by Wayne Smith
The kitchen door, which opened onto the driveway toward the back of the house, was slightly ajar. Thor nosed it open and went inside, where Mom was talking to Teddy, who was trying to get out of the conversation.
“Look,” she told her son sternly, “I don’t want an argument. Now I want you to take the dog for a walk.”
“Awwww!” Teddy whined. Thor didn’t need to weigh the reluctance in Teddy’s whine against the determination in Mom’s voice. There was no contest. No matter what Teddy said or how long or loud he whined, he was taking Thor for a walk.
Thor was no more thrilled at the prospect than Teddy.
“And keep him on the leash,” Mom said.
“Mom!” Teddy whined, stretching the word into several syllables.
Thor felt the same way. Why the leash?
Actually, Thor knew why. Relations between him and Teddy had been deteriorating lately, a situation Thor found extremely distressing. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it.
Teddy was bucking for a higher rank in the Pack. Somewhere along the line, Teddy had noticed that Thor only obeyed him when he felt like it. It had always been that way, but Teddy either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t minded. Not any more. Suddenly he resented it; suddenly he wanted to outrank Thor. It had to do with his glands, Thor knew, but Teddy was getting ahead of himself, and his behavior was completely inappropriate. His attempt to assume a higher rank had made him a full-time pain in the ass, constantly asserting himself over Thor just for the sake of doing it.
It pained Thor deeply to be involved in any sort of strife within the Pack, but this situation was especially unpleasant, since he and Teddy had been best friends when they were pups. It had never occurred to Thor to wonder how he had gone through puppyhood, adolescence, and adulthood while Teddy remained a child; it had just happened, and now Thor was an adult and Teddy wasn’t, and Thor could not be out-ranked by a prepubescent boy. Teddy could assert himself all he wanted, but he’d have to grow up before Thor would accept him as a superior.
Ironically, Thor could smell the first signs of hormonal changes in Teddy’s crotch. He knew that Teddy would soon be a man, and as soon as he was, he would outrank Thor.
But in the meantime, Thor couldn’t understand why Teddy resented Thor’s rank. Thor was outranked by Mom and Dad, and it didn’t bother him one bit. He didn’t even resent it when they forbade him from having sex with bitches in heat.
Wolf packs are led by a couple, the Mating Pair, both of whom outrank all other pack members, male or female. The Mating Pair’s authority even covers the sex lives of the others, and they often forbid mating between pack members. So Mom and Dad’s prohibitions on Thor’s sex life were in perfect accordance with Natural Law, and he saw no reason to resent them. On the contrary, Thor drew tremendous reassurance from knowing his Pack had a fixed hierarchy, regardless of his own situation. A pack in which all members were equal would be chaotic. How could such a pack function? What would hold it together? How could it decide where to go, what to do? And how could the members possibly be equal in the first place?
Teddy’s foolishness was unfathomable, and Thor was not about to let the child meddle with Natural Law.
Meanwhile, Teddy showed no understanding of the situation. And worse, he seemed to blame Thor for his dissatisfaction.
Sometimes he teased Thor cruelly, without a trace of the love they’d shared for so long. Sometimes Thor took about all he could stand from the kid, though there was little he could do about it. Violence was out of the question. If a pack without hierarchy couldn’t function, one in which pack members were free to injure or kill each other wouldn’t last a day. Thor’s only defense was to walk away from Teddy, something he did more and more lately. Walk away and ignore Teddy’s outraged commands to come back.
And so the leash.
When Teddy (and only Teddy) took Thor for a walk, it was on the leash. Neither of them liked it, but neither of them outranked Mom.
But there was another reason for the leash today. The man Dad called Flopsy had not shown up at Dad’s office on Monday, and Mom and Dad were worried. Mom had warned Teddy to be on the lookout for the man, and to keep Thor away from him if he showed up. It was possible that he might come back to provoke another incident.
* * * *
All the way to the end of the block, whenever Thor stopped to renew the Pack’s territorial markings, Teddy yanked on the leash and whined, “Come on! Hurry up!” At the end of the block (and thankfully, the end of the Pack’s territory), they turned right.
They were going to a mom-and-pop grocery store three blocks away. When they got there, Teddy would loop the leash around a fire hydrant and go inside. But as the store came into view, Thor saw another dog tied to the hydrant. A small dog. Yapping. Thor hated being around small dogs.
He didn’t exactly hate the dogs themselves, he hated the fate that had befallen them — that grotesque, unnatural, undoglike smallness. As for the dogs themselves, he felt painfully sorry for them. Their condition was so pitiful that it hurt to be around them.
Deep in his gut, Thor understood that dogs are predators, at the top of the food chain, meant to be strong and brave, not weak and helpless. Small dogs can’t protect themselves, let alone their packs. All they can do is what the yapping dog was doing — yap for all he was worth, and hope nobody calls his bluff.
Teddy tied the leash to a light pole and went inside. Thor gave the yapping do a wide berth and averted his eyes. He was deeply embarrassed by its behavior and its presence.
It was moments like this when Thor understood that dogs are dogs and humans are humans, despite their feelings toward each other or their living arrangements. He never wondered why he lived among people — it was just the way things were — Mom and Dad and the kids were his Pack.
But they were different.
When he was a pup, Thor thought his dogness was part of growing up — a step on the road to humanness. When he grew up he would be human, like Mom and Dad. But now he had grown up — he was an adult and he knew it — and he was still a dog. The realization didn’t come as a shock, because it never arrived. As he grew, he simply forgot the thought that he’d grow up human, and came instead to think of dogs as a different kind of human. A short, hairy, four-legged kind.
But on some level, when confronted with a mutation of breeding like the yapping dog, he knew he wasn’t a short, hairy, four-legged person. He was a dog, totally and permanently different from the rest of the Pack. It was (mercifully) a fleeting thought, as were all his conceptual thoughts.
After a while Teddy came out, and they started home by a slightly different route.
About a block from the store, Thor stopped to sniff an unfamiliar turd.
“Come on!” Teddy said angrily, snatching hard on the leash. He acted like he and Thor were bitter enemies. The thought hurt Thor far more than the chain cutting into his throat.
Thor had worn a choke-chain collar as far back as he could remember. Dad had taught the kids not to use it to make Thor hurry (the way Teddy was using it now); the only reason Thor wore it was because it would be too easy for him to overpower the kids if he were to forget his manners — say, after seeing a cat hiss at him and run away. If he tried to run with the choker on, the collar would painfully remind him of the leash, and hopefully, of the rules.
Thor knew Teddy’s behavior was strictly against the rules, and he wished Teddy would grow up, so he could take his higher rank once and for all. Then maybe they could be friends again.
When they got home, Mom and Debbie were gone and so was the SUV. The house was deserted. Thor understood immediately: He and Teddy had gone for a walk so he wouldn’t be around to bug Mom about going with her. What a dirty trick.
“Later, fur-face,” Teddy said. He stepped out into the back yard and slammed the kitchen door behind him. Thor raced from window to window, watching Teddy walk away and hoping he might come back. He whimpered slightly as Teddy walked to the end of the block and tur
ned the corner. Then he ran through the house, upstairs and down, in a futile effort to find company.
Even Debbie’s kitten was gone.
Deeply depressed, he went upstairs on the off chance that Mom and Dad’s bedroom door might not be completely closed. He was in luck — the door popped open with a gentle poke from his nose. Mom and Dad’s scents were strong here, so strong it was almost as if they were home. He hopped onto the bed and pulled the sheets back with his teeth to expose the place where their smells were strongest. He curled up on the sheets and drew in deep breaths. The reassuring fragrance melted his tensions, leaving him relaxed and tired. He lay his head on a pillow, among traces of Mom’s makeup and Dad’s after-shave, and didn’t think about the scolding he would get when Mom returned. What he was doing was disobedient, but not Bad. He’d done it before and been punished every time, but whenever he found himself alone in the house, the reassurance of the bed was more important than a scolding or a slap from a rolled-up newspaper.
He fell asleep with his head on Mom’s pillow and his body sprawled across the open sheets.
Chapter 4
Tom slid naked into bed and noticed the sheets had been changed, after the previous sheets had only been on the bed for one night. Janet left the door open and the dog got in the bed again, dammit. He almost said something, but decided there was no point in bringing it up.
“I’m really worried about Ted,” Janet said, taking off her bra and panties and hurriedly slipping into a sheer black nightgown. Tom lay propped up on one elbow, watching her.
“I know,” he said.
When they first married, Janet’s discomfort with nudity had irritated him. He’d always been turned on by the thought that some wives walk around the house naked in front of their husbands, and he always assumed his wife would at least sleep naked with him. Hey, they were married, right? But Janet insisted on a nightgown at bedtime, and a robe before and after bathing — even though their bedroom had its own private bathroom. It wasn’t being seen that bothered her — on the contrary, she enjoyed the hungry look in Tom’s eyes when he watched her undress — it was the feel of fabric against her skin that she needed.
Now, three children later, Tom was eternally grateful for her apparent modesty. It had kept a little sexual distance between them, kept a little mystery in their love life. They had their own little bedroom games that revolved around Tom trying to pull off her nightgown, robe, or whatever, and Janet breathlessly but unsuccessfully trying to keep herself covered. In the end, her discomfort with nudity excited him in a way few husbands can be excited after so many years. And he’d always been turned on by black lingerie.
“He shouldn’t be alone, Tom,” Janet said. “Not now. Not after what he’s been through.”
“I agree, babe, but we have to respect his wishes. He’s a big boy, you know.” Saying that made him feel like a shit, but it had to be said. It was true.
Janet slid under the covers with her back to Tom, snuggling her bottom into his lap. He put his arm around her and pulled her close, cupping one breast in his hand and gently squeezing the nipple between his fingers.
They’d been together thirteen years, a year longer than Teddy had been alive.
“I think we should go visit Ted,” Janet said, “whether he likes it or not.” She pushed her fanny farther into Tom’s lap, unconsciously using sex to sway her husband. Tom thought it was a cute move.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You might be right, but I’d still feel better if we at least call him and tell we’re coming first. Dropping in unannounced is awfully risky. And treating him like a child is downright . . .” He wanted to say “stupid,” but there had to be a better choice of words. “It could make things worse instead of better.”
* * * *
Janet’s brother Ted was a photographer, and a good one. Also a lucky one. The world is full of good photographers, but not all of them manage to make a comfortable living at their craft. Ted had made more than a comfortable living. He was what Tom called small-time rich — he never had to work again if he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t live on the Riviera, either.
Ted was a nature photographer who’d been in the right place at the right time on a number of crucial occasions, and he’d hit it off with the right people. His work had been published in Life, National Geographic, and a host of less well-known magazines specializing in the great outdoors. On rare occasions, his pictures even appeared in Time and Newsweek, two publications not known for nature studies.
To top off his good fortune, he’d met Marjorie. Marjorie spent three years with Ted. Together they climbed mountains, dove through coral reefs, hiked across deserts, hacked through jungles, and otherwise fought their way to that perfect picture. The only problem was that Marjorie was also a photographer, but it was always Ted’s perfect picture they went after. Marjorie essentially gave up her career to be with Ted.
Tom liked Ted, but he also wondered about him. He didn’t see why Marjorie’s career had to be sacrificed for Ted’s, especially since they photographed the same kinds of things. Ted was a nice guy, but he always thought of himself first — and second, and third, and last. Tom never told Janet his doubts about his brother-in-law, and it was good that he didn’t. Janet was absolutely devoted to her brother.
About a year ago in Nepal, Ted’s luck changed. The gods, no doubt offended that a mere mortal should have such uniform good fortune, stole Marjorie away without a trace.
As Ted told the story, they’d been camping in the mountains, spending the days taking pictures and the nights in a small but remarkably warm tent. They went to bed side by side in thermal sleeping bags one night, but when Ted woke up the next morning, Marjorie was gone.
Ted had a painful lump on his head, a deep gash in his cheek, and several nasty-looking bites. The tent was torn open on one side and the camp was demolished. He couldn’t remember anything from the night before.
Marjorie’s sleeping bag had been ripped open from top to bottom. Some kind of animal tracks led down the mountainside, toward a bank of cliffs too steep and smooth to climb. Ted followed the tracks as far as he could, then hiked to the nearest village for help. As he arrived, a blizzard rolled over the campsite, obliterating it. In the days that followed, searchers were unable to find even a single tent pole. There was nothing to back up Ted’s story.
The authorities suspected Ted of foul play. They had no proof whatsoever, but the very absence of proof — and the absence of a reasonable explanation — made them suspicious.
They were willing to believe in the yeti when some tourist claimed to have seen one, but not when a tourist claimed it ran off with his girlfriend.
They grilled him for two days — without a lawyer, without Miranda rights, and without results. And when, under pressure from the American Embassy, they finally let him go, they made it clear that he was no longer welcome in Nepal.
He returned to America, to a cabin he owned in the Cascade mountain range in Washington State, where he’d once lived with Marjorie before the trip to Nepal. He’d never been terribly fond of civilization before, but after losing Marjorie, he became a full-fledged hermit, living completely alone in the house he’d shared with her.
He’d been like that for almost a year, and Janet was afraid he would never come out of his funk if he didn’t start working again, and soon. She called him on a regular basis, but his mood never improved.
* * * *
“I’ll call him tomorrow,” Janet whispered. Tom was nibbling her neck with unbearable delicacy. He’d slipped his free hand under her waist, and his fingers danced teasingly in the triangle of hair between her legs. She felt his erection pushing into the cleft of her buttocks, and was eager to wrap up the discussion without disrupting the mood. “We’ll go visit him on Saturday,” she breathed.
“Mm-hm,” Tom murmured.
Janet reached around and pulled her nightie up until it was around her waist, then took hold of his hardness and guided him inside her.
&
nbsp; Chapter 5
Saturday came, as Saturdays always did.
The kids watched cartoons while Dad sat with them in the living room, reading the newspaper from front to back. Mom sat at the kitchen table talking to the phone, calling it Uncle Ted.
Thor lay on the kitchen floor, listening to Mom’s conversation. Almost everything she said was coaxing — “Are you sure?” “Oh, come on,” “Why not?” “Please?” — but she was up against heavy resistance. The phone opposed her from the start, but Mom hung in there, and toward the end she wore it down. She got the phone to agree to a visit, then immediately ended the conversation and hung up. She didn’t want to give it a chance to change its mind.
“It’s all set!” Mom called to Dad as soon as the receiver was on the hook. Thor was delighted.
No one ever had to tell Thor that Uncle Ted was Mom’s brother. When he went on his first visit with Uncle Ted, Dad hadn’t even stopped the car before Thor spotted the resemblance between Mom and the man sitting on the front steps of the strange, pointy house. His posture and bone structure were the first clues. The man stood up as the car pulled to a stop, and as he strode toward the Pack, Thor immediately saw the similarity between Mom’s walk and his. The man spoke, and though his voice was much deeper than Mom’s, the cadences of his sentences, the way he put words together, the places where he paused to collect his thoughts, the words he emphasized — all were identical to Mom’s speech patterns. By the time Thor got out of the car to sniff him, there was no question in his mind that the man belonged to the same pack that Mom had been born into.
But smelling is knowing. For Thor to decline to smell a new acquaintance would be like declining to open his eyes in the morning. Thor checked his scent, and sure enough, the man was Mom’s sibling.
The two quickly became fast friends, and ultimately Thor came to feel closer to Uncle Ted than to any other nonmember of the Pack. He and Uncle Ted seemed to share a secret understanding, and Uncle Ted’s touch was exceptional. Uncle Ted seemed to know just where to scratch, where to rub, how hard and how soft, as if he were scratching himself. Thor wholeheartedly endorsed all visits to Uncle Ted. He could barely contain his excitement.
