Gus Stevens: Love Me, Love My Dog

She shook her head as I came in the door, trying to keep Alexander from eating me up with joy at the same time. “I'm sorry, darling, but it's the Champions.”

I glared at her and then at the mutt, which was rapidly turning into something the size of an elephant seal. “What about the Champions?”

“They've invited us over for the night. You know, it's Friday, and we always…”

“Maybe we always see them on Friday, but I don't always wait for a week between lovemaking sessions, as we girls like to call it. Tell the Champions it's off for tonight. Maybe tomorrow if we get caught up.”

She let her hips rest against my flanks, and I know damned well she could feel my cock ramming like a loaded torpedo. “I'm terribly sorry sweetheart, but I've already accepted for bridge at seven. You'll just have time to clean up and grab a bite on the fly.”

“That's what I was hoping I'd be able to talk you into doing,” I complained, “grabbing a bite on the old fly.”

“Get going,” she murmured, pecking me on the end of the nose. “And you can forget that dirty talk for tonight.”

I paused on my way to the rear of the house, shucking my coat and shirt along the way. “What about your four-legged police force?” Suddenly I laughed in triumph. “He can't go along and he won't stay home without a baby-sitter, to quote that son of a bitch in the pet store.”

Amy broke the news as gently as she could. “I checked the want ads, and there's a sitter available. She lives just two blocks away and she's dying to come and sit with our dog.”

My heart felt like a cannonball suspended in my chest. “Jesus, but you're efficient. What's her name?”

“Trudy Pipp, I believe she said. Yes, that was it. She'll be here in a half hour, so hurry along now.” Amy's eyes turned sad. “If I wasn't afraid she'd walk in on us any moment I'd say to heck with your shower and we could play games for thirty minutes. But I don't dare. Sitters are so hard to find these days.”

I turned away in disgust and snorted my way through a cold shower, cussing out the Champions, my wife and, most of all, that dog that should have been wearing feathers instead of a coat of fur. I was just combing my hair when the bell rang and Amy, still in the bathroom, yelled at me to get it.

When I opened the door and saw what was standing on the stoop, my heart went out to Alexander. I loved all dogs, especially him. Any pet that could attract a baby-sitter like this blonde had to be nominated for a canine medal of honor.

I opened my mouth, but nothing would come out, so I stared, my eyes working steadily from her shining hair to her sandal-clad feet. At last I was looking into those baby blue eyes, transfixed. The electricity was arcing like the Niagara Falls power station, shooting from her body into mine and back again, building a positive charge ever higher with each exchange.

I might have been a struck dumb, but I was smart enough to know that something was going to have to happen between this girl and me before the night was over. The look in her eyes confirmed it in silent-and total-agreement. Then her look changed, innocence replacing the vamp for the moment.

“Hi,” she blurted, her voice like that of a breathless teen-ager. “I'm Trudy Pipp. Mrs. Brady called me about sitting tonight.”

I managed to nod.

“You Mr. Brady?” Her glittering head tilted like that of a child eyeing things in a candy store window, things she wanted desperately but had little chance of possessing.

Trying desperately to get hold of myself, I cleared my throat in a no-nonsense fashion and stepped aside. “I'm Mr. Brady, all right, and we've been waiting for you. It's ten minutes past the hour.”

“I'm sorry, but my aunt wanted me to help with the dishes before I came over here.” She blinked and my resolve fell apart like a damp cardboard box. “I hope I didn't make you miss anything, Mr. Brady.”

My eyes fell to her knees and lower thighs, which were generously displayed by her to brief miniskirt. Closing the door behind her, I muttered, “No, I haven't missed a thing.”

“I didn't think you had,” she said with a choice of words that could have only one meaning.

I could feel my mouth going all dry again by the time Amy came in, screwing an earring onto her left lobe as she entered the front hall. She blinked at the teen-ager, who couldn't have been more than eighteen, her eyes taking in the big picture, and then at me. I felt as though I'd been caught with my hands in some forbidden place, even thought I had them locked firmly behind my back.

“Well?” Amy prompted.

I started. “This is… uh, Trudy… Trudy Pipp. Meet Mrs. Brady.” Somehow it wasn't coming out right.

“Hi,” Trudy chirped. She had that sort of voice. You had to describe it as a chirp, like an innocent canary.

“How do you do,” Amy purred, smiling like a schoolteacher on opening day in September, resolved that it was going to be a long and perhaps painful year ahead. “I hope you don't mind sitting with Alexander. He's only six months old.”

The stacked little blonde looked doubtful. “That's not very old, is it?”

“But he does weigh fifty pounds already.”

Trudy stared, her lips parting in a way that caused my penis to begin to harden at once. My groin was swelling with an ache that increased fast and I cursed my bad luck at not having had the opportunity to lay Amy before going out to the Champions' for the evening.

“Fifty pounds at six months?” Small white teeth were still showing.

“Perhaps I should explain,” my wife continued. “Alexander is a German shepherd.”

Miss teen-age sex-a-go-go blinked. “A dog?”

“A very valuable dog who has difficulty staying home alone at night. So we decided a regular sitter would provide company. Do you mind?”

Amy fastened her eyes hard on Trudy, daring her to say no, as though she might be relieved to get rid of the blonde. My wife is no fool; she recognizes a threat as quickly as the next married woman.

Trudy shrugged and things bobbed inside her mini, even as my pouch bobbed and increased its ache. I hoped my steel zipper would stand the strain. “Why should I care? A dollar fifty an hour is a dollar fifty an hour, whether I watch a kid or a goldfish.”

“Excellent,” Amy shot back. “There's cold chicken in the refrigerator, soft drinks and a large leftover piece of cake, if you get hungry.”

“Yummy,” Trudy blurted, looking at me, her eyes doing new tricks. “I think I am hungry… for something.”

There was a new roaring in my ears and I knew my brain was only half functioning, so I tried to nod in all the right places. Apparently I wasn't doing a good job of it, for Amy looked strangely at me, scowling, and Trudy seemed to be hiding a giggle behind her small fists.

“Get your things, Don,” Amy muttered.

“I've got my things.”

“Then let's go. The Champions will be waiting and you know how they get when we're so much as five minutes late.” She turned to the teen-age monster, gesturing toward the front room. “There's color TV in there and a pool in the yard, although I don't imagine you've brought a suit.”

“Golly, a pool,” Trudy blurted. “I'll remember that next time.”

“Yes… next time,” Amy breathed. 'Come along, Don.”

“How long do you think you'll be, Mrs. Brady?” the blonde went on, innocent as hell.

Don't ask me how I knew she was putting on an act, but I just knew she was. Just as she knew it and just as Amy knew it. It was like a large ship sighting an iceberg too late to turn away or even to slow down. There would be a meeting of the two, just as there would be a meeting between Trudy and me. I knew it had to happen and we all knew there was no real way of stopping it.