your dog until you have had a chance to see how it behaves,” he said, “Get a sense of his or her personality. He felt a dog’s name was important, and I must say, I agree completely. Cats you can name anytime.”
Mimi stared at him for a moment and said, “I’m taking away that bloody Ipond.”
“Ipad,” Ben said.
“Aye, that’s it!” Mimi said as she raised her cup to him.
Ben got up from the table and put his dishes in the sink as the puppies came out of the box and walked over to sit down at his feet.
Ben looked at the clock on the microwave and said, “Next feeding is in half an hour, okay to take them outside again?”
The two puppies looked up at Mimi.
“Sure,” Mimi said, “just be careful.” She wasn’t only speaking to Ben.
Ben walked out with the little black puppies trailing behind him, and she shook her head as she noticed they were stepping in unison again.
Ben found a warm patch of grass in the back yard and sat down as the puppies climbed all over him, nipping and pouncing on him and each other. He lay on his back and they took turns scrambling up his sides and licking his ears. Their tongues weren’t big enough for their kisses to be sloppy the way most puppies were, but it tickled like crazy. After a few minutes the pups were cuddled in his armpit, wrestling with each other and wrapping themselves in his t-shirt sleeve. Ben was staring up at the sky, making animals out of the puffy, drifting clouds.
Chapter 25
Jerry felt like fucking shit. She had been sick for a week and could barely lift her head off the couch. She was sick pretty often, but this was worse than her regular party or period induced flu. She would have normally tried some of her regular remedies of sleep with codeine, sleep with weed, sleep with Aaron, sleep with Minty, or all the above but sleep now brought on horrible nightmares. She tried coke and some of the more potent stuff they got from Dr. D, and she had been up for almost three days. For the most part it killed the nightmares but the fever and chills remained. She felt worse than ever.
Doug had come home late. He was sick as well and blamed Jerry. He tossed his boots at her, downed a fistful of pills, and went to bed.
Jerry’s process was pretty slick, if she did say so herself. Once the brat-spoiling moms picked out the little furry fucker from the pictures and bullshit tear-jerking profiles Jerry put up on her rescue webpage, she screened their applications for a good fit. It was funny how an expensive house in a rich neighborhood equaled a perfect pet match every time.
Then she brought the pups to the prospective owners. Their nose mining kids played with the fur balls in the back yard while the moms and Jerry shook their heads over coffee. They clutched their chests and clucked at how insanely cute the scene was. That’s when Jerry pulled out her tablet, ‘just to enter some details’. A few gruesome photos happen to get shared, and then they cried together at the horrible high-kill shelter stories and the pathetic pictures of caged puppies.
Jerry didn’t charge for her rescue services, but they did accept donations so her team’s exhaustive, self-sacrificing life mission could continue. She tailored her pitch to each mom, playing the Jewish princess or the New England lifer or the Portigee second generationer with ease. She also had a good hook of posting updates on her site with how Taffy was doing at month one and two, complete with pics of the smiling, if a little exhausted, family. She posted these right next to her stories about finding a horrible gulag in Alabama where puppies’ toe nails were pulled out or some such shit. These were complete with pictures she stole from a Chinese cooking website. The top of her page proudly displayed the ‘target goal’ for her perpetual fundraiser. It was right above a donate button that dumped the cash right into Doug’s PayPal account.
The South Shore community was eating this shit up by the dog bowl full. The only challenge had been the pups that grew too fucking old before she could place them. No one wanted to pay to adopt a five month old shelter puppy. The cheapo moms bottom-feeding for a deal felt they were doing Jerry a favor just by taking them. Without basic training the older pups were a mess to deal with, literally. Most of the ones she did place came right back.
She had to give it up to Doug and that fat fuck Liko for solving that one.
Jerry could barely make it through her paperwork, partly because she didn’t want to turn a light on. The small sliver of sun coming through the living room curtains was like a drill behind her eyes. There was no way she could do any work in the kennels. She had Aaron working more hours than normal. Surprisingly, the one time she forced herself to go down to the kennels things weren’t too bad. She had waited until after dark and he’d already gone home, but the barrels were still neatly stacked and none of the dogs had died. Aaron had left her a note saying the dogs had been growling and whining more than normal, and they were going through the supplements like water. Even the new pups were scarfing the shit like it was uncut Colombian. Jerry didn’t notice anything out of line and assumed Aaron was just doing the math wrong, but she had a hundred and four fever so the dogs could have had fucking pink spots and she may not have noticed.
She needed to get right again as there was another order to fill coming up soon. She tried to remember it if was tomorrow or the next day. She couldn’t quite remember what day it was. Doug was also pushing her to make another trip south, which she was pretty sure was fucking Liko’s idea as much as her husband’s. Jerry could only imagine the kind of shit those two idiots got into while she was away.
After a restless nap that could have been two hours or twenty, she shuffled slowly into the bathroom using the hallway wall to guide her. She slurped a few handfuls of water from the faucet and thought either the water tasted funny or her morning breath was pretty horrific. Hoping to find a hidden bottle of anything that might help she rummaged through the bathroom but came up empty. She decided to chance a quick look in the mirror and flicked on the light.
“Fuckinstein,” she said, looking at the tangle of hair over her sunken eyes.
Jerry froze.
She rubbed her eyes and willed away the drug haze to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating before looking at her hands again. All of her fingers were black up to the middle knuckle, and her hands were swollen so bad she had no wrists. She turned the light off, waited a few seconds and turned the light back on again.
Jerry screamed.
Chapter 26
Dr. D checked her watch and shoved back from her desk. It was a nice early-summer Saturday so it had been quiet. She had let Ronnie take most of the morning appointments as she still had a pretty good hangover from the night before.
Dalaja went upstairs to her apartment to quickly wash up and run a brush through her hair. She downed a few more aspirins and a couple of pills that always snapped her awake. She put on some makeup with a splash of perfume. After checking herself in the landing mirror she grabbed her keys and headed over to Liko’s place.
He had just moved into a condo on the north side of Pembury. The complex was brand new and all of the apartment’s walls were white, so she had stopped at the paint store to pick up some swatches for the bathroom and kitchen. She let herself in and dropped her keys and purse on the counter before heading for the stairs.
Dalaja paused, and backtracked into the kitchen to remove her shoes. She shuffled her feet on the thick new rug to remove the impressions.
She went upstairs and saw Liko was still in bed and snoring away. It was dark in the room except for the glow from the flat screen television above the gas fireplace and a few shafts of light from the drawn vertical blinds. The television was muted and hip-hop music played softly from the radio on the nightstand.
Sitting next to the radio was Liko’s huge pistol.
Dalaja watched Liko’s big chest slowly rise and fall for a full minute before she silently reached out to pick up the gun. It took both of her tiny hands to heft it. As she rotated it in the slits of light coming through the blinds the dragon carved along its chrome sides sparkled and danced. She felt the dragon taunting her. It winked and dared her to pull the trigger.
She had been fascinated by the massive weapon the instant she saw it strapped under Liko’s armpit at Doug’s party. It was the first thing she noticed when Liko draped his huge jacket around her. She had never seen a real gun, never mind hold one. Liko had noticed her staring at it and in a flash he had yanked it from its holster and pointed it at her. She let out a startled squeak and he smiled, and then spun the gun around to present the hand grip to her.
“Careful little girl,” he had said as she wrapped her small fingers around its carved handle, “That’s the second most powerful thing you’re going to hold in your hands tonight.”
She hadn’t heard him, or the laughter from the circle of bikers. She was too consumed by the weight and the warmth of the shiny killing device in her hands.
Later that night Dalaja had stared wide-eyed as Liko ran the muzzle of the dragon gun between her naked breasts. The cool metal raised goose flesh as he traced it down her body while explaining to her that symbols of power were very important to his family. The gun was his most treasured possession and was a gift from his grandfather. It had been custom made in Italy, and his cousin who still lived in Hong Kong had a similar bespoke pistol.
She’d seen enough guns on television to know this was a monster of a weapon. Although she didn’t understand any of his rambling on about it being a fifty cal semi-automatic something something something, she had shuddered when he showed her the size of one of the bullets.
“Are you going to shoot me?” Liko asked from the bed.
Dalaja jumped and dropped the heavy gun onto the rug. She brought her hands to her mouth and stared at him.
“It’s okay,” he said as he pulled back the covers and slid over to the middle of the bed, “but you owe me now.”
She nodded and quickly dropped her clothes befo
re climbing into bed next to him.
“Did you take your shoes off downstairs?” he asked as he took a handful of her breast.
“Of course,” she said, going in for a kiss as she wrapped herself around him. She searched around a bit and found the waistband of his boxers as his other hand found her backside. She slid her hand into his shorts and grabbed him, stroking him. He coaxed her down between his legs and she removed his shorts before taking him into her mouth, just as he had taught her.
Twenty minutes later he rolled off of her and out of bed, pulling the sheet stuck under his belly off the bed with him.
Dalaja whined a protest.
As he hunted for his boxers he said, “You get that stuff over to Doug’s?” He found the shorts on the floor, groaning with the effort of picking them up. He pulled them on and picked up his e-cig from the headboard.
“Yes,” Dalaja replied, and pulled the comforter up from the foot of the bed. She folded his pillow under her head and buried her face in it as she drew her knees up to her chest. She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, enjoying their love making smells.
“Cool,” he said, “I’m going to Providence tonight if you want to come.” He sucked on the e-cig and grabbed his cell phone, checked it, and put it back on the headboard.
“Sure,” she said, peeking out, excited as he had never before invited her to Providence, “You coming back to bed?”
Dalaja’s eyes roamed over her lover as he stood in front of her, pulling on his electronic cigarette. His shorts disappeared under his bulk, and although he was very round she also knew him to be deceivingly strong. She also enjoyed finding new small details hidden in his many tattoos. As he turned and walked across the room she followed a striped tiger on his thigh. It prowled as the fat on his legs shook with each step.
“Can’t,” he said, “Gotta pick up another order.”
Spot and Smudge - Book One Page 10