Graeme Gibson - Communion

But his heart isn’t in it, it’s true, he doesn’t know why at first, he tries to concentrate . . . the costume is cunningly designed. A canine mask covers his head . . . dog skins well tailored to fit, his back, the jerking tail, blue-veined at the belly, he’s naked from mouth to thighs.

She does everything he wants.

… fiercely lustful, a dog, a wolf, he pauses to sniff and growl . . .

But she has to be naked, they both have to be naked. It won’t work if he skips the preliminaries, Walters knows that, better than anyone else he knows just how tenuous the scene is. So he re-devotes himself. He tries to slow everything down.

There’s the question of her underwear. A half-slip, what colour? babyblue, the same as her brassiere and a garter belt, that’s inescapable, a bit old-fashioned perhaps, but very nice with rosettes, tiny pink and white rosettes: he sticks his tongue in her belly-button and the slip comes off easily. Intently he nibbles, licks the white flesh of her thighs, down her legs as he slowly removes the left stocking. He does the same for the right one. She seems to like it. She rolls her head from side to side with little sounds and her arms flop about. After the garter belt, he tries to remove her pants with his teeth, but she starts to giggle, that’s fatal, so he stops, pretends it was a joke . . .

It’s almost time!

Naked she reaches. All he has to do is get out of his own clothes as provocatively as possible, she’s watching him, do what’s necessary to maintain, intensify the mood, perhaps take her into the bedroom yes, or should he do that before he undresses? yes.

And then he can . . .

How many times is this? It’s never been so good, the expectation, Christ the longing as if it’s never been done before, this is the first time! he kisses her here and there, squeezes a little, chews on her breast, her mouth, takes a big swallow of his drink, he lifts her from the couch, it’s never been so good, he carries, he can hardly stand it, he’s light on his feet, her mouth is alive in his flesh . . .

Peter Walters on his hands and knees, fiercely lustful, a dog, a wolf, he pauses to sniff and growl at the bedroom door. She stares incredulous. Small hand to her mouth, what’s that! she’s starting to laugh, a spluttering giggle, the laughter exploding, her nude body convulsive on his bed. He growls. She isn’t supposed to do that! Her breasts jiggling with uncontrollable laughter. He raises his mournful face, baring his fangs he rolls his eyes . . . She’s supposed to . . .

Perhaps if he frightened her.

Baring his fangs, his cruel mouth in a snarl, he strains towards her, he desperately snarls from deep in his chest, but it doesn’t work. On the contrary. She collapses again, writhes helplessly, her laughter bounces off the walls. She’s not supposed to do this at all. He howls piteously, cringes and tries to meet her eyes, he rubs himself against the door, he whimpers while she watches him intently. She manages to speak: “A puppy dog” she says, her face suffused, “How sweet, an itsy-bitsy puppy dog.” She stares. “Oh Christ!” she cries and unable to continue, throws herself back on the bed.

He pants and snuffles uncertainly. He’s afraid, he doesn’t understand: perhaps she doesn’t like him after all; he pads towards her, pausing often to watch and listen. Because of the mask, but more because of the terrible shock he can’t see that Mary Anderson is almost hysterical. He’s aware only of her hip, the powerful buttocks as he crawls closer, sniffing, cautiously closer because the laughter’s stopped, she doesn’t seem to be, her body quiet, he hopes she doesn’t start again, she isn’t laughing anymore: she’s not supposed to respond like that, his head is boiling, she shouldn’t have done that. He’s at the edge of the bed and she still doesn’t move. Her white ass looms invitingly large. He feels more secure because her breathing is agitated, she’s clearly excited, she wants it alright, there’s no doubt about that, she wants it! He puts his front paws on the bed and whimpers seductively. The laughter was a mistake, these things happen: he should have prepared her better, given more warning. He’s willing to forgive her.

Fiercely lustful, a dog, a wolf, he pauses to sniff and growl at the bedroom door . . . he crawls towards her. He snarls. She understands immediately, she understands! She moans. His small red penis rises like a finger as she moans. He howls, she whimpers. Raising his face in gratitude, his muzzle to the ceiling, he howls; revealing his opening mouth, his soft underbelly, he howls and howls! With burning eyes she watches him pad to the bed, she whimpers excitedly, she rises on all fours, she shudders as he snarls, those full breasts quiver as she lifts her head, her face, exposing her throat, the stretching tendons . . . impatient she strains, rolling her eyes, baring her teeth, he leaps to the bed, she bounds away. He follows. She snaps playfully at his flank. He growls in his chest: she’s trembling as he circles close, sniffs the gentle flesh of her buttocks, smells the ripe earth, tastes . . .

“FUCK OFF YOU PERVERT!”

Frightened and turning, grabbing the coverlet about her, she’s staring at Peter Walters in his dog suit. His chest and front paws are along the bed; the rest of him still crouches on the floor.

He doesn’t understand. She isn’t supposed to react like this, she mustn’t! she’s supposed to, he was so sure with burning eyes she watched him pad . . . And she laughed! Surging blood inside, this snarl, it twists his mouth and viciously . . .

She screams as he leaps, she tries to escape, he drives for the throat, she twists, she fights, and is helpless.

Soft white victim, her fat legs kick the air: too terrified to cry out now, she groans, she begs forgiveness, mercy from the beast, she promises much . . .

But it’s too late. His paws on her face, he hears nothing but her heart; he forces past her arms and bites deep into her throat, tears flesh, tastes dark blood pumping between his jaws.

Just because the dog, clearly exhausted, drained, just because it’s sleeping in its cage, relaxed now, secure, it doesn’t mean that Walters hasn’t phoned, Felix knows this: it doesn’t mean that everything hasn’t been arranged. He isn’t fooled for a minute.

Standing in the aisle, the dog completely unaware of him, Felix realizes that he must act. That’s obvious. He can’t ignore it. He doesn’t know what to do.

He can’t just open the cage, the back door, the gate to the lane and shoo it out into the city. He can’t do that because there’s no guarantee the dog would go, and even if it did, even if he chased it out with a broom, a shovel, nothing good would happen to it. It would be hit by a car; or the police would be alerted, somebody would report seeing a great white husky, perhaps mistake him for a wolf and the hunt would be on. They’d recapture him immediately, certainly before he got to the ravine. The dog would have one of its seizures, the police mistaking it for a rabid animal would shoot it to death.

And even if it does, by some unlikely chance, survive the traffic, even if it manages to elude the police, the Humane Society, even if it finds its way to the ravines, what will happen to it then?

Nothing good.

Early in the winter, before Christmas he remembers, a timber wolf came down the Don Valley Parkway right into the city, almost to the Lakeshore before it was recognized and killed. How did it get so far? Did nobody see it, or did they just glance from their cars and mistake it for somebody’s dog? There’s no way of knowing. The newspapers said it was very young, a pup really, that might help to explain it, they said it was starving, you could count the ribs on its skinny carcass. A policeman shot it with his service revolver.