The Mad and the MacAbre (11 page)

* * *

"Hear me out before you say no," said
Alicia. Charlie didn't like her wicked grin. There was no question
that her intentions were evil.

"All right."

"I have a friend--"

"No."

"She just moved here a couple of weeks ago.
If you don't count me, she doesn't have any friends outside of
work. She's really nice. She likes dogs. I think you two would
really hit it off."

Charlie thought about that for a moment.
"You mean a blind date, right?"

"Yep."

"Uh-uh. No."

"You're not going to take pity on my poor
friend? My poor lonely friend, who got really excited when I told
her all about you?"

"Sorry."

Alicia lowered her voice to a whisper.
"She's been unwillingly celibate for the past two years."

Charlie broke into a cold sweat and hoped
that Alicia didn't notice. "I'm busy."

"I didn't say when."

"When?"

"It's open-ended. Anytime you two are able
to make it work. And here's the best part, I thought that you could
do a 'dog date,' where you take your dogs to the park together. She
has a Yorkie. So Kutter can have a date, too. It'll be fun."

"Is her Yorkie mean?"

"Her Yorkie is just fine. Can I tell her you
said yes?"

"I don't know."

"You need to say yes, because I'll harass
you about this as much as I can without violating any HR
policies."

By the official company rules, Charlie
thought that the "unwillingly celibate" comment might have been a
human resources violation already, but of course he wasn't going to
report her. "Fine," he said.

"Cool! How about Saturday?"

"Afternoon or evening?"

"Do you already have plans for either?"

"No."

"Then let's go with Saturday afternoon.
You'll love her. I promise!"

* * *

Despite the badgering from his hair stylist,
Charlie still refused to add any highlights.

* * *

He had no idea what to wear. He wanted to
dress to impress, but he also didn't want to look like an idiot
running around the dog park in formal clothes.

"You're lucky," he told Kutter. "All you
have to wear is fur."

Kutter woofed in agreement. Or disagreement.
One of the two.

Charlie settled on jeans and his nicest red
polo shirt, with an extra spritz of cologne.

* * *

She was seated on a bench, waiting for him
as he and Kutter arrived at the dog park. Unless it was some other
curly-haired blonde with a Yorkie on her lap.

"Elizabeth...?" he asked.

"Hi, Charlie!" she said, standing up.

Charlie had hoped it was a case of mistaken
identity. She was remarkably unattractive--overweight, bad
complexion, and crooked teeth. Her hair was nice, and Charlie liked
her yellow blouse, but she wasn't one-tenth as good-looking as
Alicia.

Was that how Alicia saw him? Her ugly
co-worker? She hadn't set up the blind date to be nice to him; she
did it because there was nobody else who'd go out with her
repulsive cow of a friend.

Okay, "repulsive cow" was too harsh.

And he had to be honest: he was not a
handsome man. Not even if you graded on a curve. For all he knew,
she was thinking the same thing, that Alicia must've picked her
ugliest co-worker to set her up with on the date.

If nothing else, she looked a lot better
than some of the junkies he cut up.

"Hi," he said. He gave a gentle tug on
Kutter's leash. "This is Kutter."

"Nice to meet you, Kutter," said Elizabeth.
"This is Cooper."

"After the singer?"

"Alice Cooper?"

"Yeah."

"No, but I like his music. Are you a
fan?"

"Uh-huh." Charlie didn't
listen to music very often, but
School's
Out
was one of the few CD's he
owned.

Charlie awkwardly shook her hand. A soft
breeze was at her back, and he noticed that she smelled nice, sort
of like cotton candy.

"So Alicia says that you rescued your
dog...?"

"Yeah. Not from wolves or anything like
that, but yeah."

Elizabeth giggled. Charlie smiled as well.
The wolves line was kind of clever. He didn't usually ad-lib things
like that.

"That's pretty cool of you. I got Cooper
from an animal shelter. If my sister hadn't stopped me, I probably
would've taken home six of them."

"That's a lot of Yorkies."

"Yeah."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.
Charlie frantically tried to think of something to ask. "Do you go
by Beth?"

"Liz. Or the full Elizabeth. As long as you
don't call me Lizzie, it's fine."

"I won't."

"Thanks."

"Do you want to see Kutter catch a
Frisbee?"

"I'd love to."

With the pressure on, Charlie half-expected
Kutter to develop performance anxiety and completely botch the
Frisbee-catching game. Fortunately, with the exception of one miss
that was Charlie's fault (a bad throw, but not a bad enough throw
to be humiliating) Kutter caught them all.

"He's really good at that," Liz said.

"He was that good when I found him. Can
Cooper catch?"

"Yeah, but not one of those Frisbees.
They're bigger than she is!"

"What can she catch?"

"A bouncy ball. I have to do it at home,
though. It won't work on the grass."

"I'd like to see that," Charlie said.

Had he accidentally made a suggestive
comment? Charlie sure hoped not. He couldn't honestly say that he
was attracted to her, but he still didn't want to screw the date up
this early, if for no other reason than to have to face Alicia on
Monday.

She smiled. "Maybe you will."

Okay,
that
had been a suggestive
comment.

They spent another hour at the dog park.
Though the conversation didn't always flow freely, they were able
to fill the silences by watching the dogs play. Liz suggested that
they get an early dinner, so they drove in separate cars to
Charlie's favorite seafood restaurant. Never having brought a guest
there before, Charlie suddenly became very concerned about the
quality of the food--maybe he only liked the flounder because he
didn't know what good flounder tasted like!--but decided that he
really couldn't worry about it.

"Please don't destroy my car," Charlie told
Kutter as they pulled into the restaurant's parking lot. "You have
no idea how happy it will make me if I come back and you haven't
wrecked anything. You went to the bathroom before we left and you
haven't eaten anything that you should need to vomit, so there's no
excuse. If you have to slobber, slobber, but don't chew up the
seats. Okay?"

As Charlie ate his baked flounder and Liz
ate her salmon Caesar salad, Charlie decided that the date had gone
from "much less painful than he would have expected" to "absolutely
fantastic." By the time they'd finished their crab cake appetizers
her physical appearance didn't bother him at all. In fact, her
smile and the way her eyes lit up when she spoke made her more
appealing to look at than a lot of genuinely pretty women he knew.
And she was easy to talk to. Almost as easy as Kutter, and the best
part was that she talked back.

They had similar tastes in movies and
television shows, both hated sports, had differing political views
(Liz was a passionate Democrat, while Charlie had no interest in
the subject whatsoever and had never voted in a single election),
both read very few books, and neither had travelled extensively.
Charlie wasn't thrilled with her choice of dessert, since bread
pudding was among the nastiest concoctions ever devised by
humankind, but he happily shared it with her.

She asked if he wanted to go back to her
place to watch a movie, and he enthusiastically accepted her
offer.

Aside from a drool mark on the steering
wheel, Kutter hadn't harmed his vehicle.

Liz apologized for the
condition of her apartment, which was only sparsely furnished and
had boxes everywhere, but Charlie didn't mind. It was a nice little
apartment, and he was glad that she hadn't asked to continue their
date at his house. Kutter and Cooper chased each other around the
apartment until finally both dogs fell asleep halfway
through
When Harry Met
Sally
. When the movie ended, Liz asked if
he wanted her to put in another one. Charlie said sure. A moment
later he realized that "sure" wasn't the answer she was looking
for, but it was too late to change course now. She put in
9 1/2 Weeks
.

About half an hour into the movie, she asked
if he wanted to kiss her, and this time Charlie gave the right
answer. Her lips were...perfect.

Half an hour after that, she asked if he
wanted to move to the bedroom. He gave the right answer to that,
too.

- 11 -

Charlie lay in bed, Liz asleep next to him,
thinking that he'd never felt so content. He was pretty sure his
performance hadn't been very good, but she'd seemed reasonably
satisfied and she certainly hadn't complained. Charlie figured he
had the benefit of her two-year dry spell working in his favor.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, Liz
woke up and began to kiss his chest. "Are you still frisky?" she
asked.

Charlie nodded.

"We should do it in a way that honors our
doggies," she said, getting on her hands and knees.

Charlie spent all day Sunday at Liz's
apartment. They watched a couple of movies and took the dogs for a
couple of walks, but spent most of the time in bed. Charlie tried
to imagine her strapped down to the table in his basement. It was a
repellent image.

He left Sunday night with a kiss and a
promise to see her again after work the next day.

* * *

Alicia walked over to his desk as soon as he
sat down the next morning.

"You are
such
a slut," she
whispered. Charlie felt his face turn red and his ears burn as she
walked back around the corner, giggling.

* * *

"So do you think I have a girlfriend now?"
Charlie asked Kutter, as he put on the dog's leash right after
getting home. "I was only there one night, so I guess it counts as
a one night stand, but I spent all day there, too. Don't you
usually leave first thing in the morning if it's a one night
stand?"

Kutter, as always, provided no useful
feedback.

When Charlie went over to her apartment, Liz
greeted him wearing nothing but a string bikini and some freshly
applied chocolate on her nipples. Charlie decided that she was
indeed his girlfriend.

* * *

March 24th. The night of the new hunt.

It used to be like Christmas six times a
year. In the days prior to a hunt, he'd be so filled with
excitement that he could barely control himself. He'd spend hours
sitting in his living room, opening and closing one of his
pocketknives, fantasizing about where he'd cut first. Had to start
with the extremities--fingers and toes. He didn't want a victim to
bleed to death too soon.

Tonight...he just didn't feel like it.

He was enjoying work a lot more these days.
Sure, he'd still quit if he won the lottery, received a surprise
inheritance, or got a higher offer elsewhere, but the day went by
much more quickly now that he interacted with his co-workers in a
friendly manner. His relationship with Liz was going wonderfully.
He was relatively certain that she considered him more of a
"boy-toy" than a "soul mate," but Charlie had never been anybody's
boy-toy before and he liked it.

He didn't need to hunt anymore.

Didn't need to kill anymore.

And so, on this particular March 24th, he
was not going to roam the streets hunting for prey. He was going to
put on the iPod he'd just bought last night, put on the "Walking
Kutter" playlist, take his Boston terrier out for a nice long
stroll, and then go out with his girlfriend.

"This is where I found you," said Charlie,
as Kutter sniffed the bench. "If I hadn't taken you home, you
would've been a dog Popsicle. Kutter the dog-flavored Popsicle.
That's no way to end your life, buddy."

As usual, the park was empty. They really
needed to promote this place better. Charlie unhooked Kutter's
leash and played fetch with a rubber ball for about fifteen
minutes. Then, on one throw, Kutter ran in the opposite direction,
toward the street.

"Wrong way!" Charlie shouted. It wasn't a
particularly busy street, but he could hear a car coming. "Kutter!
Get back here!"

Kutter kept running. Charlie took off after
him.

Charlie could see the car now. A small one,
but Kutter was headed straight for--

The car took a left turn, putting Kutter out
of potential danger.

Charlie saw what Kutter was
running for. A dog on the other side of the street.
"
Kutter
!
" he shouted. "You stop
right now
!
"

Kutter stopped, then went into a barking
fit. Charlie hurried over to him and snapped the leash onto his
collar. "Don't ever run off like that again," Charlie said. "You
could've been hit by a car! Do you know how worried I was?"

He glanced across the street again. Now
there were two dogs. Big ones. The one he'd seen first was a big
black dog--a rottweiler, he thought it was called. He thought the
other one might be a pit bull but he wasn't completely sure what
pit bulls looked like, just that they were vicious, mean dogs. And
the two men holding their leashes didn't appear much
friendlier.

"Time to head home," he said. Kutter barked
at the dogs again. Brave but stupid.

"Hey there!" said the first man, waving to
Charlie from across the street. "How's it going?"