What the Dog Ate (23 page)

“Why do you suppose women never
give men foot rubs? Why is it always the other way around?” she asked.

“Hmm, I never thought of that
before. I guess because women generally wear much more uncomfortable shoes than
men. And since some sadistic man somewhere probably invented the high heel, we
feel a sort of deeply ingrained guilt about that and a need for recompense.”
He’d stopped massaging her foot while he spoke.

“Hey, don’t stop.”

“Sorry.” He went back to work.
“Besides, men have troll feet. Women have sexy feet.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely. In fact, I remember
the first time I noticed a woman’s foot.” He looked up as if seeing into his
past, but continued to knead her foot.

“You do? That must have been some
foot.”

“I was fifteen. I was at my friend
Bradley’s house working on a project for school. We went into the kitchen for a
drink, and his mother was up on a step stool looking for something. She was on
one leg, with her other foot pointed out behind her and I had this overwhelming
urge to run my fingertip along the arch of that tiny, pink foot of hers.”

“You were hot for Bradley’s
mother’s foot?”

“I was fifteen; I was hot for many
things back then. Right foot please.”

While she changed position, she
couldn’t help but wonder if that was the start of a penchant for older women.

The foot massage, combined with the
wine, turned her tense muscles into elastic bands. Her shoulders dropped and
she rested her head on an oversized pillow and shut her eyes.

“Maggie, I need you.” Brian said in
a deep voice.

Her eyes snapped open.

“Get it? I
knead
you.” For emphasis he ground his thumbs deep into the ball of her foot.

She laughed, but stopped when he
let go of her foot, got on his hands and knees and prowled up the couch toward
her. He held himself over her, lowering his head to kiss her.

Oh God, I hope
my breath’s OK
. She might have pulled back, ever so slightly, if her
head weren’t held in place by the sofa cushion.

His kissing technique was...
interesting. Mostly enjoyable, although every once in a while he would run the
underside of his tongue back and forth across the front of her teeth. It left
her with nothing to do but wait for the regular action to resume, and wish
she’d snuck into the bathroom ahead of time and hunted for floss.

After several minutes on the sofa,
he said, “It’s too bright in here.” He stood and held out a hand to her. “Come
with me?”

In his room, moonbeams slipped
through the plantation shutters.

He held up his index finger, “Wait
right here.” He picked his iPod up off the dresser. He slid the dial-wheel in
circles; it clicked as he tried to land on what he was looking for.

“Looking for your sex playlist?”
She giggled.

“For your information, it’s called
‘Mellow.’” Finding what he wanted, he put the iPod into the player. Slow
strains of saxophone and keyboard washed over her.

This could work
.
She tried to concentrate, but random thoughts kept popping into her head, like
why was saxophone music so perfect for having sex.
Is it
the name—sax?

She felt oddly disconnected from
herself as her crazy saxophone thoughts ran through her mind and Brian trailed
his fingertips across her shoulders, down her arms. She shut her eyes.

“Sax,” she said, absentmindedly. It
just popped out.
Ohmygod. I’m coming down with some sort of
arousal-induced Turrets Syndrome
. She imagined the drug company ads:
“A*T*S is a real disease that affects tens of dozens of
Americans. Don’t let A*T*S spoil that special moment with that special someone.
Just take our pink pill...” No, a pink pill would be too feminine
. But
she liked the alliteration.
“Our purple pill...”? No that’s
taken. Puce?... Oh God. I’m losing it. Please let him kiss me before I blurt
out something else nutty, like “Penis.”

She guessed Brian had no qualms
about having sex with a crazy woman as he continued to caress her.

He pressed a finger to her lips and
bent to whisper in her ear. “What happened to our guidelines? No play-by-play.”

He put his arms around her, she
thought to hug her, but then she felt a tug and heard the “zzzzzzettt” of her
dress being unzipped. He gently pushed the straps off her shoulders and it fell
in a pool around her feet. Seconds later, the scratchy lace underwear was no
longer a problem.

She started unbuttoning his shirt
at the top, while he worked his way up from the bottom. She was still fumbling
with the second button when his hands met hers. She heard him unbuckling his
belt as she pushed his shirt off over his shoulders. He let his arms down and
the shirt floated to the floor to take its place beside her dress.

The bed creaked as they lay down on
it. She sent her hands on a reconnaissance mission.
Oh
good, no hair on the back. Pro. Nice smattering on the chest. Another pro
...

She’d lectured herself in the
shower that day.
No comparing body parts with certain other
males
. She didn’t want to be derailed by thoughts of Dave at an
inopportune moment.

So, now, with the subject at hand
she concentrated on thinking only in generalities.
Men have
such odd... parts. No control. Just... boom. What must it be like to suddenly
have an appendage be three times its normal size? What if you saw someone you
were attracted to on the street and, like, your hand puffed up three times as
big?
She imagined trying to get something out of her purse with a
fat-fingered, Mickey-Mouse-sized hand. Or fumbling with her keys to get in the
car. She heard the attractive man of her imagination ask, “Is that a baseball
mitt on your hand or are you just glad to see me?”

Brian kissed her neck at the tender
spot just below her left ear—her major weakness. Her Achilles’ ear. She giggled
and felt a delicious shiver of pleasure run down her spine.
Ooooo, that’s nice. OK, now we’re getting somewhere. Now I can
concentrate on the task at hand
. She giggled again as she thought, So to
speak.

~~~

Maggie watched Brian sleep. He lay
on his stomach; his right arm anchored her in place. A stripe of moonlight fell
across his face. The slight hint of his crooked smile was there, but his
forehead was furrowed. Had he been worrying about her before he fell asleep?

If so, he needn’t have. All the
same, she was glad he was asleep so he wouldn’t see the tear that crept down
her cheek. She wouldn’t want him to misunderstand this lone remnant of the
stress she’d felt building as their date drew nearer. She’d been looking
forward to it with a stomach-churning mix of excitement and dread. Now she felt
light and free.

I didn’t even
think about Dave once. Until now...
She wondered if Dave had felt any
stress, trepidation, anxiety, the first time he was with Stupid Slut. Or was it
just man-the-torpedo and full steam ahead.

Stop it, she told herself.
I don’t care what Dave thought... or thinks
.

“Brian,” she said, partly to drive
Dave fully from her mind, but also because she needed to say goodbye. She had
to go home and let Kona out. Besides, she needed to get some sleep so she could
get up early and go biking with Russell.

“Brian.” She said it again, louder,
as she stroked his arm.

He stirred. Seeing her, the furrows
on his brow faded and the hint of smile stretched to full-strength. “Hello,
Beautiful.” He shifted to his side and reached out to tug at a lock of her
hair. He pulled it out straight and released it. It bounced back into place.
“You ever think of straightening your hair?” he asked, sleepily.

“Uh, no. It’d be a lot work. Why?”

“No reason. I’ve got a flat iron,
if you ever wanted to try...” he muttered as he turned away and picked up a
glass of water on the nightstand. He took a drink and offered her some. “Since
we’re both awake, why don’t you come over here?” He patted his side of the bed.

“I can’t. I have to go home.”

“You can’t leave me.”

“I don’t want to, but Kona needs
me.

“I thought we established that
I
need you.”

“Well, Kona really needs me,
because he might explode.”

“What about me? I might explode.”

She laughed and allowed him to pull
her on top of him as he rolled on to his back.

Kona could wait.

~~~

Brian let out a last cry and Maggie
collapsed on him, her hair tumbling across his chest as she burrowed her face
into his warm, musky neck.

Seconds later, she heard a soft
whimper.
Good God, is this boy multi-orgasmic? I don’t know
if I can take that kind of competition
.

But then, there was the sound
again—only more insistent this time. She realized it was coming from beside the
bed and turned to see Peaches, staring at them with big, bug eyes.

“How long have you been standing
there?” Maggie said.

Brian woke from his dozing and
lifted his head to look over the side of the bed.

“Oh... Peaches.” His head dropped
back to the pillow. “Tina and I used to always close the door. Peaches likes to
watch.”

“Oh.” As adorable as Peaches was,
Maggie found it rather disturbing to see the pocket-sized voyeur glaring at her
with a look that seemed to say, “Why are you naked on my man?”

“We used to call it ‘
ménage à Chihua
.’” He yawned. “Was that too much
information?”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “I need to go,
but she looks like she might bite me.”

“She’s not going to bite you, are
you, Princess?” Brian let his hand flop over the side of the bed. The tiny dog
took a step closer and pushed his hand up with her head, then sat under it.

“Awwww.” Maggie held her hand out
for Peaches to sniff, but yanked it back as Peaches’ upper lip began to curl
back. “Uh, next time, let’s be sure to close the door.”

On her ride with Russell the next
morning, he beat her up the hill for the first time.

“Oh, yeah!” he yelled, reaching the
summit seconds ahead of her. He raised his arms as if breaking through a
finishing line tape.

“I’ll beat you next week,” she
said. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“I don’t want to hear any excuses,
Missy. I just want to hear you asking what flavor energy bar I’d like next
time.”

“OK. What flavor do you want?”

“Hmmmm. I dunno. What tastes
like... victory?”

“Napalm? Oh, no, sorry—that
smells
like victory. How about vanilla?”

“Vanilla it is.” Russell acted like
he’d won the Tour de France. He was border-line insufferable, but kept her
laughing. She was laughing so hard he beat her to her driveway.

After he left and she’d showered,
Maggie decided to call Helen. She’d gotten home in the wee hours (wearing her
freshly steam-ironed dress—Brian, rather adorably she thought, had insisted on
ironing it before she left, since it had been “in a heap on the floor for
hours”) to Kona two-stepping in front of the back door, anxious to go out, and
a blinking answering machine light. It was Helen: “Hi-ho Silver? Call me
mañana
. I want to hear everything. OK, well maybe not
everything, but the highlights.”

She decided to have a big decadent
smoothie before calling—after all, she’d burned a lot of calories last night
and this morning. Instead of adding a frozen banana like she usually did to her
vanilla soy milk and strawberries, she blended in some of her favorite Ben
& Jerry’s flavor, Cherry Garcia. She put her feet up on the couch and got
comfortable with her glass and a spoon (it was so thick her straw was useless),
while Kona settled into begging-mode below her. When she was done, she gave him
the glass to lick and dialed.

She was just about done giving
Helen the
Reader’s Digest
version of the evening
when she heard another call coming in. “Gotta go. See you Tuesday?” She clicked
into the other call.

“Guess who’s getting married?”
Kevin said without saying hello.

Maggie screamed. “Ohmygod, no way!
When did this happen? Annie must be so happy. When’s the wedding? Does Mom
know?”

“One question at a time please.”
Maggie swore she could hear him grinning. “I’ve been thinking about it for a
few weeks, but I asked her yesterday.”

“Yesterday? When were you going to
tell me?”

“We were in New York. We just got
back a little while ago.”

“Please tell me you didn’t do the ol’
‘Marry me, Annie’ on the jumbo screen at Yankee Stadium thing.”

“No. Come on. You know I hate the
Yankees as much as you do.” He waited a moment and added, “It was a Mets game.
No, I’m kidding.”

“Good. OK, let’s hear it. And I
want some damn details.”

“Her brother, Jeremy, was in on it.
Said he was sending us for some big meeting on Monday, and I said we should
make a weekend out of it. Saturday we walked all over sight-seeing. When we got
to Tiffany’s, I told her we needed to go in and do some shopping. I did the
whole one-knee thing right there on the sidewalk. Some people stopped and
watched. They even applauded when she said yes.”

“That’s so sweet. She must have
been shocked. Did she cry?”

“A little. But happy tears I can
take. And... I might have cried a bit, too.”

“Oh, you’re going to make me cry.
I’m so happy for you guys.”

“Well, we owe you a lot.”

“No, you don’t. I almost royally
screwed things up for you guys.”

“No, really, we owe you big time.
Annie says so too. If we hadn’t broken up for those few weeks, I wouldn’t have
realized what I really wanted. We probably would’ve coasted along until she got
tired of waiting for me to do something and dumped me.” He paused and added,
“Hey, the wedding’s the Saturday after Thanksgiving. You’d better book your
ticket soon.”