Rick Jennings: Pet shop pussy

Pamela Harper lay alone in her bed with the awareness, the growing concern and concomitant anxiety, that her life was basically empty. No matter how hard she tried to structure it, to give it a unifying sense of order or purpose, she sensed that without someone next to her to share her dreams, her goals and aspirations, life wasn't really worth a dime.

How many mornings have I awakened like this… with nothing, just a career, but no one alongside of me? This question and others passed across her mind. She looked up and stared at the ceiling as if she was searching for an answer, a solution to the emptiness in her heart.

Love was the problem, and at twenty-eight it seemed to be her biggest concern. The daily hassles of making a living, of running a business and making ends meet, were not nearly as disconcerting as the fact that she was not in love. Indeed, she was acutely aware of the last time she had felt anything akin to romantic involvement, and that had been more than five years before, right after she had graduated from college.

But the past five years she referred to as a desert, a wasteland.

Men had come and gone, in and out of her life. Had she been a woman who was basically unappealing, physically as well as mentally, she would have been able to give herself a much needed rationalization for her overwhelming sense of loneliness. But there was no way for her to convince herself that men didn't turn somersaults over her.

And that too was a problem, keeping them off of her, getting them out the door before things really took on a leering shade of carnal red. Like what had happened last night, for example. She thought of that now, glad too that it was Sunday morning and she didn't have to get out of bed and get the shop open and ready for customers.

On Sundays she had a neighborhood boy clean out the pens and feed the animals, so she didn't have to worry about getting up and rushing out of her apartment. That was what Dick Truman had told her, too. "You don't have to get up early tomorrow, Pam, so what's the big hassle, anyway?"

It had been less of a question than a statement. No, time hadn't been the hassle. Only Dick Truman, anxious to have her on a silver platter like a roast suckling pig. He's the pig, she said to herself, shuddering at the thought and then wondering too if she just might be frigid… or maybe even just a little bit frigid.

After all, Dick was certainly an attractive guy. But he was too pushy for her, too much of a hard-drinking bruiser. He didn't have a gentle touch and that had turned her off from him, from the very first.

I just won't accept any more dates from him, that's all, she decided, right then and there. Pam wondered if it had been her fault, if she had led the man on, agreeing to go out with him for what had been four dates over as many weeks. And last night had been the clincher, that's for sure.

"What are you, some cockteasing ball-buster!" he had shouted when they were alone in her apartment, when she had once again rebuffed his sexual advances, feigning first a headache and then a lack of interest in making love with him.

"Just get out of here and leave me alone," she had snapped back, sorry she had ever been conned – for that was the way Pam saw it – into letting him come into the apartment for a nightcap. "A nightcap isn't a euphemism for let's fuck, Mr. Truman!"

"I don't think you'd know how, anyway, kiddo," the man had replied, as cocky and sure of himself as she had always felt him to be. "Have a good life, baby, a good long horny life." And with that he had let himself out, slamming the door behind him.

She hated herself for breaking down after he had stormed out, for collapsing on the couch, her body racked with sobs. Because what Pamela Harper couldn't deal with was the fact that whatever Dick had said somehow rang true. She hadn't enjoyed sex with a man in ages, more than just weeks or even a month or two.

And she knew it was abnormal to stifle her desires, to squelch her sexual appetites, all in the name of love. It wasn't as if she was a virgin, or even an old maid. At the ripe young age of twenty-eight she was more of a woman than ever before. Full-hipped, narrow-waisted, blessed with a plentiful and upthrust bustline and features which seemed to remind men of the heads adorning cameo pins, she was a woman who was very much aware of her own allure, her sexual magnetism, in particular.

Hadn't she caught the boy who helped her out during the week and on Sundays, giving her the eye? She knew she had, knew that half of the sales she made at her shop were partly due to the fact that not only was she a natural born saleswoman, but the fact that she was too lush and seductive to say no to.

Truman had felt that, she decided. But she had been the one who had said no to him, the one who had denied him not only his pleasure, but also hers in addition. Not for one minute did she doubt that he would be good in bed. But she wasn't in love with him and knew that there was no chance in the world she would ever be.

"But you don't have to be in love to get fucked," he had told her that night, rephrasing a line he had used on each of their four dates. "It's just nice to sleep with someone, to give someone pleasure and get pleasure as a result… of giving, of giving to someone else, Pam."

He had been earnest, she knew, but it still hadn't changed the situation nor changed her mind one iota. "They don't understand me, Bix. That's the problem," she said aloud. "They just don't know what kind of person I am. I give, I have feelings… don't I?"

In response, Bix crawled up from where he had been sleeping at the foot of Pam's bed. He sat up and cocked his head to the side; his dark liquid brown-black eyes seemingly reflecting her every questioning thought and turn of mood.

"You're a good boy, Bixie. You understand me… not like anyone else," she went on. She reached out and ran her fingers over the top of the Scottish terrier's head. He yapped happily and scooted up over the covers to sit on top of her chest.

Despite his thirty pounds of hard bone and muscle, his weight was not in the least bit uncomfortable. Her hands snaked down along the Scottie's flanks and she ran her fingers through the thicker fur along his sides, then down over his back where the hair had just been stripped.

It was tough as nails, wiry and jet-black.

"You're a champ, ya know that, Bixie. You're Champion Sir Bix Reliant. That's what it says on your papers. But you're just good old Bixie to me, feller."

In response, the dog lay down on top of her blanketed body, arched his short muscular neck and proceeded to lavish her face with kisses. His spoon-shaped tongue slapped raspily over her cheeks and lips and she smiled contentedly to herself.

At least animals understand me, she thought, knowing she had chosen a perfect profession. She ran a pet shop – Pam's Pet Palace said the brightly lettered sign over her front windows. All day she was surrounded by the chattering and chirping, the barking and meowing of monkeys and parrots, puppies and kittens.

But when she came home at night, all she had was Bix, faithful and there for her. But still a dog, not a man. Now, the Scottie continued to lick her face with his rough raspy-edged tongue. Pam hugged him close against her, wanting to cry but unable to produce tears to sluice down her cheeks.

The anguish was there, but trapped, locked inside of her. She didn't even feel sorry for herself, either, despite what she saw as an accumulation of thwarted passions, or perhaps just a lack of emotion, her feelings stifled inside of her.