by April Hill
Two hours later, I was up to my armpits in slime and mewling puppies. Beauty was popping them out like gumballs, thoroughly depleting my supply of towels, blankets, and most of Dan’s undershirts. It was thrilling, exhilarating, and exhausting.
When Dan got home with the kids, I was dozing on the floor beside the plastic wading pool we’d set up in the back room as Beauty’s personal delivery room. Mommy herself was contentedly licking and rearranging her healthy little ones around the limited spigots. She already looked like an expert.
"Well, I’ll have to admit they’re cute as hell," Dan said softly, touching one of the still-damp babies on its silky head. "They’re sure better-looking than our own kids were at this age."
Now, hasn’t this been a lovely story, so far?
The doghouse Dan had built looked more like a dog palace, complete with carpeting and heating, so once the puppies could crawl out of the wading pool, we transferred them to the backyard dog nursery over Amanda's screaming protests. Amanda had taken to sleeping with the drooling, not-so-little babies, and most of the time, she smelled like them. As the pups grew older, their mixed bloodlines became more noticeable, just when Mom was finally beginning to look like a real Saint Bernard. Sometimes, I could swear Beauty was looking at her children with puzzlement, wondering why they looked like they did. I was glad she didn’t have the caddish Rheingold’s photo in her wallet to torture herself with. Seduced and abandoned, and stuck with a houseful of ugly kids.
When the puppies were almost old enough to be separated from Mom, I put a cutesy ad in the paper, a similar notice up at the vet's office and just about everywhere else I could think of: "Adorable, healthy, cuddly, mixed breed puppies! All look like big roly-poly teddy bears! Mom’s 100% Saint Bernard, Dad’s a traveling salesman, we think! Available soon, absolutely free to excellent homes, with references."
No responses.
"Maybe we’re being too picky," Dan suggested. "That thing about having references sounds a little over-the-top, don’t you think, for mutts?"
I was shocked. "Would you give your children away to strangers who didn’t even have good references?" I demanded.
Dan thought about it. "In a second. Especially if they lived in another state."
Dan didn’t mean it, of course. He’d been looking at my check to the grocery store when he said it.
The grocery bill WAS beginning to be a problem. The pups were weaned now, and according to Dan, they were eating approximately their own weight in kibble, canned food, and lawn furniture every four hours. One rainy afternoon, I came home and found him staring morosely out into the back yard.
"I read this book last year," he said, "About Andersonville. You know, that notorious prisoner-of-war camp during the Civil War? That’s what it looks like out there. Have you ever SEEN so much fucking mud and dog shit before in one place?"
It was probably a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer.
By the time the pups were four months old, the backyard was a sea of mud, dead grass, and several less attractive substances, all mushed together into a kind of brownish soup. On the surface of the mess floated a vast number of half-eaten rubber dog toys. We had discovered that the puppies ate rubber dog toys almost as eagerly as they did dog food, and digested them with equal speed. In the muddy backyard, our adorable puppies (and I use the word only in its technical sense) looked more like wooly mammoths, buried to their jowls in primordial slime.
They were taller now, of course, and spent the major portion of their waking hours throwing themselves frantically against the sliding patio door in the dimwitted belief that the door was open or that someone inside would be insane enough to open it. Which one of the children usually did, at least once a day. The first time Dan came home to find me shoveling and swabbing the mud floe from the family-room floor, he exploded.
"The next person in this house who lets the dogs get in gets sold on eBay!" he bellowed. The children roared with laughter, but I wasn’t so sure. I’d already tried that. (With the puppies, of course, not the kids.)
We have a LOT of windows at the back of our home and two sliding glass doors. Now, even on sunny days, the rooms were in constant gloom, their windows covered in mud and paw prints halfway up. Like the growth charts we had used with the kids, our windows became the measuring devices for the puppies. Michael observed that being in the family room was like swimming around in an aquarium that no one ever cleaned.
And then, just when it seemed that we would never see out our windows again, a miracle! I got a phone call from a family who'd seen our ad and wanted TWO puppies!
We spent the better part of Saturday cleaning, hosing, and deodorizing the "Terrible Ten," then confined the writhing mass of puppy flesh on the patio to keep them clean until their prospective parents arrived.
Mr. and Mrs. Duane Swann had a small chicken farm about twenty miles out of town, two whining, irritating children, and a need for two "watch dogs." The interview was going pleasantly enough until nine-year-old Duane, Jr. and his sister got into a spitting contest, whereupon Duane, Sr. leaned over and threatened to "whup the tar" out of each of the bickering Swannlets if they didn't "knock off the crap."
"Them durned kids can be a real handful, sometimes," said Mrs. Duane, grinning at Dan. "I just thank the lord Duane knows how to handle 'em."
Dan nodded politely, but shot me a surprised glance. The Swannlets sat stiffly on the couch and didn’t say another word.
I promised the Swanns that we’d let them know, waved to them as they pulled out of the driveway, then walked back to the kitchen. Dan was getting a beer. "Well," he said, "they’ve got the room, that’s for sure. The pups will love all that open space."
I stared at the man I’d lived with for all these years as though I’d never really seen him before.
"Are you CRAZY?" I shrieked. "How could you even THINK of letting people like that have our BABIES? That creep threatened to beat his own children right in front of us! How do you think they’ll treat two innocent puppies?"
Dan slammed the beer can on the counter. "For God’s sake, Amy! They seemed like pretty decent people. Country people. My Dad used to say things like that, too, but he never DID it."
"Well, they’re not going to get their hands on Beauty’s puppies, and that’s THAT!"
Dan put on his "Reasoning With the Village Idiot" voice, which I hate.
"I know you’re hoping for the perfect place for the pups, babe, but they’re almost past the point where anyone’s going to want them…at ANY price. They’re not cuddly teddy bears any more. They look more like full-grown grizzly bears! It’s time to get serious. Tomorrow, you call the Swanns, and tell them to come get their puppies."
I leveled my very best look of defiance at him.
"No way in hell!"
Dan sighed. "Amy, please don’t be so unreasonable. We CANNOT keep all these damned dogs. They’re eating us out of house and home, and poor Beauty’s about to have a nervous breakdown keeping up with all of them. And, by the way… I forgot to tell you about Jerry. Jerry Blair, at work? He says he’ll take one of the males for his grand-kids."
"I’m not giving that man one of our puppies! Jerry Blair is DIVORCED!" I yelled. Dan looked at me like I’d finally lost my marbles completely.
"Run that by me again?" he said slowly.
"What kind of family values is THAT? Divorced! These babies need a stable home, with a mother, and a father, not stress and divorce lawyers, and…"
"Jerry’s been divorced since 1987! For crying out loud, Amy, get a grip!" He dumped the remains of the beer down the sink. "I’ll call him tomorrow, and if you won’t call the
Swanns, I’ll do it myself, in the morning. And then I’m going to put another ad in the paper. Hell, we just might have to PAY to unload these mutts!"
That did it. I picked up the first thing at hand and sailed it at his head. It was ONLY a box of instant mashed potatoes, and half-empty, at that. Well, there WAS one more thing, of course. I called him s
omething. (My memory on this point is a bit hazy, but I believe it may have been along the lines of "you f---- shithead,” or maybe "f---asshole." I can’t be absolutely sure.)
By the time I realized my mistake, it was already too late to beat a strategic retreat. Dan caught me in mid-step and had my panties down around my knees before you could say "gigantic wooden spoon." I keep a collection of quaint old wooden spoons in an antique blue sponge-ware pitcher on the kitchen counter, primarily for decorative purposes, but Dan’s a very resourceful, utilitarian kind of guy. All he saw was a handy implement.
In our time together, I've been spanked with a wide variety of implements, and Dan's choice of implements is often "room specific," as it was in this instance. Even the average kitchen offers an excellent choice of spanking weapons, but because of my lifelong infatuation with antiques, MY kitchen is a virtual spanking playland…a sadist’s Disney World! Open any drawer, or look on any wall, and a cranky husband will find piles of wooden spoons and stirrers, broad rubber spatulas, sturdy rice paddles, dainty breadboards and cutting boards with convenient handles. Above the sink hangs a collection of ornately woven rattan and wicker objects whose ORIGINAL purpose was to beat the dust from rugs. Another corner holds several thick yardsticks printed with droll advertising slogans for long-defunct egg farms and feed companies. There is a pair of wooden objects in the shape of human feet, used to block woolen socks after washing. There is even a small shelf holding a gentleman’s shaving mug and badger-hair shaving brush, and yes, even that object dreaded by our disobedient great grand-parents when they were children…a sturdy, black leather razor strop.
So many objects. How to choose just one!
Dan didn’t choose ONE. He chose three. Maybe it was four…I was too busy bawling to count. He dumped me over the wooden butcher block table in the center of the kitchen, rolled up his sleeves, and went to work with a huge wooden baking spoon, absolutely BLISTERING my butt with these big red splotches that burned so bad I was wailing my head off before he’d delivered his first "baker’s dozen."
Not being an antique lover himself, it didn’t bother Dan in the least that he managed to break the first spoon over my squirming ass. He simply reached for another. By this time, I would have promised on my children’s lives to hand the puppies over to the Swanns, or to Jerry the Divorced Guy, or to Jack the Ripper, but Dan was on a mission. Besides, Dan, astute fellow that is, doesn’t always accept my first apology or promise as absolute truth. He usually determines when I’ve had "enough" on the color and condition of my buttocks and not on my solemn word. He considers a nice, bright red glow and a livid welt or two as the gold standard of a spanking done right.
So, I was dismayed but not really surprised when he dropped the second spoon and took the razor strop down from its hook. He began laying the damned strap across my already throbbing backside, low and hard, and when it landed directly on that soft undercurve between butt and thigh….the most tender part of my rear end, I howled at the top of my lungs and began to hope fervently that the kitchen window was closed. He was slowing down now, but he still had the energy to land a few last swats to the backs of my thighs, which stung like crazy and guaranteed I wouldn’t be sitting for at least two days.
Have I mentioned before that my husband is always very thorough, in everything he does? He has a sign over his desk at work that reads, "If you’re going to do it, do it right!" and another that says, "If you can’t finish it, don’t start it!" Words to live by.
After one really good hand swat on my beet-red butt, he stopped, then helped me up. I tried to touch my butt, but quickly decided against it when I felt the heat radiating upward.
"My God, Dan!" I groaned, "Do you really think that was fair?"
Dan wasn't impressed. "I told you what was going to happen if you didn’t watch your mouth, and the next time you called me something like that. Just ONCE, I’d like to have an argument with you that wasn’t X-rated, and where I didn’t get something thrown at me!"
"I don’t do that!"
"Like hell, you don’t! Last time, you threw a box of dog biscuits at me! The next time you do it, I’m going to REALLY spank you, and then make you eat the damned things!"
"REALLY spank me!" I wailed, pointing to the table where I had just spent the last few painful minutes. "Just what was THAT supposed to be, then?"
"THAT," he said, "was nothing but a preview. NOW, you and I are going to talk about this puppy situation, and if the conversation doesn’t go the way I want, you’re going back over that table for an encore!"
So we talked. Dan conceded that the Swanns should be eliminated from our roster of potential buyers. Which left, of course, nobody. Well, there WAS the Divorced Guy, and I finally decided he was okay… although I would have preferred that he find a nice woman and settle down. Or maybe get some marriage counseling. That left eight puppies, and we had about as much chance of unloading them as I had of becoming Miss America.
Enter Dan’s sister, Jan, who is an angel of mercy, and who quite literally saved my ass by adopting Heathcliff, the largest male. Down to seven. Three days later, Jan's boss showed up, BEGGING for a girl if we still had one. Six. Luck numbers Five and Four went to a gay couple moving to an eleven acre farm in Bucks County and to Jerry, the Divorced Guy. Number Three on the countdown was adopted by our neighbor, who had been looking over the fence every day for months to coo at our menagerie, and suddenly panicked when the collection began to dwindle.
I would like to say that ALL of the puppies found wonderful new homes, but that wouldn’t be quite true. Two of them were still at home with Mom: Erma, the cross-eyed female, and Egbert, the especially slow-witted male who has never gotten the most basic fundamentals of housetraining. Actually, they're both cute as hell, and it even occurred to me that if we could find mates for them of the same mix, maybe….? I made this observation one night at bedtime and paid for it bent over the end of the bed with my nightgown over my head and my backside in flames. The thing about dogs, though, is that they have absolutely NO morals at ALL, and when Egbert got a bit older, he began to look at Erma with this sly, incestuous twinkle in his eye. What's more, I could swear that his slutty little sister was batting her eyelashes back at him!
That very afternoon, I whisked the young lovers off to the vet and left them there for a bit of pre-emptive surgery, praying it wasn't already too late. The vet promised to call later and tell me the news….good or bad, and I dashed home to hide the rulers, my hairbrush, and every wooden spoon I could find in the whole house…just in case.
THE END
Epilogue: Last week, Dan added up the grocery bills for the last month, and then told me in no uncertain terms that NEXT month, (after we pay off Erma and Egbert’s doctor bills) it’s OUR turn to get spayed. Him, or me, he says…my choice.
ON MY DOCTOR'S ADVICE
Part One
I have always been—or thought I was—a very healthy person, a circumstance I would be more than happy to attribute to a wholesome outlook, daily exercise, and a lifetime of healthy dietary choices, but it’s probably just my gene pool. Which is rather surprising, considering my family history. The earliest branches of my family tree are populated by a wide variety of colorful characters, very few of whom could be accused of having pursued healthful lifestyles. Coming, as most of them did, from the far northern territories of Canada and Alaska, most of my antecedents appear to have smoked to stupefying excess, hunted down and consumed vast quantities of charred, high-cholesterol animal flesh, and regarded the daily intake of at least a quart and a half of cheap whiskey as both preventative medicine and antifreeze. They didn’t hold a lot of faith in big-city doctors or modern medicine, and treated most illnesses with the same rotgut they guzzled recreationally.
Indeed, if my great-grandfather Henry (the family historian) is to be believed, not a few of my ancestors, male and female, went to their final reward as crooked Yukon gamblers and gold-field lowlifes, ladies of soiled reputation, and unrepentant horse-thieve
s. Very old horse-thieves, though. My mother used to simply roll her eyes when she reheard these questionable tales, reminding me that Great-Grandpa Henry also swore he had spent an entire winter in an ice cave with a family of Sasquatch. Still, I have always liked Grandpa Henry's version of things. All those hardy pioneer forefathers lived by their wits and marched to their own drummer. They ate, drank, and smoked what they liked, and a lot of them lived to ripe old ages.
For most of my life, in the firm belief that all this healthy living stuff was overrated, I lived my life accordingly. I burned all of my candles at both ends, never got yearly checkups, ate everything that didn't eat me first, and pretty much wallowed in sloth and vile habits. And then, at the rapidly decaying age of thirty-four, I met and fell in love with Will Morgan, and everything changed. This miraculous change didn't come easily—or painlessly. I calculate that I was spanked more often in my first five months with Will than the average "domestically disciplined" wife is in five years of married life. I like to call those months a difficult period of adjustment.
Will says I was a hard case and an uncommonly slow learner. Will is a doctor. A very well-regarded orthopedic surgeon who skis, swims, rows, works out three times a week, runs at least five miles a day, and has the body of a Greek god. Okay, maybe a Welsh god. (His real name is Gwillym, which is Welsh for William, but please don’t spread that around. His mother, of proud Welsh extraction herself, fell in love as a girl with the movie version of, "How Green Was My Valley," and gave her children traditional Welsh names. He's got two sisters, named Bronwyn and Cerridwen.)
Will doesn’t smoke, never has, and views the smoking of even an occasional after-dinner cigarette with the same distaste with I view the chewing and spitting of tobacco or the practice of cannibalism. Before I took my last puff, my twenty-year smoking habit would earn me God-only-knows how many agonizing moments over Will's knee. I've been spanked with all the usual disciplinary implements—my husband's firm hand, his belt, a wooden paddle purchased on the Internet, a variety of wooden hairbrushes, clothes brushes, plastic bath brushes, rulers, switches, etc. I’ve also felt the bite of just about every household object that lends itself to such a purpose, and in that category, there are far too many to list.
