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Outside, Marky was running from edge to edge, his body bucking. Twice, he got too close. His body froze, and he screamed like his heart was broken, like he was being pulled apart.
Over spaghetti, Tim pulled me onto his lap and rubbed himself against me. He finished without even unzipping and held me there, rocking me and kissing my chest and neck. I unzipped his pants and wiped him down with a napkin, wetting a corner with my tongue.
After that we watched television on the couch, his body cupping mine, his fingers in and out of my underwear, idly exploring. Marky was on the other couch, scratching his neck with his back paw.
"Fred called me today," Tim said. "He said the sounds Marky makes when he runs into that fence are god-awful. He could hear him this afternoon all the way down by their place."
"He's just getting used to it," I said.
"I don't know," he said. "Look at him." Marky was rubbing his neck on the arm of the couch. He'd scratched and rubbed the collar until it was up by his ears. "I think we should get rid of it. Marky
The grass felt good under my feet; I couldn't tell if it was wet or cold, or both. |
doesn't need it anymore. He knows where he lives."
I reached into my pants and took his hand and brought it up to my mouth, taking in the two fingers that had been inside me.
"Oh my God," Tim said, and grew hard. I guided him in from behind. In the middle of it all, my arm landed on the remote and the TV turned off, then flickered on, alerting Marky. I wondered if he thought it would be Animal Planet.
Tim fell asleep with his legs entwined in mine. It took me several minutes to disentangle, but I finally did, making my way in the adjusted dark, closing the door silently behind me. I made sure to remove Marky's collar before we went to bed, and it was on the turtle table where I'd left it, coiled awkwardly. The house alarm we never seemed to turn on gave its three warning beeps — a door is opening — but they were loudest downstairs, and I knew Tim wouldn't hear a thing.
The grass felt good under my feet; I couldn't tell if it was wet or cold, or both. It was like walking on one of those massage pads at those gadget stores — a welcome, dull pain. At my corner I reached under my nightgown, pulled my underwear down and held the collar to the skin, just above where my pubic hair stopped. I told myself I should be afraid, that this could really hurt, but then I leaned into that invisible boundary, and it was wonderful. For a moment I was convinced I could feel it in my fillings. I moved the collar down and leaned in. The sensation was so intense that a few drops of urine escaped and clung to my thighs.
On my back in the grass, the night sky looked close enough to touch. I felt like I wasn't lying in the grass but floating, that I was rushing up too quickly into the night and that I would break through the layers of the earth to freefall through space forever. It was the loneliest feeling. I left my place in the grass, walking back to the house and up the stairs to our bed. The room smelled like sleep —like deep breaths and sheets and the warm, bitter musk of bodies — and when I lay down, Tim turned over in sleep and molded his body to mine. Marky let out a long sigh. My underwear was wet and cold, and I wished I had taken it off.
Just before lunch the next day, a man in a white hat and overalls came to disable the fence.
"Your husband called me?" he said.
The damp strap of Marky's collar dangled from my finger behind my back; I'd run into the house when I'd seen the man's truck pulling into our driveway. Beneath my skirt, my underwear was around my knees. I was sure the man could smell the sharpness of the urine.
"I'm here to turn off your fence?" He said it like, "ye fayuhnts?"
It was over in fifteen minutes. The man walked to the four corners of our property and aimed a large square remote, punched at the keypad, then came inside and took Marky's collar to be recycled. When he was outside, I'd pressed a wet cloth to it. "I washed it," I told him. "That's why it's a little wet."
Before he left, he told me that the fence was disabled, but that if we ever wanted it turned back on to call him, that it was still there. "Everything's as it was," he said. "The only thing missing is the electricity. The spark," he said, patting Marky's head, "for Sparky here."
Tim came home, and when I was bending to take his pot pie from the oven, he pulled the sweatpants and underwear I'd changed into down to my knees and
He sucked his fingers triumphantly, even, at one point, the pinky that had been in my ass. |
stuck his pinky in my anus. "Okay?" he whispered into my hair. I held onto the stove and watched myself in its flat surface, Tim's face appearing suddenly, his eyes closed, mouth open, a lock of hair loose on his forehead. "Oh. Kay. Ohh. Kay," he said.
He ate the potpie with his fingers, sucking them triumphantly when he was done, even, at one point, the pinky that had been in my ass.
At the door he kissed me, the flick of his tongue at my bottom lip. "God, I love you. I really do. I'm positively joyful," he said, "giddy."
I watched him back down the driveway, his hand in a flat wave. I let Marky lick the potpie dish, let him push it across the floor until it bumped against the baseboard. When I took the plate away Marky went to his water bowl and drank, his big tongue making sloppy, satisfying sounds. When he was done I let him out, collarless and free.
I filled the sink with soap and hot water — as hot as it would go — and plunked the pot-pie dish into the suds. From the window above the sink, I watched Marky bounding from edge to edge. He believed the fence was still there and stopped just short of its boundaries, pausing to pee, shoulders hunched into it, a powerful yellow stream. Then he sauntered over to the edge and didn't stop. He stepped through the fence and onto the driveway. My hands were red and swollen in the water, my fingers picking at a blob of crust on the dish. Marky continued down the driveway, turned right at the road and disappeared into the woods at the far corner of our property.
I put his water dish in the suds and cleaned that, too, and then I went upstairs, lay on the bed and wept until my ribs were sore. Then I went into our bathroom and straddled the edge of the tub. It felt good to have something hard and cold there, but not nearly good enough.
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
| Lindsay Hunter is a writer in Chicago. Her work has previously been published in McSweeney's, The Cypress Dome, and Extra Dave. |
©2007 Lindsay Hunter and Nerve.com. |
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