Gus Stevens: Love Me, Love My Dog

The inside of the house was filled with antiques, from the full-length grandfather's clock in the entry hall to the lace on the scattered tables. The lamps were shaded by stained glass and some of the furniture was quilted in red.

She smiled at my glances, her hands pressed together. “You're wondering about these old things. I'm afraid I'm not a true patron of antiques, Mr. Brady,” she remarked, her voice perfectly modulated, although still somewhat low. “You see, my last husband owned this house. It had been in his family for a hundred years, so he said. It came to me in the settlement and I'm staying here until something more suitable comes along.”

“I see,” I replied.

“Do you really?” she asked, her lips curved in a chaste smile. “I wonder. We'll soon find out, I expect. Won't you sit down and have a sherry before we get down to business?”

“I don't have much time,” I stammered. “Have to get right back home. My wife…”

“Ah, yes, Trudy and Buddy have told me how charming Mrs. Brady is. I'd adore meeting her.”

She sat, keeping her knees together and to one side, and poured two glasses of amber sherry from a cut glass decanter that must have been in the New World Ion before the Mayflower arrived. She passed me a glass, we lifted our hands to each other, and sipped. It was damned good. Could be even the wine predated the Plymouth colony.

“Now then,” she said, waiting, her head cocked, much as Trudy cocked her head like a bird. In fact, Miss Pipp must have looked a good deal like her niece twenty years before, for her hair was still a bright blonde and her features were almost pert, although much more mature than Trudy's, of course. Her figure — or what I could see of it under her chaste dress-did not seem to have been aged by time. Her waist was thin, her breasts swelled interestingly and her hips looked as though she'd had a great deal of experience.

I cleared my throat. “As you know, my wife and I have had certain social contact with your niece and nephew. I thought it only fair to inform you that they appear to be rather… well, over-friendly is a way to put it.”

Aunt Charlotte pursed her lips and I wondered if she were hiding a smile. “Indeed?”

“Indeed. Not only have I observed them making certain advances to each other, but each has attempted to… um, compromise Mrs. Brady and me. I hope you realize I'm telling you this only because we're very fond of them and have no desire to see them get into trouble.”

Aunt Charlotte got up and paced the room, clutching her sherry glass, and I detected a wiggle in her bottom that hadn't been there ten minutes before.

She turned to me, her face serious. “Just how fond of them are you, Mr. Brady?”

“Huh? Well, you know. They're nice kids. Just so they don't go too far.”

She nodded, standing over me. “Our family has always been one of excesses, I'm afraid. For myself, I've taken three husbands, changing them like changes of bed linen, if you'll pardon my simile. My brother, Trudy's and Buddy's father, and his wife aren't about nearly as much as is necessary to control their children. I'm afraid they follow the horses and other whims, spending their days at Belmont or before the wheels in Reno, rather than close to their children.”

I nodded. “Trudy told me a bit about that. So it falls to you to be the disciplinarian.”

She nodded, sitting down once again and sipping at her sherry. She looked at the glass. “Wouldn't you like something a little stronger, Mr. Brady?”

I felt the glow in my stomach, wondering if it was the ounce of sherry or the wiggle of Aunt Charlotte's bottom. “That would be fine,” I answered.

She went into the far corner and worked at a tiny bar for a moment, showing me her bottom all the while, and then she returned with two tall glasses filled with an amber stuff. We drank and it hit my stomach hard, with a punch like that of straight bourbon.

“All right?” Her smile was still angelic, even as Trudy's could sometimes be.

“Fine,” I gasped, taking another drink that went down more easily. That glow was getting hotter in my stomach.

“Now,” she said, her voice more throaty, “let's return to the problem at hand. Ah, yes, the Pipp family. Well, as you can imagine, with their parents setting such a terrible example, Trudy and Buddy haven't had much of a compass to guide them. It's not surprising that they could lose some of their moral values.”

I smiled. “Surely your values must count for something, Miss Pipp. Their close contact with you and this elegant old house should serve them well.”

Aunt Charlotte put her glass aside and rose again, again pacing before standing before me. “That is where you make your mistake, Mr. Brady. My values might not be what you seem.”

I chuckled. “That's difficult to believe.”

“Is it?”

With that she did something at the back of her head and that bun of hair tumbled down about her shoulders, picking up the light as it did so and changing her entire face and even her figure. Her manner had changed, as well, as Mr. Hyde had emerged from Dr. Jekyll.

I was shocked at her change, not that it was in any way unattractive. However, in five seconds, she had been transformed from the thirty-five-year-old Aunt Charlotte to a slightly older sister of Trudy Pipp. She wore the same smile, the same face, and same figure, although taller and more mature. She carried her head in the same fashion as her niece and, in every way, she was a creature transformed.

The Pipp family, I was learning, was rotten from one generation to another.

“Take it easy, buster,” she rasped, her hands on her hips, her figure emerging as though by magic. Even the dress seemed to shrink. “You're over here to make sure those two brats don't blow the whistle on you, right? Right. Well, they won't. They like their nookie too much to cut themselves off from any supply, like you and your missus.”

I could only stammer and she threw her head high, in another Trudy-like gesture, laughing.

“Jesus Christ, don't you think I know all about you? Don't you think I know how those two have been over at your place, noon and night, screwing their little pointed heads off? Don't you think they came home yesterday bubbling with stories about Mary Ellen and that chicken dog? Christ, would I have gotten my rocks off to have been in her place.”

She was sounding like a bar girl and I could merely stare, clutching my glass and drinking from it. She leaned down, taking it from me. “Not too much straight sauce for that fluttery tummy, right, Donny baby?”

Again she hovered over me, her breasts pointing, her hips thrust forward, daring me to make a grab at something inviting. I hated to think of it, but she was immensely desirable and Amy was waiting at home, ready to satiate that desire. But I was here, trapped, finding a number of things about Aunt Charlotte's body immensely inviting.

“You know, Donny,” she was going on, “if I weren't being serviced by a stud of a truck driver every night of the week I'd have been over there with those kids, helping myself to the Brady family goodies. As it is, they keep me filled with wild stories about your pool-side capers and adventures in front of the television set. And that dog-murder!”

I slumped in my chair, but my crotch was sitting up straight, damn it.

She saw my dork trying to escape and she smiled. “It's lucky I've got tonight off and you've filled the void beautifully. You dig me?”

I shook my head.

“Then dig this.”

She lifted her skirt to her waist. Wearing no pants, she showed me her vagina, spread like an open wound, waiting for me to stem its flow.

I stared, my throat working, but no words would come out. She laughed again.