THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

44 - A TABBY CAT

For someone who looked so stiff and uncomfortable, she talked easily, and appeared to have no trouble paying for her own drinks once we got going. I just sipped mine. I've never been much of a sipper because I felt that there was no way to really generate a good buzz that way,but I sipped with her because I didn't really want to get buzzed, Ijust wanted to keep looking at her, because I thought if I didn't she'd immediately disappear.

The mission had apparently, at least temporarily changed.

She told me her name was Tabatha Catherine, and all her friends called her Tabby.

Not that she had friends. She only liked talking to strangers. She told me she'd recently changed careers, and was a lawyer now, that she'd been an engineer, only that had been really boring: "You think you're going to create all this really cool, whacky shit, and then, when you get hired they give you this coffee mug and tell you to make it seventy-percent smaller. You're in this cubicle staring at a fucking coffee mug all day wanting to kill yourself."

Not that she'd actually been suicidal, not that she let on, only extremely bored, and this had prompted an enthusiasm in weightlifting. She'd competed professionally for about a year before burning out. "That's why I'm so comfortable talking to strangers in a strange bar up in the hills, because I could kick your ass. You're in terrible shape, and I could still throw you around. You want to see what I mean?"

I remembered her in the hospital, with the gang of staff around her, taking her very seriously.

The more she drank the more sober she acted, like the alcohol was actually a kind of stimulant, making her brain run faster, cleaner.

"Basically, at my job there's nothing to do, but review contracts. Hundreds of pages. All day long. You review these contracts and then you try to find discrepancies, like missing commas or something you can use tofuck the other side. It's about as exciting as licking wallpaper."

She appeared content to talk about herself. Whatever part of her that dugme so hard at the hospital, was out to lunch, gone, subdued with meds, or alcohol or both. I kept waiting for an opportunity to talk, and that didn't happen.

And then, at some point, I caught her staring at me.

"Yes,"I said. I kept expecting we'd start talking about the hospital.

Her eyes narrowed, "Well, you're going to have to take me to your place, cause I'm well over the limit to drive, and from what I can see you've been drinking like a twelve-year-old girl at a tea party."

She hadn't come here to talk about her psych ward adventures. She'dventured to this seedy little bar to get picked up, and if not by me,then the next dude who sat next to her. I want to pick her up,especially since the other option meant death by own hand. There was a chance there might be some ass fucking, which would then mean death, but if there wasn't, who knows where it might take me, or for how long. I was interested in finding out.

"I don't drive," I said, "And I was living in a bunker, but I just left."

She let out a short laugh and dug out her phone. "Just my luck. Well, I've got this Lyft app. My mother made me get it."

So we took a Lyft to her place, which turned out to be in a section of town under Edendale known as Picker's Park, this yuppie/ hipster part of town. Always a good place for hunting dogs, but without many good camping options. She owned a condo in a gated community, which wasn't very hip. Her place was stuffed, stuffed full of stuff. I felt like I'd stepped into a warehouse dealing with overruns. The living room alone had three couches in it.

I could tell she was watching me, and she looked embarrassed, and angry. "It's too much, isn't it?" She sighed and flopped down onto a couch the color of pea soup, if peas were bright blue. "I don't know, I'm not very good at buying things and I've never been good at figuring these places out." She cast a hand at all her fancy, tacky junk, as though she was trying to shake it off her arm.

"My job sucks. It's so boring. I can read one of those contracts in about thirteen minutes, and I've got a photographic memory... So, I just sit at my desk and go on eBay, and have trouble deciding what to buy." She looked down at her feet. "And that's all I do." She kept looking at her feet. "Would you get over here and start trying to kiss me or something?"

"Sure,"I said, and before I could do anything else she said, "Wait, and take your pants off. I don't like belts digging into me, and I don't like that awkward time when you're trying to get them off. It really kills the moment, you know?"

I undid, then pulled off my green trousers, and then went for it, only I hadn't completely gotten the trousers past my ankles, so I stumped across her living room like some sort of sock puppet. It was not attractive or romantic, and once I started I didn't know how to stop until I hit the couch. She looked irritated, but once we started kissing she seemed to soften.

I couldn't tell you the last time I kissed someone. Something happy and desperate swelled inside of me, and I heard Benny Goodman in my head,or maybe coming from one of the several plastic old time juke boxes against a wall.

Tabby loved to kiss. I felt like I was kissing her whole body the way she responded. I kept kissing her because it felt so intense, and because this encounter continued to be an alternative to killing myself. I didn't want to stop, to fuck things up, but then Tabby said, "C'mon, are you going to fuck me or what?"

SoI stuck my hand down the opening of her mini-skirt, and she grabbedmy crotch.

"You like women, right?"

"Sure I do."

"You... Don't seem that hard. You have a problem getting hard?"

I wasn't hard, but I knew I'd get there. Up close, her skin was pale pink and frosted with brown freckles. Her biceps bulged along with her shoulders in a way pleasing to me. I didn't want to stop. Not at all.

I soldiered on.

Once we had our clothes off, she became very sweaty, especially her hair.

"Oh wait," she said and carefully removed her wig and placed it carefully on a side table. Underneath wasn't the red I remembered, it was chocolate brown, flattened with what looked a pantie hose and bobby pins.

Condoms were found, and again she seemed disappointed with my erection.

The sex was amazing anyway. Tabby appeared stunned and startled when I entered her. She threw her arms over her head, and kept her mouth open, and heaved like she was going to throw up. And she talked a lot.

"More, over there. Do it like that. Do it like that. Stop being a pussy and pull my leg up."

If I tried to say something she'd say, "Shut up." or "Stop it,"and then get back to her directions. Her voice became high and fluttery. She kept ordering me over and over again not to come, which as it turned out, wasn't a problem.

After a while she got tired of the couch, and had me fuck her on one of the five or so coffee tables. After that we tried another couch, in another position, and it made me wonder if this was why she had so much furniture.

We ended up in what I came to understand was her bedroom, with her curled up on the edge of the bed, and me driving her from behind. Ithink she had orgasms. She had something and it was good enough.Whatever it was, I could tell she was enjoying the experience even more than me, and I was enjoying it. Good sex. Afterwards I felt like a hero, and let me tell you, it wasn't a feeling I was used to.