THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

45 - NEXT

The fun ended with Tabby suddenly knocking out, going limp, breathing heavy, twitching. It was intense, like she was having a seizure. We were twisted together on her bed, and there was a skylight and I stared up at it. I was still inside of her.

I pulled out and lay there wondering what to do next. Did this mean it was time to kill myself? Or should I try to fuck her again? I pondered my options, until light from the skylight illuminated herspent, sweaty flesh, her brown hair in thick curls, untangling from those bobby pins, her eyes closed and mouth agape, her face lookingstricken, like she'd just been slapped, a pink tongue poking out from between thin lips, slobber wetting her pillow.

I stared at her until she began to toss and turn, groaning awake, and then I fell asleep.

When I woke up she was gone, and she stayed away for over twelve hours. I know this because I didn't go anywhere, because I had nowhere to go,because I thought she was really interesting and I decided I wanted more sex, and because I was afraid if I went anywhere I'd chicken out on killing myself and I'd start turning into Johnny Bobo.

Other than too much ugly furniture and bad art, there wasn't much going on at her place. There wasn't anything to tell you what kind of person she was. No sentimentals, no photos. Nothing very personal. Her clothes were either office stuff, or black stuff. The underwear was all sporty things, which I appreciated. There was an office, with a desk and a lap top, and a rowing machine, with a file cabinet next to the rowing machine. Nothing locked up. I looked for paperwork from the psychiatric hospital in a folder labeled MEDICAL, but it was all billing nonsense, nothing related to a diagnosis, or treatment.

Nothing in her fridge except displaced soy sauce packets and a pint of milk,which had gone bad several weeks ago. The kitchen cabinets housedboxes of various food staples, all of which, like the milk, were all out of date. All had mold or bugs or these weird worms living in them.

When she came back home, I was flopped on one of the couches (not one of the one's we'd fucked on), staring at a dead TV, attached to the wall, but not connected to anything. She had an expensive black work bag, a small backpack, and a plastic take-out bag. I saw her notice me as she marched into the dining room, and I saw her noticeably ignore me.

She sat down at the head of a table, a knockoff of something I think from medieval times (all dark, heavy wood and sort of intentionally primitive looking). I watched her eat sushi. She didn't offer to share. She didn't acknowledge me at all. There was something intensely ritualistic about this dinner, everything was in its proper place, she took little sips from a can of Diet Coke after every third bite, and appeared to be in a daze, but I could also tell she was aware of me, and it seemed as though I was a bug in her system, something that she couldn't compute or dismiss. I didn't move, but I watched everything in its reflection from the glass over a painting of a Zebra with a grin and a mustache.

Once she was done she shuffled into the kitchen, and I heard the fridge open and close, and I knew she was tossing the extra soy sauce packets with the others. Then she appeared back in the living room,and stood there, looking at everything else except me.

She said, "I get that you cleaned the place." She didn't sound exactly happy about this.

It was true, I'd cleaned up some after I'd done my snooping. It seemed like the right thing to do.

"But I want you to know that you did that for you. Not for me. You got that?"

I nodded and watched her march off to her office.

For approximately half and hour I listened to her go to work the rowing machine. She came back in her sporty underwear, sweaty. She ignored me and went to a bar disguised as a over-size chess set. She poured herself a drink from the rook, and had a sip. Then another. Her face flushed. Her freckles seemed to pulsate.

She spun around to face me, and said, "I usually go over an hour. I go eighty-seven minutes. That's my breaking point. This month I'm going for eighty-nine." All this information seemed to send her down a rabbit hole of related thoughts; she stared into the wall, and had more of her drink. "...With the sex, if we fuck like we did last night, I'd be getting there, and I'd only have to row, about, like twenty-three minutes."

She gave me a questioning look and said, "Did you shower?"

I nodded my head.

She looked exasperated. "Well, do you want to fuck?"

I hadn't eaten all day. I'd contemplated downing a few soy sauce packets, but rightly decided this wouldn't be worth the effort. Even so, looking at her, sweat blurring her office makeup, those big eyes that seemed to be built solely from dread and longing, I wanted to fuck her, more than anything else. I could feel my dick agreeing. Oh good, I thought.