OM:?Do you fake orgasms?
FEW:?How can I fake something I’ve never experienced?
OM:?It’s called acting? Lots of women—
FEW:?It would never occur to me.
OM:?How would you describe your sex life to friends?
FEW:?Like driving home from work and not remembering the ride.
OM:?So, forgettable.
FEW:?Yes, but not unpleasant. When the sex is acrobatic, as it sometimes is, I’m observing us from outside the window.
OM:?What do you see?
FEW:?An attractive couple who looks like they know what they’re doing. We look like professionals.
OM:?Porn stars.
FEW:?I guess.
OM:?Do you watch porn?
FEW:?No.
OM:?Are you anti-porn?
FEW:?No.
OM:?Does Luke watch porn?
FEW:?Probably.
OM:?So, you have what sounds like… display sex. When you see yourself from outside, are you aroused by what you see?
FEW:?My vanity is aroused. I become critical of my body, not always in a bad way.
OM:?Does Luke compliment you often?
FEW:?I don’t respond well to verbal compliments. They seem phony to me.
OM:?No verbal compliments. Noted. What about written ones?
FEW:?I like letters.
OM:?Do you use sex toys?
FEW:?No.
OM:?Have you ever owned a vibrator?
FEW:?No.
OM:?Would you be willing to try masturbating with a vibrator?
FEW:?I suppose. Not the rabbit, though. A friend of mine has that one, and I don’t know, something about the ears.
OM:?May I suggest the Magic Wand, which I’m sure you’ve heard about?
FEW:?It looks like a club.
OM:?Correct.
FEW:?I’ll order one online, I guess.
OM:?Would you consider ending our session with a breathing exercise?
FEW:?I don’t think so.
[END OF RECORDING]
Pi?on was staring at Greta from under the desk, as he often did while she was working, imploring her to lock eyes with him. In addition to exercise, he enjoyed a lot of sustained and intense eye contact. She let him out of the house and into the yard. He walked directly to the car and took a long piss on the back tire, his way of saying it was a nice day for a drive.
They drove to the unofficial dog park, an open meadow surrounded by woods. People showed up early mornings and late afternoons, but Greta preferred the middle of the day, when the meadow was mostly empty, because Pi?on was a loose cannon. His only true interest lay in killing rodents, but anything with four legs was fair game. Not that he was a bully—he was just an alpha born in the wrong body. He had what Greta called trans-breed dysmorphia of the soul and believed himself to be a young wolf trapped in the body of a terrier with worn-down teeth. If a wolf appeared on a television or computer monitor, Pi?on dropped whatever he was doing and lovingly licked the screen up, down, and sideways until the wolf disappeared.
Otherwise, he was mellow for a Jack Russell. He’d been unneutered when she’d adopted him and still searched for his balls, which had been comically large, upon waking every morning. He’d mated with multiple bitches back in the day and sired over a dozen pups. He had a definite type: French bulldogs, or anything with hips and a short neck, but was open to all breeds except shepherds and shar-peis. He’d vacationed abroad. His beverage of choice was iced black coffee. Greta thought of him as debonair, a word that meant more to her than simply charming and confident, and applied more to dogs than to men. Pi?on took pleasure in most things but wasn’t overly attached or committed to any one thing, not even Greta, not even living.
But Greta would never have said any of this shit out loud, not like this corny fool with the pit bull. The guy, late twenties, was all bundled up in a hat, scarf, coat, gloves, and cropped pants, no socks. His bony ankles were fully exposed. The effect was jarring and vaguely obscene. Sort of like the pit bull’s long, ruined nipples. The pit had clearly given birth as a puppy, probably more than once. The guy had found her in Mexico, starving in the streets, and said she’d probably have been pregnant again if he hadn’t kidnapped her and brought her to New York.
He was blathering to a woman Greta called GILF, because she could never remember her proper name, and because she was attractive, single, and over sixty. Many women in Hudson fit this description, and they all owned small white dogs. GILF’s face had been lifted, her cheeks and lips filled, and she had the body of a ballerina. Only her tits had fallen, though not far enough to discourage crop tops, which she wore with high-waisted jeans. Her white hair had tasteful pink and lavender streaks, and her dog’s fur had been carefully dyed to match. Sadly, she was known for her grandson fetish. Greta suspected she was there to seduce this clown with ankle cleavage.
“Who knows what her name was before, or if she even had a name, but I call her Jelly Roll because there’s something spongy about her,” the guy was telling GILF. “And she loves whipped cream.”
“She’s lucky to have you, hon,” GILF said.
“In Mexico, she belonged to no one and everyone. She followed me around this dirty little village for a whole month, growling at any dog that came near me. She was extremely protective of me from the start.”
Possessive, estupido, Greta wanted to say. You represented food. You were a greasy pork chop to her, and nothing more.
“Now she sleeps on a memory-foam bed,” the guy said. “She drinks filtered water. She doesn’t have to eat rotting garbage.”
“She hit the jackpot,” GILF said.
Jelly Roll seemed to want nothing to do with Gringo. She ignored him completely and became fixated on Pi?on, who was running around the meadow in zigzags, hunting for ground-dwelling quarry. Jelly Roll chased after Pi?on, literally breathing down his neck whenever he stopped moving.
“She wants to play with that dog so bad,” Gringo said. “Look at the way she’s throwing herself at him.”
“Don’t act so desperate, girl!” GILF called out.
Jelly Roll was desperate, all right, but only to assert dominance. Pi?on was too busy to notice or care, and Greta wasn’t worried. As part of his wolf identity, Pi?on respected alphas of the opposite sex.
But then Pi?on bared his teeth at Jelly Roll, his one psycho move. It made him look deranged, especially when he did it to puppies and children. His canines were looking a little brown from where Greta stood, as if he smoked cigars after dinner every night. She doubted they were having the desired effect. He waited a minute and then bared his teeth again, a little longer this time, but it seemed to only encourage Jelly Roll, as if she thought he was grinning at her. She tried mounting him from the rear. When that failed, she tried humping his head—a mistake. They faced off, lunging and snarling, and then quickly transformed into a roving dog tornado. It was hard to tell who was winning or how bad it was. Luckily, it was over in ten seconds.
Or was it? They’d stopped moving, but Jelly Roll was on top of Pi?on, pinning him to the ground with her humongous face. Pi?on kicked his legs frantically, trying to get out of the hold, but she had him firmly by the neck.
“Grab your dog,” Greta said to Gringo.
“Give it a minute,” he said. “They’ll work it out.”
“No,” Greta said. “They won’t.”
Pi?on was wheezing. His eyes kept rolling around, looking for Greta.