Chapter 6

One step inside the door Nola stopped, frozen with shock. Sitting at Johnny's knee was the biggest, blackest dog she had ever seen. He seemed to be laughing, but that was only because his massive jaws were open and his huge tongue lolled out in easy panting.

"My gosh!" she exclaimed.

"Hi. Meet Freddy. He answers better to 'hey you' or 'C'mere boy,' he has fleas and will probably eat us out of house and home. Go see the lady, Freddy. She's the chief cook and bottle washer for this bivouac, and if she doesn't like you, give up!"

The big dog got up, loomed even bigger. He came over and permitted Nola to pat his head. Then he licked her hand. "H-hello, Freddy," she managed. "Boy! Are you a moose!"

"I gave a guy ten bucks for him, including a leash."

"What kind of a dog is he, Johnny?"

"Company dog. Company for me all day. We went for a walk this afternoon. He chases sticks and thinks there's a rabbit in every bush. We get along fine."

"That's good, Johnny. You're alone too much. He just kind of surprised me, at first." And terrified me, she did not add. She took a few steps and Freddy followed close, his wet nose touching her hand, his huge shoulder leaning against her thigh when she stopped. Johnny grinned.

"He likes you," he decided. "Real man-type dog, that one. He laps up beer like a master sergeant."

"Is-is he housebroken, Johnny?"

"Better'n that. He won't wet a bush or leave a pile in his own yard. Sails over the front fence like a scared deer. What's for dinner?"

"Knockwurst and baked beans."

"Make a lot. Hey, boy. You like knockwurst and baked beans?"

While she poured two stiff vodkas, Freddy poked her bottom with his nose and sniffed at her skirt hem. Quivering with illogical fear, Nola carried the drinks in and gave one to her brother. She sat on the hassock, and Freddy lay down, covering her feet and the lower half of her calves. He was warm and she could feel his breathing.

In desperation, she patted his head testily. He sniffed and turned, wetting her hand from wrist to fingertips with his monstrous tongue. She would, she was sure, get used to him, and for no amount of money in the world would she have protested Johnny's right to a dog, or protested any right, because in the past few weeks, he had improved steadily. She was sure he had, even though their skin to skin relations had not lessened nor changed.

Even Freddy was an example of Johnny's broadening interests, she thought. With a dog, one had to extend a hand and exchange emotions. Johnny had not yet shown any lasting curiosity about things outside his immediate world, but that would come. He was not shy nor apprehensive in the presence of the few people they came in contact with, at the little sandwich shop they stopped in after the theater, or in the few stores he sometimes visited for socks or a book. He just seemed not to know they were people who wanted to be friendly. Now she was curious to know whether he had deliberately sought out the man who had sold him Freddy, or had he been some chance passerby during one of Johnny's daily walks. She didn't ask; lately he had been volunteering more information about his many hours of loneliness each day. Each night for some time, Nola would lie in the quiet night and list the things she counted as positive signs of Johnny's improvement. Freddy had to be one of them.

He was a quiet dog, at least seventy-five pounds past puppyhood. They talked about seeing to his shots for distemper and rabies, and about running some tests with commercial dog foods to see what suited him, and Nola promised to have a serious conference with the butcher about scraps and bones. Big bones. Further, it became obvious that Freddy was used to a house and people. When Nola finally got up to start dinner, he was right at her heels.

"Don't bother the cook, boy," Johnny told him, but Freddy didn't understand. When she tied on her little apron, he was standing, his ears half up, watching her. That wasn't good, Nola thought, because it was Johnny's dog and Johnny resented rejection in any form. But it was only the first day she philosophized, and Freddy would soon find out who his master was.

Getting dinner in the small kitchen wasn't easy, because every time she turned from the stove or the sink, Freddy stood like a giant. He was too big to push aside, so she walked around him. He smelled a little doggyish, and she had a vision of any single person trying to give the dog a bath.

She and Johnny had two knockwursts apiece and Freddy had five in five gulps, finished the baked beans, two pieces of buttered French bread and a half quart of milk. This, after standing by the kitchen table, his nose level with the table top, his eyes following every mouthful either of them took. He made funny dog-like sounds and was amusing, but Nola was glad when Johnny took him back to the living room with coffee. What cheered her most was the boyish, one-sided conversation she could hear while Johnny discussed the proper program to watch. He said things and asked Freddy questions, and Nola's heart began to sing at this abruptly revealed side of her brother's nature. The mood lasted the entire evening. After the eleven o'clock news, their normal time for retiring because Nola had a day of work ahead of her, Johnny was going to let Freddy out.

"I'd take him on the leash if I were you, Johnny. This is only his first day here. I don't think he'd get lost but he might try to go back to his former home or just take a half of a night's hike."

"Okay." Johnny went to the kitchen where the stout leash hung from a nail. He was a little late coming back, and when he did appear, he was carrying his cane. "I may need an anchor if he gets me off balance," he said. "We'll be back after a few minutes. You going to bed?"

"I think so, Johnny."

"Okay. Come on, boy. Let's go find us somebody's grass!"

She heard them come in. There had been no discussion about where Freddy was to sleep, but Nola had just supposed he would sleep by Johnny's bed, or on the fuzzy throw rug in front of the sofa, already a favorite place for dog-flopping. She felt very good about Freddy, even if his size and always slavering mouth did chill her insides.

Yet he was obviously good therapy for her brother. Johnny had had half his usual number of drinks, laughed and played with the dog, and had made none of his usual prepassion remarks to her. Now the house was quiet and she could almost see Johnny, lying with one big hand over the edge of the bed, his fingers tangled in the long ears of his new buddy. New interests, new outlooks and a new buddy. And someday, a new horizon, and perhaps, a new girl. At times Nola wanted it desperately for Johnny; at other times she quivered with personal fear at the thought of Johnny turning his eyes to another woman. She knew, however, that he would never be completely well until it happened.

Suddenly, she tensed. It came again, the short, insistent sniffing at the bottom of her door. Then a soft whine, and a moment later, the unmistakable scratch-scratch of a big dog paw. Quickly her first fear of Freddy resolved itself. He was a huge animal, and as she had entered the door that evening, he had been sitting by Johnny's knee. She had not only stared into his oddly laughing face but she had seen the rest of him in one quick appraisal. His cock had been gigantic, a hairy shape, not unlike a massive black cigar, bobbing as his panting shook his belly.

Now a dozen memories assaulted her. He had followed her at every step in the kitchen, tongue lolling, eyes alert. He had shown her his huge, slick, black balls many times as he turned or lapped at his pan of milk. During the evening, lying on the rug, he had always made sure his huge penis was lying free of his weight, where he could swipe at it with his tongue when the fancy struck. Perhaps, she had thought, it was only because with Johnny, she was constantly sex conscious, but now she realized that Freddy's gigantic cock had frightened her as much as had Johnny's prick that afternoon six months ago when he had approached her from behind in his wheelchair. She trembled.

He was at her door, sniffing her woman odor, scratching for admittance. He couldn't get in unless she opened the door, which she had no intention of doing. But the second fear was very real. Freddy was obviously going to be a permanent fixture in her life, and he was Johnny's dog. As confident as she had become about her brother getting well, she clung to bitter memories of his swift ability to change from sweet to frenzy. "No, no, Johnny wouldn't let him!" she breathed aloud. Then she clamped her palm over her mouth because Freddy whined a bit louder and scratched harder.

Nola slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom. Softly, she opened the door into Johnny's room. He was purring, soundly asleep. She glanced at his door to the hallway and it was closed. He had not wanted Freddy to sleep in his room. She backed out, closing the door and then her own door to the bathroom. After that, Nola stood staring at the door where Freddy still sniffed and scratched.

Maybe, she thought, he's still hungry. Perhaps he is only lonesome. It might even be possible he wanted to go out again. She tried to think of something she could do to quiet him short of opening her door. Finally she went back to bed and lay, quivering and afraid, more of the things she thought about than any certainty. After another thirty, terrified minutes, the sniffing and scratching ceased. For another hour she could not sleep because of a new horror.

If Johnny had been his usual self, and they had entered into their normal pattern of making love, stripped to their skins, if Freddy had been watching, his big nose sniffing the strong odor of sex, what could have happened? She hated herself for believing that her brother might well have been moved to further Freddy's uncanine interest. But the hideous fright would not subside. Finally she slept in exhaustion.

"Johnny, can't we go into my bedroom or at least shut him up in the kitchen?" Nola pleaded, turning her head so she could see Freddy lying on the fuzzy rug at their feet. She lay over Johnny, his cock a long, hard promise against her hip, his encircling hand feeling her tightly-squeezed buttocks. As much as she wanted to be fucked, she was sure that had his prick been the thickness of a pencil, she could not have relaxed her vagina enough to accept it. Her body seemed frozen with fear and behind and below her, Freddy's panting sounded like soft threatening laughter.

"Take it easy, sis," Johnny murmured in her ear. "He's only a dog. He doesn't know pussy from pianos! Relax, honey, forget him."

"But Johnny-"

She pressed her cheek to her brother's chest and tried to forget that Freddy was staring right up between her trembling legs. She let her hands wander over Johnny's muscled shoulders, and she began to writhe against his belly-feeling the way his prick moved and throbbed against her. The screaming fears she had known the night before while Freddy had scratched and sniffed at her door came back; they had never really left her and she had made fifty errors in her typing during the day, spasmodically jolted by some acute flash of inner vision.

Now Johnny was beginning to arrange her. He held her hips and pulled her higher as his own body snuggled lower, and she felt his cock nudge into her vulva, its bloated head like a baseball, spreading and nesting in the dry softness of her quim. Then it began its slow slipping. With an uncontrollable sigh of delight, Nola wriggled down onto the familiar heat and filling. Her clitoris, already swollen by his earlier petting, touched the hairy solidity of his pelvic mound and she came unzipped. Her knees went out and onto the sofa cushion to straddle and brace, and when Johnny's hand went back to her ass, molding and spreading the cheeks, she could not hold them tight. His middle finger found her anus and the pressure made her jerk down on him with instant frenzy. Life slowly returned to her tits, and they swelled between her chest and his like pneumatic globes, the nipples shrieking with pleasure at the hirsute rub from his hairy broadness. He began to fuck up into her with all the strength of his healed legs, and Nola moaned in building ecstasy and fucked back with all of her strength.

Gradually, the good mounted to a nearly unbearable peak, and although she remembered Freddy with a corner of her mind, she couldn't seem to care. The sofa squeaked its usual hymn of accompaniment, and the rush of breath through Johnny's nose was in sweet tempo. She was about to ask him to thrust his finger in her asshole when he did it in his own desire. Nola cooed; they were so perfect together now, so precisely atuned to each other's lust. The word in her mind had a different connotation than before. Lust. She screwed herself down on his prick, thrilled to the high throb of its plunged head, and then raised her ass in a shuddering jerk.

Best of all, when she felt orgasm tightening to leap, she could tell him now. "Ooh, Johnny! It's coming, its coming!" she husked.

He chuckled and did the several little twists they'd found always helped to finish her, and she strained her thighs apart to provide the tensions that helped him. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," she whispered.

"Cum, you fucking bitch," he murmured back, and then she tumbled over the blue into the exploding void, her howl of ecstasy a small quavering death-wish as his prick thumped rhythmically in her convulsing quim. "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny!" she moaned, in total collapse. Then came the glee, the silly giggles, the laughter from him as they lay in fiery afterglow. His cock softened in her cunt, his finger departed her delightfully irritated asshole. She started to unload, and her hand slipped from the sofa cushion, tipping her lethargic body as she tumbled to the floor. Her bottom thudded to the carpet; more laughter.

And then Freddy stood up, and before Nola could gasp and twist, his nose was in her cunt and his tongue was lapping, hard, wet and rough in her crotch. "Oh, my God!" she shrieked and tried to scramble up. Johnny's hand, suddenly hard and gripping in her shoulder, hurled her back. "Johnny!"

"Aw, let him clean you up," he laughed. "Doesn't it feel good?"

Her legs snapped together, forcing Freddy's head up. She twisted, turning her ass to the dog, then realized how stupid that was. Her mind seemed stunned, her cunt still tingled from his brief assault. But when she tried to turn back up, Johnny's hand was too painful in her shoulder flesh. And Freddy's nose was quick to her ass, his tongue digging at the slightly soiled ringlet of her anus. "Oh, no, Johnny!"

He let go, laughing throatily now. Nola leaped to her feet, backing away from Freddy, who now stood sniffing and slapping his tongue in and out of his mouth as if the quick taste had been to his liking. Nola shuddered. His huge cock was hanging, but there was an inch of scarlet tip thrusting from the short-haired foreskin. With a cry of fright and agony, she wheeled and ran to her room. Through her terror a stark truth cut deep into her heart. Johnny had almost let Freddy take her. He had laughed at her distress and hurt her shoulder. Tears of fresh frustration coursed down her cheeks. All of her work, all of her hopes and the beginning taste of victory had nearly been ruined in ten terrifying seconds. Nola fell to the bed and cried furiously.

The sniffing and the scratching continued and Nola stood, both palms pressed to her ears, certain she was going out of her mind with fear. It didn't matter that Johnny had laughingly apologized. It made no difference that Freddy had paid little or no attention to her when she had returned to the living room wearing a protective panty girdle of tough elastic under a light, wool skirt. Now was now, and while Johnny slept like a man pole-axed, Freddy was again at her door. And tomorrow was followed by more tomorrows, in endless order. Nola lowered her hands and tried to think.

She could maybe poison Freddy. She had no gun, and the thought of trying to thrust a sharp carving knife into the huge, hairy throat was impossible. More terrible was the kind of rage Johnny would loose on her if he even suspected she had plotted Freddy's death. As she had in the beginning, Nola constructed weird and drastic schemes to correct what seemed to be an uncorrectable situation, and again, the answer was the same. Johnny was the important one, the sick one. It was he who needed protecting and encouraging. In just two days he had opened his ironclad heart to a big, responsive dog, his first real sign of affection for something or someone other than himself. With an audible sigh Nola swept plans for violence from her mind. No, she admitted, Freddy had to stay. What she had to do was figure out some protection for herself. Some clever something that would keep Freddy from her, especially when she was so completely and nakedly exposed in Johnny's arms. Something that would quiet the huge beast and prevent him from putting thoughts into Johnny's easily inspired mind.

It was a matter of odor and taste, she was sure. As Johnny had so brutally remarked, Freddy didn't know pussy from a piano. Perfume? She shuddered. Too much perfume or cologne made her latent hay fever active, and Johnny had often remarked the 'stink of a French whore.' Some secret formula-her skin crawled as she thought of annointing her body with advertised solutions that were guaranteed to keep cats and dogs from furniture, shrubbery and wherever else they weren't wanted.

Feed him something with his new dog food that would reduce or even destroy his natural urge for sex. She had heard saltpeter had that effect upon men, but she had no concept of what might work with big, energetic dogs. She might call a veterinarian and inquire about a drug or something. She sat down on the bed, entranced by the progression of ideas, not ignoring Freddy's presence at her door, but suddenly not so apprehensive. Her mind raced on.

If there was no drug to dull a dog's sex urge, there might be something like a salve or a fluid to use in secret that would make any physical sexual manifestation a painful, impossible thing to stand. This excited Nola and she tried to think of what was in the medicine chest that could be used. She thought of menthol salve but its odor would be revealing. Johnny was no fool. When her mind exhausted the medicine cabinet, she mentally moved to the kitchen. The spice rack, and her first thought was red pepper. She giggled. She could almost see Freddy, his penis on fire from an application, humping around the house looking for a place to lie down so he could lick his stinging cock, and after one lick, turning to fire at both ends. Then Johnny would notice the dog's discomfort and take him to the vet's. She turned cold. Something, but not as drastic as red pepper.

Then she remembered something she had once heard about in school when she and some girl friends had gone to watch a horse show at the St. Francis Riding Academy. One of the girls had asked how they trained show horses to walk around and run and jump with their tails standing straight up. Another, wiser girl had provided the answers: during training, the underside of the horse's tail was painted with a ginger solution so that if the animal dropped his tail in an ordinary horse fashion, the ginger burned the animal's rectum. It was completely effective without leaving permanent burns or after effects.

Nola sighed. Of course, ginger and something, maybe cooking oil. Then she was faced with how and where to apply it. That didn't seem too difficult, even if it did entail some unpleasant moves. She'd make a small dish of the solution and keep it in a cupboard over the sink. It would take her fifteen seconds during her nightly fixing of Johnny's vodka to touch a finger in the solution, stoop and pat it on the hairy end of Freddy's prick. If he so much as showed a scarlet tip, the ginger would sting him instantly. So he licked it off, but the fire would certainly last until bedtime. She looked at the door.

"I'll fix you, you big overgrown son of a bitch," she murmured.