How To Win A Guy In 30 Days

How To Stink

"Dad."

Vanessa was torn between being elated and drowning in dread seeing the colossal figure sitting on the sofa, eyes narrowed at the newspaper in his hand. The relationship that she shared with her father was twisted in ways she couldn't untangle them anymore, she let go of them and started living with them. It was easy that way.

Vanessa's father looked up and his eyes lightened instantly. "Hello, sweetheart."

"Did you come home now?"

She dropped her duffel bag on the floor and squatted down, arms outstretched at the German Shepherd running to greet her. Buddy jumped over her and she fell behind, laughing. He was legally her father's police dog, but at home, he was domestic and completely belonged to Vanessa. He was six years old, lavishly covered in jet black fur and dangerous to danger itself.

"Buddy," she crooned as the dog licked her face. "Did you miss mommy?"

Her dad walked to her and stopped infront of her, shaking his head in pretense dismay. "You pet him to extremities that sometimes he doesn't even act like a police dog anymore. You have turned him to the bark no bite category, Van. God knows when they'll sue him out of the system."

"I'm waiting for that day to arrive, dad," she said, sighing dreamily. She could gain full power over Buddy's life, alter his strict diet and feed him all the junk he had been craving for, give him bubble baths with rubber duckies in their garden and take him to walks every morning.

"You know, he belongs to the government," Vanessa's dad said strictly and added after a moment of reluctance, "Once they sue him, they'll throw him into some pound."

"That's not fair," Vanessa said, taking a defensive stance and pulling Buddy impossibly closer to her. "I won't let that happen."

He nodded. "Good. Now my beautiful daughter should go to her room, get rid of the stench and come down for dinner. Thirty minutes."

"I want to play with Buddy."

Buddy barked and wagged his tail in response. But whimpered at the look thrown to him by his actual master.

"Buddy," he said, his voice level and calm. "Come now. We both know that you despise stinky girls."

Listing out every con in her pathetic life indistinctly, Vanessa grabbed her duffel bag and walked up the stairs, deliberately slowing her pace. Before she closed her door, she shouted, "I'm not stinky."

Peeling off the mucky clothes, she got down on the bathtub and washed herself. No matter what she did to erase his picture from her mind, it didn't take leave. Seems like his image had acquired the wondrous traits of the arrogance that dominated his smile.

"Vanessa."

She heard her brother's annoyed voice from outside her room. He had always hated walking all the way up to call her extremely bored sister who never bothered to answer back. He could be a big shot, but their father was an even bigger big shot, both at home and work, so you couldn't exactly give a no for an answer.

Vanessa sighed and got out of the bath tub, careful in not slipping down to her death. No one desired to die in a bathtub, naked. Unless she was the drop dead gorgeous heroine of a soapy mystery novel.

She wore a huge black t-shirt that reached till her knee and a short. That would compensate for the lack of brassiere on her skin, she had always found it annoying and pesky at night.

She took the stairs two at a time, gearing her way towards Buddy who sat on the floor, patiently waiting for the only person who gave him complete attention and love to come.