Chapter 3

Peggy Davis finished bathing and rinsing her new short-haired Doberman pinscher alone after Dottie hurried home to meet her husband. The lonely blonde felt that familiar pain in her heart when she saw Eddie pull up in front of their mobile home, his face all smiles and his eyes filled with love for his wife. It was at times like these that Peggy knew the heartache of being a serviceman's wife. Being alone for months on end without her man. Without any man! Oh stop that, she cursed to herself, damn it Peggy you have to get a grip on yourself and stop thinking so much about it. It's hard on any woman going so long without... well... I just have to stop thinking about it, that's all! Bob's going through enough without having to worry about his wife too!

She recalled the anecdote he had told her just before he left, the old Navy line about how "every sailor comes home with the hope he won't find his wife just as he left her... freshly fucked!" It was a terribly crude way of putting it but she knew those poor men and boys thought about it a lot when they were away for months on end. But then she remembered what some of the other girls had told her about the famous Mediterranean liberty ports -- Palma de Mallorca with all its Scandinavian tourist girls down for a good time, Naples with all those big-breasted Italian women -- and she'd seen enough Italian movies to know what they were like! Oh stop it, you can't keep thinking like this!

"C'mon, Hero, let's go inside, baby," she whispered softly as if he could understand. "You'll just have to keep me company for a couple more months until Bob gets home. You will do it, won't you big boy? Peggy's strong handsome Hero... let's go in and I'll dry you with a towel and see about some food for you!"

She took a large fluffy bath towel from the hallway linen cupboard and wrapped it around the muscular animal and began to stroke him lovingly beneath the heavy cloth until his fur was completely dry. As she rubbed him tenderly, the big black dog looked directly at her with those dark sensitive eyes of his and she could just feel her insides melt from the unashamed love and affection he exhibited so openly there. He wasn't like a human, he didn't keep it hidden from view. No, he was open and proud of his love for her and it made her feel warm all over to see that he had fallen for her as easily as she had for him. It was frightening... unreal somehow, that look in his eyes. Those deep dark pools seemed to hold all the secrets of the world, all the love, all the hate... she laughed at herself for feeling so foolishly melodramatic, but he was almost human. No, he wasn't... he was more than human, he was a spirit trapped in an animal's body!

"Oh, Hero, I have to stop letting my mind wander," Peggy said to him softly and he cocked his big animal head and gazed at her like he comprehended every word. "You're just a big lovable dog and no more. But you're mine now and we have each other even if there's nothing else for us right now." She was thinking of the hurt they shared -- he without his master and mistress, though he probably could not understand that it was a permanent separation yet. That would come in time. And herself without her man. The pretty blonde shivered and felt a bit of moistness in her eyes. Hero, I guess I really am the lucky one. At least my Bob is coming back... you will have to carry your hurtful loss around the rest of your life.

Suddenly she felt very close to him and she hugged him tenderly about his furry neck and he seemed to understand because he licked her wetly on the cheek and his tiny stub-tail began to wag frantically and soon his whole sinewy body was quivering and prancing around. "Okay, my handsome man, I'll stop being so melancholy and we'll concentrate on having a good time. Neither of us needs to be reminded of our sorrows right now, do we?"

Hero looked at her understandingly and his animal thoughts ranged back over his short life until he remembered another moment such as this... the day his real mistress brought him home from the place where he had been born and weaned. She was much like this human, that mistress of his, young and vibrant and always saying soft loving human words that sounded so pleasing to his ears. She had loved him too and he loved her in return with that special kind of permanent devotion known only to animals and not to humans.

His mistress had taken him to a big house in the outdoors, not close to the frightening noises that humans made with their machines that raced along the asphalt paths, and there he had lived for three years until his mistress and her human companion, the one she called her husband, decided to take that unfortunate trip south for a holiday. Hero scarcely remembered his mistress's husband as he was seldom around and when he was, he treated Hero badly, like just another piece of furniture and it made him feel badly that his mistress spent so much time with that human when he was home.

Hero felt his pulse quicken as he remembered all the wonderful times he had spent with his mistress. But this human seemed to be his mistress now. He could not fully understand it. There had been an awful noise and he remembered that his mistress had cried out and he had tried to bark and leap from the rear seat of that machine to help her as she sounded in real fright but there was another noise and he remembered tumbling and falling as if he had run off the edge of the earth and then there was nothing. There were other humans finally and strange sounds and smells and then they took his mistress away and he tried to bite the men in white who were carrying her but some other humans caught him and he was thrown into the back of another human machine that smelled of dogs and cats and he was taken away. That all seemed a long time ago to Hero now but he remembered it just as a human would.

His legs grew weak and he became nervous and fretful as he recalled especially those special moments he and his mistress had shared together... those times alone when her human companion was away and they were free to be themselves. He remembered the special tricks his mistress had taught him and how he had performed them faithfully, though they seemed useless at first. But he had quickly grown to love and enjoy their special quiet moments together, and as he became aware of the joy and happiness his performance could bring to his wonderful mistress he began to perform his special tricks as often as she would allow him, with or without her urging. It became their secret life together and they shared it with no one and she seemed never to want him to perform his special skills when her human companion was around and that made him sad and he always longed for the day when her human would go away and they would be alone again.

And now, here, just for a moment he thought he had sensed that certain special aura that always triggered his well-trained skills with his mistress. It was a special scent that she seemed to be able to give off as a kind of signal for him and it seemed that he sensed it here with this new human -- his new mistress? -- as she talked to him in soft quiet words that were so pleasing.

But no... now the scent was gone and perhaps he would never be able to perform his wonderful tricks again. It made him sad to think of it and he lay down quietly at his new human's door as she began to undress.

"You're so well-scrubbed and clean, Hero, that I feel ashamed by comparison," Peggy said to him in soft gentle tones unaware of his animal thoughts. "You wait a second and I'll put out some food for you so you can eat while I take a bath, okay?"

Hero watched curiously as she took off her dress and he could see nearly all of her suntanned human skin and he was reminded of his real mistress -- she had looked a lot like this when she undressed. And he felt that keenness begin to stir in his animal loins, for it was at times like this, alone with his mistress, that she sometimes took off her clothes like this and it was usually then that he got the special scent and he knew that she wanted him to perform his special tricks.

She was completely without clothing now. He could see all of her flesh fully and his heart ached at the sight -- she was so much like his mistress. And now his mistress had gone and left him somehow. But this human had turned away from him and he could see easily that certain portions of her body that stirred this familiar restlessness in his powerful animal loins. But no, he could not... it had to be as he was taught. He was a well-trained animal and he would await his orders always and not be a disgrace to his breed.

"Okay, handsome," she said. "Follow me and we'll rustle up something good for you." He leaped to his feet in one easy stride and padded softly behind her to the kitchen, his keen eyes on her bikini-stripped buttocks as she walked ahead of him. With hungry eyes he watched her open a can of dog food and spoon it into a dish for him. In three gulps he had finished it and was running to catch up with her in the bathroom. Yes, she was much the same as his mistress. There was no difference that he could perceive. And she was indeed kind to him, not like those humans back at that awful place who had kept him penned up with a bunch of stray dogs and trash from the alleys. He would like to perform with her, for her...

Peggy ran the bath water as hot as she could stand it and then slipped gingerly into the soothing tub, stretching her five feet-four inches beneath the warm waters as she lay back against the end of the tub, her eyes closed. It seemed that all of the day's cares and pains just seeped out of her magically and into the bath water. She splashed it cautiously onto her breasts and gasped as she felt an electric tingle race down into the depths of her belly. Oh Bob, why do you have to be so far away? Why can't you be here with me, right now... right here in this tub! Naked and... oh I mustn't! Words and thoughts like that can't help me... it'll only be worse!