Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 3, Issue 2

by Emily Maguire

The hypocrisy of this thudded heavily between them. The vows had a built-in exclusivity clause. She was to have sex with her husband, to the exclusion of all others. She was to remain faithful. This was written into the rules. She lifted her hand from her face and rested it on Jesse’s thigh. She stared at it, his thigh, his crotch, and yes, there was what might have been a slight swelling there, a vague arousal. She wanted to tell him that there could be a transferral of the contract. She could cross Kevin’s name out in a second and scribble Jesse’s in its place. She wanted to tell him of her one chance of escape, something heroic and romantic that involved the two of them changing their identities and throwing caution to the wind.

  ‘I can’t let it go, Jill.’

  Her name on his lips.

  ‘This is criminal.’

  ‘He won’t do it again, Jesse. He lost it. He knows he has done wrong. He won’t do it again.’

  ‘Shall I take you to the hospital?’ He was staring at her face. She must look like a monster. The vague swelling in his lap had subsided. She removed her hand and placed it back on her cheek like a veil.

  ‘It’s worse than it looks.’

  ‘Well it looks like he almost killed you.’

  ‘He didn’t.’ She tried to smile but even this hurt and she let her lips fall back into a scowl. ‘You haven’t been around much lately.’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘I’ve missed you. You should come and visit.’

  ‘So Kevin can beat me to a pulp, too?’

  ‘He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t have to know anything.’

  He shifted and stood. He was so thin, too thin probably but she supposed that was part of his appeal. There were damp patches on his knees that she hadn’t noticed before now and she wondered where he had been kneeling in the dew. She noticed the flecks of dead grass on the cuffs of his jeans. She narrowed her good eye. She wanted to ask him where he had been at this time in the morning, but it was not her place. Whatever was between them was still too young and delicate.

  ‘I’ll check in on you,’ he said. ‘See if you change your mind about this. Make sure you are still alive.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, but when he had walked past her, up the stairs and into the dark corridor, she wondered if this was, in fact, true after all.

  * * *

  The cardboard structure was nothing like a nose and, worse, it was fragile. His first time with the face intact he stood beside the bed and pulled the furred flank of his Blue towards him. He leaned forward, letting the silicone body collect his weight and the front legs buckled beneath her. He had cut them back to articulated little paws and inserted claws carved out of wood and fixed with long wire that he used to pierce the surface, fixing it all with the strongest glue. They looked pretty good, and when the nose was stuck on, covered by fur, it wasn’t bad. He couldn’t, however, part the cardboard lips and flick his tongue over the threat of teeth as he had with the real Blue. This was what he wanted more than other things. He wanted to recreate the damp lawn and the dark and the smell of the warm beast leaping up to his chest. He wanted to do things that he would not allow himself in the real world. And so the front legs collapsed under the weight of him as he slipped his cock inside her, pushed against the softness of the fur. The hole was tight around him. He had lubricated it well with his finger and some gel. He thrust into her now as he might have done back there in her yard with her spit still drying on his face. If he had turned her rump towards him, lifted her tail, this is how it might have ended. He knew he could not last, not now with the throb of memory swelling his cock. Not now with this almost animal stuck fast to him. Almost real, and he was inside her.

  He stopped, breathed. His fingers were gripping fur, fur against his thighs, a rope of a tail twisted sideways, but whipping against the base of his prick when he withdrew it just so far and thrust it inside her again. He was inside her, he was inside Blue, and he was shaking with it. He was red in the chest, the blush spreading out past his tight nipples, mottling his shoulders, climbing his neck. He was swollen with desire. His whole body tight as his cock, and even as he stopped his thrusting again he knew it was too late. He withdrew completely one last time, the shock of cold air on his wet cock. He slammed it in as hard as he could, and the cunt was tight as a glove, warm with the heat of him. The furred rump thumped against his crotch, his balls swung up to hit her underside and he fell forward, the come pulsing out of him into her, into it. As soon as he had come it returned to the thing it was, a sad replica of a living beast and, worse, he could see from this position draped across her shoulders, grinding the weight of his body into her hips, that the face had torn away from the rest of her. He had cut the human nose off and the flat scarred surface of silicone gaped, lips sheared away, the yawning hole exposed. It was a hole to put a cock in. That is what the girl mouth was. That is what the girl arse was and the girl cunt. He pulled his deflated penis out of her and there was the drip of putrescence soaking into the fur. The come shot, the cream pie.

  His cock still hovered somewhere below the horizontal, a final twitch. He slapped at it. And that felt satisfying. He slapped it again, flicked it cruelly with the snap of his fingers. He was nothing but a cock, and this monstrosity before him with its broken snout and ropey tail was not a dog at all. It was a collection of holes for someone with no self-control, no self-respect, no self. He was not himself. Where was that boy at the edge of the schoolyard watching the dogs rutting, holding his cock hard through the folds of his pants? Where had he gone, that boy with the world in front of him and nothing to run from but a game of kiss and catch?

  He shuffled into the kitchen, filled a bowl with hot water, tore a Chux off the role. He returned to his lover, his object, and sponged the damp fur, dipping the towelette into the hole, soaking up the abandoned part of himself. He sat and glared into the bowl as if the answers to his problem would be there somewhere in the clouded water, the little clots of ejaculate settling into some prescient pattern on the bottom.

  Piñata. It was a sudden thought from nowhere, but suddenly that small child of the kiss-chasey days was there beside him, holding his own large plastic bowl of water, the same cloudy globs of ejaculate, no not ejaculate but glue, and if the child had giggled at the cloudy white paste sticking to his fingers then he had told no one. The piñata was the shape of a donkey, not a dog, and the boy was proud of it, too proud to hit it with a stick, the hours of effort. Still, when the others arrived a frenzy of beatings erupted and he picked up his stick and aimed it firmly at the nose of the beast and brought it down with all the might that a teenager can muster.

  Tough beast, the words of his mother. Tough old boiler. You put too many layers on the head. You know the French used to make furniture like this? Out of paper?

  He put down the bowl of warm water and reached up to tear the snout away from the beast. He could fashion the teeth in wire, use the paper to make them solid, cover them in something pale and white, plaster of Paris and an enamel to finish them. He could feel them now under his own tongue, strong and smooth. If he had his own dog with its own set of teeth he would never have to go to the yard down the road again. Perhaps he could even visit Jill next door, eat some cupcakes, let her kneel at his lap again. He felt the plan solidifying in his head. It would all be okay. It was better now that he knew what he must do. He knew he would need a strong glue, wood glue. He had some in the cupboard. He would dilute it a little, dip the torn strips of paper. He could even use the cardboard muzzle as a guide. He dressed himself and locked the door to the bedroom, his secret safely hidden away inside.

  * * *

  The storm kicked up from nowhere. The wind came first and then the rain with it, driven sideways. Jesse closed all his windows at the side of the flat. The frames rattled. He could not tell if the howling was from the throat of an animal or from the sky. There was thunder and a sudden crack and flash and the alarm clock jiggled a little on the side table.

  Blue was warmth and comfort. He had read once about an
experiment with monkeys, a wire mother monkey constructed to distribute milk through a rubber teat. Another surrogate monkey made from a blanket. The monkey child invariably ran to the soft furred monkey mother for comfort. He wondered if his Blue was like that, as good as a wire frame with a blanket of fur attached. The lightning and the thunder came at once, no delay, a storm directly overhead, and he still clung to his warm fur thing just as an orphan monkey would. The walls rattled, the bed rattled, the glass of water rattled and he noticed the shift in the surface of the liquid, the concentric circles fanning out to the edges and lapping there. A flash crash and it sounded like that one had hit the road right outside the house. Jesse leapt out of bed and pressed his face to the window. He could barely see through the rain on the window. Nothing burning at least. He wondered about Blue. He curled his fingers tightly into his fists.

  Danes should be an indoor dog. Despite the size of them they were bred for palaces, the dog of kings. There was a tree and an overhang of awning, but there would be little shelter for her. Jesse reached for his coat which, still damp, was flung over a chair. The drains had already overflowed. There was a river in the gutter, the force of it pushing branches and leaves against the wheels of cars parked in its path. The grass made mud, the mud spilled up and over, flowers denuded, the petals hurled down the newly-cut creek. His boots were covered in mud. He kicked at them and one of them toppled over in slow motion. There was a crust of dirt caked into the sole.

  He dropped the jacket back onto the chair. Jesse climbed into the bed. His Blue still held his body heat and he hugged her, buried his head in her neck. He whispered into her fur, stroked her muzzle, a long gorgeous muzzle like a real dog, only cold. The papier-mâché did not hold his body heat. The paper dried hard as wood. She would never be the same as the real Blue. There would never be that mushroomy breath, the moist, warm mouth that smelled of sex. He was becoming aroused. He pressed his groin into her body. The thunder rocked the house and for a moment she was lit up, fur-clad, beautiful. He could hear her whimper.

  The sound of his own longing but higher, more plaintive. He stroked her muzzle but the whimpering increased, one sharp bark, two. Jesse sat up and threw the covers aside. He could hear the whimpering in the lounge room, not in the lounge room but close to there. He stumbled out into the living area and the sound was louder, a scratching, a scrabbling on the door.

  She was cowering. He had never seen her so stooped and trembling. Her back legs vibrated, her rope of a tail hanging forlornly between them. Her head was cowed down, the whites of her eyes glaring at him. She was wet through and her neat fur clung to her skin in patches. He stood aside from the door and she scrambled past him. Her tail caught on the door and it slammed closed. They were alone in his room. She was here with him, alone. He felt his own legs trembling.

  When the lightning struck again she yelped and turned awkward circles, her thigh slapping against the dining table, a low moan, the beginning of a howl working up to some volume in her throat. He took his shirt off and edged over towards her. She let him wrap it around her shoulders. He felt her trembling. He hugged her, bent over, awkward, he pressed his cheek into her wet pelt. His cock was hard as a lightening rod in his pants. Another thunderclap and they would be incinerated, a passion so huge it could kill them both. She turned her head then and licked at his face. That smell of earth and cunt. He let her lick his mouth and opened his lips a little so that her tongue found his teeth. Her head was trembling. She was cold and he held her closer. His own skin shivered wherever it touched her wet fur. They were standing by the oil heater and its radiance touched them. He felt her push closer to it, he moved with her, stroking her sleek neck. The muscles taught. Her lean chest, her thighs so compact, nothing wasted on her, everything so finely crafted. He rubbed his shirt against her shoulders. He found that he had been holding his breath. There was something of a dream in the way the lightning flashed, the thunder rattling the windows. The outside world was all wind and pounding rain. It cocooned them. She had sought him out. This was the thing. She had escaped her own yard, her home, and found him. Her sense of smell was so acute it would have been like X-ray vision, Blue finding him through the walls of the building.

  Lightning and then thunder, a little further apart this time. The storm was passing, no longer directly overhead. He felt Blue relax a little, her tongue lolled, she panted. She bounced, her front paws like springs, testing her weight. Her nails clicked on the floorboards She barked, a playful excited sound. He saw her tail begin to wag. He stood and stepped back. He didn’t want to cling to her. He wanted Blue to feel safe and relaxed. She sniffed at the hot metal of the heater, jerking her nose away as the metal burned her snout. She snuffled up the dust on the floor. Another sound, a low grumble this time, getting louder. She stretched out her front paws and lowered her weight onto them, groaning, a human sound like speaking without words. She shook her head and stretched up to her full height once more. She was magnificent. Jesse reached for his crotch and rearranged himself. There was an uncomfortable tightness in his underpants.

  If she were to initiate then there would be no question of consent. He took his tracksuit pants off, untangled his penis from his underpants. The surge of adrenalin was unexpected. He took a step back, paced in a quick circle. He was reminded suddenly of the circling of an excited dog. She watched him turning circles. He saw her tail twitch, thud against the couch. She made that almost-human rumble deep in her chest, a word of sorts and when she tensed her muscles, stretched her paws out and crouched, facing him, it seemed that she wanted to play.

  His cock pointed straight up, slapping against his flat stomach. She watched it bounce and he felt his cheeks redden. He took a step forward. The smell of her was overwhelming: her breath, certainly, and her wet fur growing warm beside the heater, but there was another scent too and he knew that it was the smell of her sex. When her tail wagged he could see it, the swollen pink of her vagina. She stretched down in a crouch and her rump was raised and exposed to him. It was as if she were displaying her sex, expecting him to react in some way. He stood close, bent, sniffed, his cock leaped and twitched like a finger beckoning. He could smell her sex. Perhaps this was the scent of a dog on heat. Certainly she shuffled back and if he hadn’t stood up suddenly his nose would have been buried in her folds.

  She moaned, a series of vowel sounds strung together and followed by a feisty little bark. She stood and turned and nudged at his crotch. The sound that came from his throat was a pale imitation of her voice, a groan and a grunt and he felt the wet place where her nose had snuffled onto his flesh. His penis throbbed his balls clenched. They were alone and this, surely, was some kind of an advance. It would be a small thing to take one more step towards her, sidle up to her rump. Their hip heights were perfectly matched, one small lean towards her, just one thrust, that is all it would take. He was close. He knew. It would be the work of a minute. Jesse tried to breathe evenly. He wondered if she could smell his desire. She turned her head back towards the bouncing of his cock and her tongue lolled out and around it. The shiver of it rattled his spine. He felt it right down from the nape of his neck to his tail bone. Such an intense shudder that he could almost hear the hum of it, low as the chanting of a monk, soft as the excited growl rattling through Blue’s stomach.

  She licked him a second time, the damp warm coarseness of her tongue slipped over the sensitive underside of his penis once more. She lowered her muzzle, sniffing his balls. Her tongue lapped out again and he grunted. Her tongue was so warm on his scrotum. She snuffled, breathing him in, licking him. An exquisite feeling that was so sharp it was almost pain. Juice pearled up and bubbled over the head of his penis, pre-come. He was so close, right on the edge of a spend. She turned her head and licked the head of his penis.

  This might be the only chance for him. This might be the only time he had with her. It was now or never. It had to be now. Her hips were so slim and warm between his hands. She was damp and hot to touch. That delicious sme
ll of earthy desire wafted up to him. She craned her neck to look at him positioning himself behind her. She stepped back, nudging his crotch with her rump. Her tail was a merciless rope slapping excitedly against his cock. The whining in her throat was pure pleasure. He rubbed at her hips. It would be a small thing to pull his cock down and slip inside. He pushed towards her, rubbing himself against that swollen place, basking in the heat of her. He lifted her tail, shifted it to one side and it was still. She was open to him. It would be impossible to read her body language in any other way. This was the pure language of fucking. This was a symbol of her desire. He pushed his penis down. He squeezed his eyes closed as if this would save him from what he was about to do. He felt the place, a soft wetness parting at the touch of a finger, parting for the head of his penis.

  It was not a tight fit. There was barely any pressure on his penis, but the heat of that place travelled up his body in a spreading blush. His hips were trembling uncontrollably. He entered her slowly, a tiny fraction at a time. He was reading her hips like braille, any slight flinch, any whimper and he would withdraw. There would be nothing worse than hurting her. He couldn’t even bear the thought that he might cause her any pain. Perhaps he should not enter her all the way. He moved his hand, curled it around the base of his cock. He didn’t want to enter her completely. Not if she was hurt by it in any way. His penis was buried up to his fist. He could feel the warm damp place of entry pressed up against his hand. He was inside her. He felt his penis twitch in his grip and she wetted back again, pushing him. It was as if she wanted more of him inside her. She eased her hips back and, trembling, he let go of his cock. He looked down, wide-eyed, at his cock, watching as he held still and she took the final backward step. He saw the thickness of it disappear inside her. His pubic hair seemed fused with her genitals. He was inside. He was completely inside.