Elizabeth Watson - The doggie doctor

"To hell with you!" she shrieked, slamming the barn door closed and locking it from the outside.

Sore between her legs from John Dobkins' brutal ravagement and sore at the world for her ill-turned fate, Mimi Spender had peddled at full speed her ten speed bicycle back to the dormitory and headed straight through the heavy glass doors to collide head-on with her roommate of this semester – Susie, a tall, blonde girl, friendly in her own timid way. Her blonde, perspiration-matted hair clung to her forehead in stringy bangs and the underarms of her University of California T-shirt were damp from running up and down the steps with boxes of books and accumulated memorabilia of her first semester at the university.

"Hey, Mimi!" she gushed with an enthusiasm Mimi was hard put to match. Susie, set down the suitcases she was carrying, giving her arms a quick shake to get the circulation back in her favor. Quickly, though, her smile faded and in a sisterly manner put her hand on Mimi's shoulder, picking a strand of hair clean of hay. She held the plucked twig in one hand, then reached for another. "My God! Where have you been Mimi? You look like you've been rolling in the hay with Tom Jones. What's the matter?"

Mimi sucked in her breath. No, she couldn't tell Susie about the horrible afternoon she had… she couldn't tell anybody. Not even the police. "I… I'm okay. Pansy bucked me off," she lied.

"Hmmm… that's all huh?" There was more, but Susie didn't pry. "Hey, my dad's waiting for me in the car so I gotta go. I'm glad I got to see you before I left." Bending her knees, she picked up her bulging suitcases and gave her friend a quizzical look. "Hey, just to brighten up your day, there's a surprise for you up on the bed. I found it in the student union today… might help. I know you're uptight about tuition and Horse-Face giving you that C and all…"

"Yeah?" Mimi brightened momentarily, but her encouragement was soon dampened. She'd heard that story before. Easy money… didn't exist.

"Take care of yourself, Mimi, and I guess I'll see you next semester, huh?"

"You too, Susie. I'll write… bye!" Half way through the door to the elevator, Mimi turned in time to see her confidante brace her back against the heavy door to open it. For a second their eyes locked. "Say hello to your parents!" called out Mimi, bridging the silence, the very clumsy silence that separated the two girls.

The dormitory room looked like an abandoned ship. Had Mimi been in a more jovial mood the starkness of the stripped mattress and barren bulletin board might have been depressing, but as it was, she welcomed the solitudinous emptiness. Her own belongings – most of which were already packed – sat in boxes with no destination. What to do?

A scribbled note caught her eye. Oh yes, that must be what Susie found in the student union. Mimi sank down on the mattress, her calves tight from the breakneck bike ride back to campus, and her inner thighs sore and bruised, she was sure, from the photographer's assault. In Susie's gothic handwriting in red ink, Mimi read: "Good bye in case I don't see you before I leave. See 'ya next semester and have a good summer. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Mimi cringed, but read on. Below was a index card obviously plucked from its staples. Surprisingly, it was an ad which read: "Help wanted – Female only – to work at Bartholomew's Kennels outside of Davis. Low wages but good experience; room and board included. Contact Ed. All applications confidential." Then below: "Send photograph for interview."

"Yippee!" Now here is a job right up my alley! None of this model junk. "Fantastic!"

With new resolve and a plumped up sense of self-worth, Mimi picked up the phone and dialed nine for an outside line and called information for Davis, Bartholomew's Kennels. A man answered, introducing himself as Ed Buyers and offered (considering Mimi's qualifications) to arrangement an interview for her tomorrow.

After all these years of debauchery, Ed Buyers for his thirty-eight years was still a good looking man. Bachelorhood was his key. He didn't have to devote any time to covering evidence of his debauchery… the late nights with women, the empty Jack Daniels bottles… nothing. Just he and his dogs and his assistants. Clearly, he was the master of his castle, and that was rule number one here at Bartholomew's Kennels.

His property was vast. A full three hundred and fifty two acres of fine Davis land, though the new freeway ran a cement ribbon through the middle of that acreage. In the center of the property, down in a valley between the freeway and the scrub pine hills bordering it, sat his two-story wooden frame house with a wide screened in front porch where he ate his meals when the weather allowed. Behind the main house, as his 'assistants' called it, was a summer home where one of his two coed assistants lodged, using the kitchen in the main house whenever they wished. In the winter the summer home would have been far too chilly to be habitable, but the scorching summer months found it ideal. The girls didn't complain… that was Ed's thermometer for change. Off to the right, under a small grove of peach, pear, apple, and plum trees were the dog kennels – a small shed painted in cherry red with Bartholomew's Kennels painted in an expert, feminine gothic hand. Beside the shed was a fenced-in dog run constructed of heavy mesh stolen from the depot of supplies when the freeway was being built.

At five-thirty on this Monday afternoon, with the sun hanging hot in the cloudless sky, Ed Buyers settled on the chaise lounge of his front porch, a cold Dos Equis in a frosty mug clutched in one hand. Carrie, a well-endowed black haired girl with deep dimples on her cheeks and one to match on her chin, paraded before him cleaning up the luncheon dishes from the table. She had come to Ed's looking for a job… just as Mimi Spender had done that afternoon… and Carrie had decided this was her avocation in life and stayed, forgetting about college, forgetting about pompous sorority sisters and frat parties.

"Tell me…" urged Ed, grasping out to touch Carrie's ripely tan well exposed flesh, "what do you think of her?"

"Her? Who's her?" The dishes clanked together as he piled up the coffee cups.

"Mimi… the girl I just interviewed."

"Oh, great…!" An edge of jealousy didn't escape Ed's practiced instincts. Carrie turned then. "You got the hots for her, don't you? I don't understand… she's not your type at all… so innocent."

"Oh yeah, maybe she's a little too country, but baby, those tits! Jesus, she's got a pair of knockers on her that won't quit!" He took a deep sip of his beer. "Besides," he started decisively, "we need some new blood around here. Something to liven the place up."

"Now you're turning into a tit man, huh? I thought you were an ass man from way back!" She started for the kitchen with the dirty plates.

"I am, I am! But she's no slouch in that department either. Man, would I ever like to throw the ol' meat to that little honey!"

Piqued by this sudden fixation of Ed's, Carrie set down the dirty dishes on the counter-top next to the dish washer and slipped her hands back to undo the hooks of her bikini top. Ed's raving about another woman's body made Carrie's ears buzz with envy and distrust of his intentions, and there was only one way to keep Ed's mouth shut. Carrie had wriggled out of her bikini top now and her rich full breasts had spilled free of their cups and swung tantalizingly down to her chest, twin white melon-shaped islands in a sea of tanned flesh, capped with the crinkly dark half-dollar nipples that peered at him like an extra pair of eyes. She stood in the doorway adjoining the porch to the kitchen now, her hands braced against the door jam, making her breasts perk out all the more. "Anything wrong with the knockers you have at home?" She was all too conscious of who she, Carrie, had happened to replace Josey, Ed's lover before her, and by God she wasn't about to be replaced by anybody.