Chapter 2

It was closer to an hour and a half before the man I'd spoken with on the phone showed up. I didn't know it was him of course, not until the old rusty green pickup truck he was driving pulled into the parking lot with the high beams on, blinding me and anyone else who happened to be looking in the wrong direction. I covered my eyes as the truck growled to a stop right in front of me.

The guy rolled down his window. "You the dog girl?" he called out in the rain. He didn't stick anything but his nose out the window though, so I didn't get much of a look at him.

"Yeah," I nodded, biting my lip and thinking this was it. I had one last chance to change my mind.

"Well, let's get goin' then." And I saw his vague shape lean over and the passenger side door creaked open as I dashed through the heavy drops and climbed in.

"Hi," I said, trying to sound cheerful because I didn't want to sound nervous, but my heart was beating faster and I had to concentrate to slow my breathing down.

"Howdy," he said, and then we were backing up and soon on the road leading to the highway and Enumclaw.

"Uh, thanks for coming to get me. I'm sorry I don't have a car of my own..." I always felt this urge to apologize when I was nervous.

"No problem. I like getting out of the house once in awhile," he shrugged. "So tell me about yourself, girl."

"Well..." I figured I oughta start with my name, since proper introductions hadn't come up yet. "My name is Rachael and..."

"Rachael, huh?" He chuckled. "No need for any of that. I'll be calling you 'girl' or maybe 'bitch' from now on, depending on circumstances."

"Oh." I licked my lips, not really knowing how to respond to that. "I guess uh, well ... okay."

I wasn't sure I was going to like being called bitch all the time, but girl was sort of acceptable, in a way. He was older than me, a lot older, maybe even older than my dad, who was 53 and pretty old, in my opinion. The man had a strong jaw and deep set eyes, but otherwise it was hard to get anything from his profile. Thin lips, not much for smiling I supposed, and short iron grey hair. He wasn't fat or skinny, but just average in build and dressed like a farmer, with a flannel shirt and jeans. He smelled like fresh cut hay too, or so I imagined, not really knowing what fresh cut hay smelled like. It could have been alfalfa for all I knew.

"You're a looker," he glanced at me in the dim light. "I'll give ya that, girl. Kinda small though, you sure you like 'em big?"

"Dogs?" I asked and he gave a little nod. "Yeah, I like all kinds of dogs. They're cute."

"Cute?" He laughed at that. "I had three girls come round applying for the job, none of 'em thought my boys were cute."

"Your boys?" I wondered at that, since we'd been talking about dogs.

"My dogs, yeah. I ain't never been much for family, so I call them my boys." He smiled to himself. "They're spoiled a bit, but good lads every one of 'em. So go on, tell me more about yourself then."

We had gotten away from his original question, so I started talking about me.

"Well, I graduated high school last January and..."

"January?" He looked at me. "I recall most folks graduate in June. What happened to you?"

I blushed a little. "I had a little trouble with math," I admitted. "I just get my numbers mixed up sometimes, especially that geometry and algebra stuff. Trigonometry too."

"That about covers most of it," he grinned.

"Yeah," I nodded, feeling a little silly. "So, anyway, I had to take some classes over ... a few times." I'd actually taken trigonometry three times before I passed it with a D- and remedial algebra twice.

"Don't you fret about that stuff, girl, you won't be needing to count much more than three at my place."

"Oh, um, good." I hoped he wasn't just humoring me. "So, after I graduated I moved in with my boyfriend. He was a football player, but now he works down at the docks, unloading ships and stuff. He's really sweet..."

"Sounds like a good fella. How come you ain't with him tonight?"

"Uh, see, he sort of broke up with me." I swallowed hard, not really wanting to talk about my personal life like that, but I guessed the man wanted to know who he was hiring.

"Broke up?" He looked at me again and I pulled my short skirt down a little since my panties were showing, just a bit. "Is he stupid?"

"What?" I widened my eyes. "No, uh-uh, he um, well he gets real jealous sometimes. See, I was working as a dancer at H.R. Muff 'n Stuff, that's a little dance club by the airport? There isn't any H.R. though, Janey just said they liked the way the name sounds with the letters in front and..."

"Janey?"

"Yeah, Janey was my boss and well, see, she had a fight with Bambi, her girlfriend, because she only likes girls. So she asked if she could stay at my place, just for one night..." I tried to keep this story short, really, but it was hard, " ... so we were sleeping together in bed when my boyfriend came home and he thought we were sleeping together! I mean, yeah, we were sleeping together, but not really sleeping together! Janey was asleep and I was asleep, see?"

"So you and your boss were sleeping together, but not sleeping together." The guy was laughing a little. "You don't have both oars in the water, do ya, girl?"

"Uh ... I'm not even in the boat," I laughed nervously. "Am I?"

"Nope. I reckon not," the man agreed and I felt a little better. Sometimes people say stuff like that and it confuses me a little.

"When my boyfriend saw me and Janey in bed together, I guess he was drunk or something, cause he started taking off all his clothes and getting in between us. That woke me up, and Janey too, and she doesn't like boys very much anyway. I guess maybe she thought my boyfriend was gonna rape us or something, cause she kneed him in the balls really hard. And then did it again, just in case she missed the first time."

"Hmmm..." the man frowned a little at that, as I guess most men would.

"Then my boyfriend was lying on the floor, sort of white and looking like he might throw up, you know," I shrugged. "And Janey left and I didn't know what to do, but when I tried to help my boyfriend he just got mad at me, calling me a dyke and a cunt, and all sorts of stuff I didn't like. So I left, thinking maybe I'd come back when he was feeling better."

"Sounds like a good idea," the man said with a nod.

"So I went to the club and Janey was sort of mad too, telling me that when she'd said she wanted to sleep with me, she hadn't meant sleep with me and my boyfriend. Like it was my fault!" I sighed. "So I sort of quit, even though Janey apologized and offered me a raise. She said I was the best little money maker she had," I told the man proudly. "But I couldn't stay. I mean, not after she'd hurt my boyfriend like that, could I?"

"Uh, nope. I don't reckon," the man agreed.

"But when I got home, all my stuff was thrown out the window! My boyfriend wouldn't even open the door, he just said he was gonna call the police on me and Janey for being man hating dykes who'd beaten him up! And while I tried to talk to him upstairs, all the bums and whores and anybody else walking by was taking all my stuff!"

It almost made me cry thinking about all that, but it felt good to talk about it too. Like I was getting it all out of my system and I felt a lot lighter inside, which is good, because with the dark and the rain and all that it was mostly pretty depressing.

"So then you called me?" the guy asked and I nodded. "Well, I ain't gonna toss you, girl. If it don't work out with my boys, I'll drive you back, don't worry about that."

"Okay," I smiled a little and wiped at the one little tear that had started in my left eye.

"But, I gotta tell you, I had three girls and a fag come by for the job, and not one of 'em worked out." He made a little sighing sound. "My boys are pretty picky and they can be a mite rough too. Hell, that faggot couldn't get his foot out the door of his car. My boys didn't like him at all. And the girls, well, one of 'em took one look at Bandy and decided to join a convent. Found Jesus right on the spot!" he laughed.

"Oh!" I wasn't sure what a dog might have to do with finding Jesus, but he sounded serious.

"The other girls, well, one of 'em gave Barley a try and he locked her up so tight she was screamin' and scootin' and tryin' to get away." The man was smiling at the memory of it. "Said she didn't ever want to see another dick in her life after Big Barley was done with her."

"A dick?" I looked at the guy wondering what he was talking about.

"Yeah, ain't that something?" he laughed like I knew what the joke was. "Turned that woman queer as a three dollar bill right there in the backyard."

"Oh, uh, I'm not a lesbian," I promised him. "I just slept with Janey, I didn't sleep with..."

"And the third girl, well, she wasn't much to look at, sort of feisty too. Had an abrasive personality." The man looked at me. "She was untrainable."

"Oh, um ... I like training," I told the man.

"That so?" He seemed to ponder that.

"Oh yeah. I was a trainee at Wendy's, a good one too, and um, at McDonald's? I was a trainee there for three weeks, until I broke the ice cream machine." I frowned, thinking maybe I shouldn't have said that. "You uh, you don't have an ice cream machine, do you?"

The man was laughing. "Nope, no ice cream."

"Good," I smiled. "Anyway, see I'm real trainable," I promised. "And I don't want to be a nun or anything like that."

"We'll see," the man chuckled. "You do seem promising, girl."

"Really?" I smiled and felt warm inside. It was nice to be promising at something besides lap dances for a change.

"So, what's the biggest dog you ever had?" the guy asked, since it was a pretty long drive and we were just maybe halfway into it.

"Well, I never really had a dog," I admitted, a little shyly. "I had a lot of dogs follow me home though and I liked to play with them a lot," I hastened to add, seeing the man's frown.

"Really?" He looked at me.

"Oh yeah! Everyday almost since I was little, all sorts of dogs would follow me around. I'd bring them home sometimes after school, give them a bath and some food, then we'd wrestle around." I was smiling as I recalled all those happy moments. "Dogs love to wrestle, you know?" Because maybe he didn't.

"Heh. If that's what you wanna call it."

"And some of those dogs were pretty big too, as big as me or even bigger sometimes. Our neighbors, three doors down, had a really big dog. I used to ride him around like a pony," I giggled. "I always wanted a pony, but we lived in a small house in Lynnwood."

"I see ... and this big dog, he ever ride you?" the man grinned at me.

I laughed. "No! That's silly! But, mmmm ... He thought about it maybe. A lot of those dogs liked to jump on me and stuff, especially after we were wrestling good and I was hot and sweaty, you know? Then they'd hug me and stuff, sort of like they wanted a ride."

I wasn't sure what the guy meant exactly, nor was I exactly sure what I was talking about, but that happened with me sometimes. Like I might get an idea right on the tip of my tongue, but it just wouldn't quite come into focus, you know? I know those dogs liked me though, and they liked wrestling around and hugging and licking at me too. But I wasn't going to tell the guy about how they tried to lick me down between my legs. That was sort of personal.

"But you never give one a ride?" the man asked. "Not even once?"

"Ummm..." I wasn't sure why he was asking me that; didn't I just say that I hadn't?