Gus Stevens - Love Me, Love My Dog

As I hung up I wasn't so sure. After the way the girl had torn into the foodstuffs that night, I figured with a little brother to help they'd outstrip the work of the great locust attack in North Dakota in 1933.

There was a lot of nervousness around the house as we cleaned up and dressed for the bridge game. I was content to wear shirt and slacks, but Amy got into something new and sleeveless, looking exciting as all get out. I told her so, but she wasn't impressed.

“Cool it, Tarzan. The sitter will be ringing the bell at any minute.”

I came up behind her and slipped my hands under her arms, coming up to cup her breasts. “Ah, just like fresh oranges.”

“Last time they were grapefruit.” She pretended to sob. “You don't love me any more.”

“There's one way to find out,” I breathed, panting like Rin-Tin-Tin.

The bell sounded and all bets were off as we went to the door together. Amy was glancing at me from the corner of her eye, not about to let me establish any further rapport with Trudy without her being around to catch the action.

There was a surprise on our doorstep. I'd forgotten that the brother was coming but there he was, a gangling adolescent standing beside his pint-sized sister, a somewhat silly smirk on his disarming face.

Trudy greeted us both and then waved at her brother. “This is Buddy. He thinks it's swell that you're going to let him sit with me while I sit with Alexander.” A heavy bark came from immediately behind my buttocks as the dog heard his name spoken. By now he'd moved into the house and, indeed, he'd been given liberty to roam about as he pleased.

We bade the sitters enter and they came inside, the highpockets brother looking about like a new kid on the block. He had to be over six feet but I was willing to bet he was younger than his sister. He had blond wavy hair that curled around his neck and ears, a long angelic face that was only slightly marred by acne, and a long, thin body that was apparently without a chest. When he said hello his voice broke just like Henry Aldrich's on the old radio show. All in all, he was a handsome lad who would someday grow up to be a center on the high school basketball team and then, after he'd filled out, he'd be a varsity flanker back.

It occurred to me that if his sex organ had stretched in relation to the rest of his body he would be hung like Man O' War. Casually, I turned to Amy to observe her reaction. It was something to see.

She was working her jaw like a gaffed halibut, her eyes wide, her hands rolling themselves into, a ball and then peeling apart, time after time. She had paled and was, apparently, lost in a mild form of shock, unable to get control of her senses. Her saucer eyes were fixed on Buddy Pipp as though she were a mouse and he were the moon, made of solid green cheese.

“Amy?” I said her name gently.

She didn't move and, strangely enough, neither did Buddy. He stared back, almost as intently as my wife, although I suspected his interest was mixed with politeness while Amy's was pure fascination.

Talk about the eyes-across-a-crowded-room syndrome. Those two had it and I felt something tighten my stomach as Trudy glanced toward me, her Mona Lisa smile switched on. She knew what I was thinking and she was right. Oh-oh, I thought, this could be the start of something big, as the popular standard goes.

“Amy!” I barked this time and Alexander gave off a soft whine, nuzzling against his mistress's hip.

It was enough to, if not shatter the spell, at least bend it out of focus a bit, and Amy turned to look down at the dog and then at me. “Hm?”

“We're going to be late,” I reminded her. “You know. Bridge. The Champions. Tonight. Chop chop.”

“Oh.” Her fingers went to her lips and she looked rather wildly at Buddy and then at his sister, while I closed the front door so the world wouldn't find out what was going on quite so quickly. “Trudy, there are things in the refrigerator and we're leaving an hour later, as you know, so we may be a little late.”

Trudy nodded, and even as she responded, Amy's brief return to reality ended and she was again looking at the gangling lout as though he were the son of Tarzan, down out of the vines for the evening. He should have been wearing a loincloth and been carrying Jane on one hip and a chimpanzee on the other.

I turned to Trudy, flapping my arms against my sides and leading the way into the front room, where I turned. “You know where the chow line forms and you know how to work the TV knobs. I suppose your heart-throb is on tonight. What's his name?”

“Jimmy Junkin?”

“Give the little lady sixty-four thousand dollars.”

Trudy smiled, stepping closer, her twin points brushing my shirt. I looked down at her, loving the fellow who invented the mini like a brother. This girl had a shape that made Raquel Welch look angular.

Still, I was a gentleman first. “Easy, kiddo. There are others about.”

“I don't believe you,” she replied, looking back over her shoulder, so that her bodice stretched playfully over her breasts. I wanted to fill my hands with them, like spilling diamonds through my fingers. “They don't know what's going on out there.”

I frowned, gazing past her, to where Amy and the tall kid were still standing, candidates for the waxworks. “By the way, what is going on out there?”

She looked back at me, cute as a button, fingering my shirt front as her lower lip went out in a moist pout. “He always affects older women that way, I guess. They say he's tall, he's got beautiful blond hair that they want to comb, and when he smiles they say he's like an adolescent angel. Sum it up and I guess he's a super turn-on.”

“Not to Amy he isn't,” I muttered. “My God, she must be almost twice his age.”

“I doubt that,” she purred. “He's only a year younger than yours truly.”

“Lord, a deadly weapon at fifteen.” And also, I reminded myself, that shaft between his legs was as potent as it was ever going to be. Somehow, he didn't seem like a harmless angelic kid any more.

Trudy wasn't interested in them, turning her full attention to me. Her knee came forward to touch my crotch, jiggling lightly, her aim as accurate as always as she hit me right on the old knob. I began to pump strength into my staff, pouring in reinforcements for the battle that might be looming.

“I guess you're not so senile, Mr. Brady,” she chirped, her head tilting in approval.

“Who said I was? I thought I did rather well the other night on the living-room floor.”

She nodded. “Still, they say a man over twenty-one is losing his stuff, you know? You come back pretty quickly.”

I wanted to brag a little and tell her I'd been active since her last visit, too, but I wasn't spilling my guts for the sake of stature. “I think,” I mumbled, pulling my fly away from her groping hand, “that Mrs. Brady and I had better go play some bridge.”

Her lower lip shot out again. “I thought you wouldn't need to leave for a while.”

Shaking my head, I muttered, “You're a sitter, not a mistress, remember? Alexander is your responsibility and so is that stud in the front room. I'm expecting you to keep a leash on them both. Do I make myself clear?”

“Sure, Mr. Brady,” she replied, bright as ever. She didn't believe a word I was saying and her supreme confidence made me feel a hundred years old.

I stalked back into the parlor to break up the waiting game. Buddy was still smirking, hands plunged into the pockets of his jeans, his T-shirt stretched across his rib cage. My eyes dropped and, sure enough, his pouch looked like a sackful of rocks. Not only were his jeans glued to his thighs, but he was stretching them even tighter with his hands. The bastard wasn't playing fair.