Chapter 1

I was down on my luck, having just broken up with my boyfriend. It wasn't a big thing. Boyfriends aren't all that hard to come by and truthfully, I was getting tired of all the hassles anyway, but I didn't have my own place either. Finding my little brown butt on the sidewalk wasn't too good, especially since I had exactly $18.11 to my name. I'd just spent a buck eighty-nine on a peach wine cooler, which was pretty rowdy for me. I even bummed a smoke from some guy, but choked on the first couple puffs and tossed it.

I'm not much of a troublemaker, not by a long shot. I was just 19 then, barely out of high school and bouncing from job to job while I tried to figure out what I was doing with my life. It wasn't that I didn't have dreams or ambitions, I did. I just didn't know what they were yet.

My latest job had been dancing in a strip club, which I didn't care for a whole lot. Sex really wasn't my thing in the first place. It's okay sometimes, but night after night, seeing those guys sitting around just staring like they wanted to eat me for dessert? Yikes! That wasn't for me and I'd even turned down a pretty good raise earlier that day when I'd told the manager I was quitting.

She was a nice woman, full of compliments about my body and even though she was a lez, I think she meant most of them. I'm 5'2" and about 90 pounds, with little A-cup boobs and narrow, boyish hips. I have long black hair, thick and wavy like a permanent perm, and my almond eyes are soft and brown. My ass is nice and round and my legs are great, everyone likes my legs, but I shaved my pussy so I looked like I was 12 again. Janey, the manager, put me in catholic schoolgirl uniforms and stuff like that for my routines. I even went out in a Girl Scout uniform, selling "Girl Scout Nookie" for 30 bucks a table dance and 50 for a lap dance.

I made a lot of money real fast, for the club and for me. But I'd spent it, as usual, and now I'd just broken my last twenty. I had no home, no boyfriend, no job; the sun was going down and I was in Seattle in April. You just knew it was gonna rain and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I wasn't going back to the club, that was for sure. Nor did I want my old job back at Wendy's, selling hot 'n juicies to stoned kids in their daddy's car. That job really sucked.

So maybe there really is a fate, or destiny, or Buddha or something, I dunno, but it couldn't have been pure chance when the little newspaper came fluttering along on the cool breeze. It wrapped itself around my calf like a hungry rodent and I ripped it away in annoyance, almost letting it go, but not quite. I caught the words "Help Wanted" in small type and I set my cooler down, spread the newspaper over my thighs, and took a look.

It was some weird newspaper, I thought, definitely not the Post-Intelligencer, because the ads in this paper were looking for weird stuff. Like Master Seeking Slave, and Baby Girl 4 Daddy, things like that. I didn't see a whole lot about prior experience, or how much these people paid, although for some of that stuff it seemed like it should be quite a bit. Like the guy looking for a woman willing to be amputated? Come on, I'd need a lot of money before I'd go that far! And a woman offering to cut off testicles for free? I laughed at that onebecause what guy in his right mind would ever let a girl cut off his balls for nothing? I seriously began to wonder if this newspaper wasn't some sort of joke.

It started raining and I ducked back into the 7-11, looking at the fat old clerk who gave me a frown.

"It's pouring cats and dogs, for crying out loud," I told the woman, turning my back and shaking the paper for a second, knowing it would annoy her. I'd been in that 7-11 a thousand times and she'd never smiled at me once.

Hmmm ... Cats and dogs. I found an ad that sounded interesting...

Dog Girl Wanted SWM seeks Bitch 18-35 for long term live-in service. Height/weight proportional, clean and disease free a must. No experience necessary.

It wasn't much of an ad, I admit, and calling a girl a bitch right off the top like that made me a little wary. But I like dogs and I'm one of those people that just seem to attract them. Even the meanest dog will stop barking once he sees me, or catches my scent or whatever. I don't know why or how, I just know it's the truth. Dogs are always following me around and I never really minded it, although my parents used to complain because I'd never finish my dinner. I always wanted to save a little something for my newest four-legged friend.