Stepdog (2 page)

“I'd hardly be virtuous to invite a man home after a first kiss,” she said.

“You'd be even less virtuous if you sold your body for bus fare.”

“Well, yes,” she said, considering. “And you were so well behaved in my office, I'm sure I've got nothing to worry about if I let you insinuate your way into my home.”

“Right, you were a blushing virgin there yourself.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” she said, so po-faced that I actually worried for a moment I'd misjudged the whole evening. Till she grinned slyly.

“Well, just so you know, it was my favorite sacking ever,” I said as I tucked away my wallet. “You sack most excellently.”

“Do I?” she asked, biting her lower lip so adorably it made me want to nibble on it with her. And in a suggestive tone: “You want me to sack you some more?”

She said that!
She said it!

I can't even remember what I said in response, but she didn't slap me, so it couldn't have been too crass. I do remember that I pulled her chair out for her, letting my hand brush along her bare upper arm as she rose. I felt the electricity and saw her shiver a bit; she smiled over her shoulder at me and I was the happiest unemployed man on earth.

We waved to Mario as we left. “Ciao!”

He beamed a big smile to Sara and, with a grin, gave me the finger . . . Wanker. Sara cracked up. Then he said, gesturing us closer,
“Slán leat.”

I stopped short, amazed. “How the fuck do you know Irish?”

Mario smiled nostalgically. “Ah, it's a long story,” he said. “I met a beautiful redhead once . . . but not so beautiful as your lady. Signora, if he doesn't behave himself, remember I'm here, yes?” And, of course, he winked at her.

I could have kissed the bastard, because that was a fantastic excuse to put a protective arm around her and pull her toward me. She did not resist, and she fit under my shoulder as if we'd been carved from the same block of wood. I'd never been so hap
pily aware of every atom on the whole left side of me as at that moment.

T
HERE WAS A
bench at the bus stop; we sat there and let a bus or two go by first, just sitting in happy silence side by side, our shoulders and upper arms pressing against each other in the swampy August night.

“I'm so glad I fired you,” she said. “If you were around the museum now, I'd get in so much trouble.”

“I'd sue you for sexual harassment,” I said.

We finally got on a 39 bus, still shoulder-jostling all the way out to Jamaica Plain, where we hopped off by the Monument. We strolled down Centre Street, toward the roundabout. Anticipation made me silent; she looked at me adoringly but had not yet officially invited me in, and this was all happening so fast. As we approached her building, I made a mental note to myself not to be presumptuous about what would happen once we were inside, but I knew, even as I made the note, I would misplace it. I wondered briefly, again, if I should tell her about getting married, but shelved the idea at once; it had nothing to do with what was going on between us here, and I didn't want to ruin the mood. I'd tell her tomorrow, if it seemed relevant.

She opened the outer door, then pivoted left in the hallway to open the inner one. The dulcet tones of an NPR commentator droned from within.

“That's a feeble deterrent for burglars,” I told her. “I put right-wing talk radio on
really loud
when I go out—that stuff would scare anyone off, even the most zealous vandal.”

She gave me a skeptical look.

“Not really,” I admitted immediately. “I don't even lock my door, to be honest. I believe what's meant to be mine will remain mine according to karmic law, and whatever I'm meant to lose, I'll lose with or without locks on my door.”

“That's a bit fatalistic,” Sara said, fishing in her purse for her keys.

“Of course it is, I'm
Irish,
” I said.

“I hadn't noticed,” she said.

As Sara opened the door inward, she made a cooing noise and stooped down to greet the dog I had forgotten about.

I'd have taken Sara for a rescue-dog type, but this mutt held itself with the grace of a pedigreed champion. It was typical dog size, I s'pose, with a warm golden coat, and intelligent, bright brown eyes. Its entire torso was wiggling with excitement, but it hardly made a noise beyond an urgent, suppressed whimper of joy. It spun gleefully in rapid, tight little circles anticlockwise, keeping its eyes peeled on Sara as it circled, its backside wagging as much as its tail.

Sara bent down like Diana Spencer talking to a kindergartner; the dog stopped circling so it could meet her nose to nose, its arse still shimmying a Motown beat. Sara cooed and spoke as if it were a kid, like most Yanks do with dogs: “Halloooo, puppeee, I'm home! Were you a
good
girl? I bet you were a
good
girl”—all that bollocks. Suddenly I could see her both as a little girl and as a mother—both lovely aspects of her personality but neither one fitting the moment's mood. She scratched the dog's face. The happy whimper deepened and the body slightly stilled. Then Sara rose, stepped away, and said formally, as if the dog could really understand English, “Cody, I want you to meet Rory.”

“Hiya, Cody,” I said in greeting, and squatted down to be closer to eye level. In fairness, it was a lovely dog. It sprang to me, tail and backside wagging, damp nose raised hopefully toward me. I held up a hand to cover my mouth. “No kisses,” I said, “but aren't you a lovely little fella.”

“Cody's a girl,” Sara said sweetly.

“Lovely girl,” I said. I brushed her head with my fingertips. Beautiful coat. I scratched her ears. Her hair was silky as a baby's. I started to massage behind her ears.

Cody's mouth moved into an actual grin. She collapsed submissively onto her back on the floor as if her bones had suddenly gone all jelly, her legs splayed—a very tarty position, even for a dog. She gave me an expectant look and her tail thumped the floor like a metronome.

“Aw, she wants you to pet her belly,” said Sara approvingly. “She likes you.”

So the dog and I had a grand time bonding right inside the door. I rubbed her chest, which made her eyes roll back ecstatically. She suddenly leapt up and began spinning around in the tiny circles again (the dog, not Sara), stretched into a perfect Downward-Facing Dog, then flopped on her back again into the tarty-dog pose, all the while her hopeful dark gaze glued to my face, her tail flinging itself side to side. She was hilarious. This would be easy. I liked that pooch right away.

But I liked Sara more. So after those few minutes, I rose up, and looked around the place. It was small but chic, with Sara's organic-fair-trade/art-school-grad aesthetic. Sara was doing her coming-home routine: turning off the radio, checking the dog's water bowl, bolting the front door.

“Oooo . . . boss lady's taken me captive,” I said, pleased. “Even after she fires me, she's still got me under lock and key. Bet you've got a lash hidden around here, too?”

“And a gang of tenth graders ready to leap out and make fun of your fiddle playing. There's a secret escape hatch,” she said over her shoulder, smiling as she pulled a batik silk curtain closed against the light from the street. “But you'll have to torture me to learn where it is.”

We stood there, at opposite corners of her coffee table, taking in the moment. I was starting to believe that this was,
really was,
A Moment. It truly was nothing either of us had seen coming, and yet here it was, so fast and so natural.

It's easy enough to describe a first kiss, because it's a specific action. It's harder to describe those few moments of chitchat, of tentative body language and bits of touching and little noises, that let two people tell each other: right, we're going to bed together. Not to “get laid,” but because you seem fantastic and it would be such an honor—not just a pleasure but an
honor
—to be intimate with you. I looked her all over. She was curvy, with a graceful neck, and how could I ever have looked at those legs and not thought about wanting to run my hand down them? She gave me a drowsy contented look and took the lead, moving around the table like flowing caramel, leaned against me, and slipped her hand into my back pocket, casually, naturally, as if we were a couple. She tipped her chin up toward me with an inviting smile.

Snogging aside, I was dizzy by the time we reached the bedroom, and we hadn't even got our clothes off yet.

We didn't bother with the lamp; streetlight streamed through a
window, leaving her in silhouette. She stepped out of her sandals. Her arms began to reach behind her to unzip her dress.

“Let me do that,” I said quietly.

I stepped toward her, rested one hand on her cool shoulder, tugged the zipper, the green fabric falling away from itself, revealing a smooth, pale back. Then I stepped away so I could watch her silhouette as the dress slid to the floor. What a gorgeous silhouette she made. She stepped closer to me, reached for my waist, and shyly began to lift my shirt. I raised my arms to help her.

“Over here,” she whispered. Tossing my shirt aside, she settled onto the bed, and with a gentle tug on my belt loops, invited me to join her.

Wow, this was
happening
. Almost fainting with pleasure, I began to unzip my jeans, then remembered my boots were still on. I leaned down to take one off, and dizzy as I was, began to lose my balance; I toppled to the side and stumbled, my still-booted foot landing hard on a hairy rope—

—that YELPED—

Sara sat bolt upright. “Cody?” she cried, just as I said, hopping around for balance, “Fucking dog!
Jesus
—”

Sara hurriedly turned on the bedside lamp. It threw a warm fuzzy light on her gorgeous naked body—which I was seeing for the first time under not-ideal conditions.

The dog was standing wide-eyed by the open door. Its tail thumped the doorjamb cautiously and it looked back and forth between us, unhurt but wildly alert, looking almost as if it were expecting praise for having survived getting its tail stepped on.

“I forgot about you,” Sara said with affectionate apology to the dog, who used this as an excuse to move farther into the room.

“The dog's going, right?” I said.

Sara gave me a sheepish smile.
God,
she was gorgeous. “She normally sleeps on the bed with me.”

I know Americans do that. I know Londoners do that. I know back in the Middle Ages, everyone did that, for warmth. But I couldn't make the algebra work out here. Either the dog was on the bed, or I was on the bed, but not both. I did not want to ruin the moment but I'm not into being watched (unless I'm onstage, getting paid for it—and dressed).

“Can we negotiate this?” I asked.

All of the air got sucked out of the room and there was a giant, bedroom-shaped vacuum that kept either of us from speaking for a moment.

“She's a lovely dog,” I added, in case that made it easier. “Just having her here in the room with us—”

“Right, yes, I've never had to think about it before, that's all,” Sara said awkwardly. “I haven't had anyone over since I left my ex.”

That news made me very happy, especially being delivered by such a beautiful and very undressed woman who had just peeled my shirt off me. “Well, there's a first time for everything,” I said. “Her bed in the living room looked comfortable, she can sleep out there.”

“She'll be confused,” Sara said, looking a little confused herself.

“She's a dog,” I said, in a tone clearly implying that a dog was a fantastic thing to be. Which I'm sure it is if you're a dog. “She'll figure it out.”

Sara had grown a little furrow between her eyes. I was surprised how much it changed the shape of her face, although the rest of that lovely naked body was unaffected, as was my interest in it.
“All right, then,” she said. “Come on, pup.” She got up off the bed and patted her bare knee.

The dog looked at her, cocked its head in confusion, then checked me out and wagged its tail. It gave me an imploring, hopeful look, as if I could maybe save it from Sara's inexplicable deviation from routine.

“Puppy, let's go,” she said, and grabbed a robe from the back of the door. Throwing it over her shoulders, she backed out of the room, gesturing the dog to follow her.

The dog looked up at me. Up at the bed. Up at Sara. Its tail wagged harder—and then it turned and leapt joyfully, gracefully, onto the bed, and having landed, glanced between us as if expecting praise.

“Come on, now,” I said, “Get off the bed.”

“Come on, Cody,” Sara said firmly. The dog cocked its head again for a moment, then jumped up as if on a trampoline, and landed bowing, as if starting a game, then renewed its industrious tail wagging. It was so cheerful that I felt a bit of a prat for wanting it to leave.

“Go on,” I insisted. More wagging. I steeled myself against the dog's gleefulness, scooped it into my arms, bent down, and plopped it gently on the floor. I wasn't rough, but I was firm. The dog yelped and so did Sara, who was still distractingly naked: “Rory!”

I straightened. “Doesn't she listen to you?” I asked, more huffily than I wanted to.

On the floor, the dog swooned into her tarty-dog pose, dark eyes beseeching, tail still wagging. Even in submission, she fucking radiated joy.

“Stop that,” I ordered. “Or we'll sell you to the North Koreans.”
I slid my foot under one hind leg so I could lift it and scoot her over onto her side, but before I could—

“Rory!” Sara shouted. “Stop! Don't
kick
her!”

I stared at her, shocked. “I wasn't going to kick her!”

“You were! Your foot—”

“I was only—”

“Come here, puppy,” she said desperately. The dog scrambled up and leapt toward her, and she knelt to cradle it protectively against her nude paleness. “Good girl, it's okay, it's okay.”