THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

66 - DA CAT HOUSE

It wasn't even something I thought about. I had the information, the proof for me. Not that it mattered. She wouldn't believe me. It didn't matter – I'd been thinking a lot about her on and off over the last few years. It made me feel like a fool, it challenged my independence, but there you go.

Especially in the evenings, when there wasn't much to do besides being still,I'd spent lots of time entertaining fantasies where we'd continued the argument, the one we'd had that had caused me to leave, where I went over the finer points about how some people actually have something they believe in, even if it is made up. And maybe having it be made up was the only way to make things really work. In my fantasies she'd tell me over and over that I was a fuck up and an idiot, and I'd just continue to hold strong to my point, over and over again back at her, and then she'd let me eat her ass and fuckit.

Walking to her place took only took half a day. In my travels I'd circled around her neighborhood enough to know the best routes in from a number of different directions.

As strange as it might sound, instead of knocking on her door, I rented a motel room a couple of blocks away. Maybe not so strange, since despite feeling dignified for the first time in my life, I looked and smelled like a vagrant, and I wanted to clean myself up, not to impress her, but to come in with all my guns blazing.

Part of me reminded the other part she was probably dead, or married, orin a relationship, or in a lesbian relationship. Such would be my luck. I honestly didn't know how I'd feel about that. I was interested in finding out.

Hadn't had a shower for a while. Hadn't shaved either. I kept my hair groomed, to keep the bugs out, often tied back in a ponytail. Got myself some new clothes from an Old Navy in a nearby plaza mall. I kept it simple with jeans and a button-down shirt the same hue as the jeans. Kept my hiking boots.

I felt like the best time to catch her was right as she was coming back from work, right at the gate to her gated community. It would be my foot in the door. During these times she was pretty checked out, and perhaps more suggestible.

I was too agitated to sleep much. Also as soon as I lay down I had a raging boner (the first one in months), and I couldn't decide whether to jerk off or hold steady. Truth be told, when you're hiking around you don't really masturbate that much. Unless you're crazy, you don't beat off in the great wild where someone could see you, and get you labeled as a sex offender. Sometimes, when I'd find a bunch of day-old donuts, or on the occasions when I recycled my way into some good beer (I was getting into IPAs because they tasted even better warm), I'd get enough carb overload so I'd get an urge that wouldn't quit, and that meant finding a bathroom at Starbucks or McDonalds.Almost always, it was more trouble than it was worth.

But now, in that motel room, I was out of my mind, consumed with images of Tabby's inflamed pussy, hairless and glistening in the weak greenlight of her alarm clock (always set twelve minutes ahead). Ready togo. Ready for more.

After drinking some beer and surfing the motel porn channels, it only madesense to order a pizza. That threw me down a thrilling and ridiculously stupid hole, and when I crawled out I was hungover for the first time in a long time; filled with guilt and restlessness and worry about my finances.

After leaving VendiJob I tried to spend no more than five dollars a day, and as often as I could I tried to recycle to fill the difference. It wasn't sustainable, but it kept the nest egg rosy, kept things about even. Security is the best feeling in the world. For this nostalgicpussy hunt, I'd dropped a whopping total of a hundred and thirty-seven bucks. A month of solid recycling, and a great chance I'd be left with my dick in my hand.