Carole Douglas - Dancing with Werewolves

Then Quicksilver, detecting a stranger's presence, leaped and scrabbled and howled on the other side of the door like a manic werewolf. Sure killed the mood.

"What do you keep in there, the Hound of the Baskervilles?" Ric asked.

"Not quite." I smiled mysteriously.

He unclasped and teased the gold belt off my hips, then threaded it back through the belt loops of his pants at such a slow sensual pace that I almost lost it again.

I watched him, loving this. I'd never had this. Being escorted home from a date by a man who'd disarranged my clothes and pushed into me from a dozen distracting directions.

Taken home to my own little cottage, where someone waited who cared but might ask awkward questions. Well, ask in a canine way.

I loved that Ric and I hadn't been to bed, stripped naked, that there was still so much more to discover about each other and our feelings, at our own tantalizing pace.

We arranged to rendezvous the next day. In Sunset Park, where he could meet Quicksilver on neutral ground. It seemed like the obvious next step. One-two-three, bowwow.

I will never understand dogs. They see the returning master standing right in front of them right inside the front door and they still have to sniff your crotch to guarantee you're you.

Quicksilver was tall enough to make quick work of this ritual greeting but tonight he responded with a growl rather an eager leap to lick my face. I can't say I was all that fond of the face-lick anyway. He had a tongue the size of a Saks Fifth Avenue washcloth.

"Back, boy." I brushed past his second growl of parental distemper. It was kinda sweet that he cared about my dates, but a darn good thing I'd kept Ric out of sight and scent.

Quick's nails clicked over the wood floors to the kitchen, where I let him out the back door. The yard gnome, Woodrow, complained about picking up after Quick when I didn't manage a run in Sunset Park and do it myself. Tough. Growing things was his job and Quicksilver leavings made really potent fertilizer. Woodrow was, apparently, one of the perks of residing in the Enchanted Cottage of film fame.

But I was…what? Tired. In a way. And wired, in a way. I refilled Quick's water dish and leaned against the kitchen sink, daydreaming, until the dog's nails clattered on the stone back stoop and I let him back in.

To the background sound of the Loch Ness monster lapping at the giant stainless steel water bowl-another thing about dogs: they go out and then come in and drink up a storm-I ambled toward the bedroom. The fancy-framed full-length mirror at the end of the hall reflected all my bare-midriffed disheveled glory. I looked like a woman in a Calvin Klein perfume ad, hip, hot, and hungry.

I wasn’t sure I felt the same way, but it was damn close. All so new, so alien to me.

I dropped my partying clothes over the chair and hesitated between the shower and the sheets. Nope. I didn't want to wash the night off just yet, so I slipped between the umpteenth-thread-count sheets and fell asleep before you could say "nightmare" and I could even think it.

Twittering birds announced the morning. The cottage always thronged with fragrant flora and noisy fauna, like a cartoon paradise.

I bounced out of bed humming "I Enjoy Being a Girl" from Flower Drum Song, took a long, hot shower, then donned sweatshirt and shorts to take Quicksilver for a gallop in the park.

Afterwards I had a quick, cold follow-up shower, gulped down some oatmeal and yogurt, and made a shopping list.

"You can come along, boy," I told an anxious Quick as I grabbed my denim hobo bag to leave, "but will have to guard the car. This is an indoor, girly expedition."

We both trotted outside. Although the cottage had a quaint carriage house that could function as a garage, I kept Dolly sitting under the carport. Sun was the only real enemy to an automobile finish in Las Vegas, just as it was for flesh-and-blood girls.

I stopped cold as I neared the car's side window. Quicksilver had turned it into a doggie door during the attack at the pet store lot. Now it was rolled up tight, perfectly whole and reflective. What kind of sneak thieves broke into your yard to replace an irreplaceable car window?

Quicksilver was dancing and panting at the passenger door, eager for a ride. I shrugged and went around to open the door and let him in. Yup. The window fit Dolly's massive frame perfectly. I shrugged and headed for the driver's seat.

In a minute, Dolly roared through the automatically opening gate onto Sunset Road. She loved Las Vegas as much as I did. No parallel parking slots except downtown. I headed for a big suburban mall. Lots to do before meeting Ric in the park. First a discount clothing store fringing the mall for, what else, clothing? My Kansas WTCH tailored suits and blazers looked like social-worker wear here in the casual West. And I bought a 30-inch, fine silver chain. I wore what I bought and bagged my old clothes as I went. It felt like I was changing skins, not styles.

Next, I wandered through the crystal and silver maze of the Saks Fifth Avenue cosmetics department. There was so much of this stuff, and my black eyelashes and eyebrows hadn't needed emphasis, not even for a TV camera. I'd had to wear the heavy masque-like foundation, though, to warm up my lily-white skin. Maybe that's why I avoided makeup off-camera. A woman behind one glittering counter with an awesomely flawless foundation job approached to ask if she could help me.

"Uh, yeah. I don't wear lipstick. It's too clownish for me."

"You're right. Your hair and eyes are so vivid. Have you tried lip gloss?"

"Just lip balm."

"Oh, there's lots more than that. With your black, white, and blue coloring you're one of the few that even orange would work on."

I made a face.

"You'll see," the salesclerk said, delving into the built-in drawers behind her.

And I did. It hadn't taken long after I smeared a sheeny sample across the back of my hand and remembered Ric's finger wetting my lips with my saliva. Three-two-one, liftoff! I left with three expensive little pots of tinted gloss named Orange Crush, Veiled Raspberry, and Goddess Gilt, for evening "sparkle."

I also left sold on a similar little product called Lip Venom.

According to the saleswoman, this spicy, tingly gloss "plumps the natural shape of the lips by increasing circulation with a blend of essential oils including cinnamon and ginger. Great for shiny, bee-stung lips." I bought the color called "Love in the Mist."

"And the tingle effect is catching," my saleswoman added with a wink.

I was feeling the tingling effect already, but left cosmetics and next applied myself to a mall bookstore. They had what I wanted, English-Spanish dictionaries, but not the exact type I needed. Then a thoroughly pierced teen clerk led me to the "slanguage" section where I found a tiny red leatherette-bound book titled Street Speak in Spanish.

If Ric's sexy murmurs included any dirty words I was going to know them. Already, just browsing, I'd learned that hembra meant "tigress." Really? Of course it could also mean "nut of a screw," which wasn’t exactly complimentary. Or was it a different tense of embragar, which meant "to put in gear?" Ric had been doing a lot of embragar with both the Corvette and me last night.

Last stop was a shoe store, where I bought a pair of platform open-toed slides. I'd sometimes gotten a kick out of flaunting fire-engine red toenails while the videographers focused on my dead-serious face and stiff upper torso when I intoned my spiel for the camera. Maybe I'd always been a split personality.

Quicksilver was sitting by the car. I couldn't leave him locked inside and he liked playing guard dog.