Gone to the Dogs

Earth day. Whoever's heard of such a non-day as Earth Day? I certainly hadn't before my wife came home one day and announced that their Ladies' Club was going to celebrate it this year. Apparently there's a day that's marked out to celebrate the Earth, life, non-pollution, nature, and other such everyday things. I think its too much celebration, pointless, like May Day or Midsummer's Day and so many of those other unnecessary days. Why do you need to celebrate? Agreed, Earth Day is pretty obscure to be celebrated for an entire day and usually passes by without inconveniencing many, but it still grinds around once a year, and has been the cause of my problems for the past month.

So this year, the club decided to 'celebrate' Earth Day. As if planting a quiet sapling like everybody else does was not enough, they decided to have a vegetable sculpture contest. Now who would think that sharp knives and incisions on products of nature would be an apt celebration for celebrating Earth Day? No one could have come up with that but bored old biddies that had nothing to do.

All was well until the wife came home one day, bursting with excitement and announcing that she had a fantastic idea for the contest. I'm usually all up for supporting her initiatives, but when they are announced in the middle of a Darts game on television, it is hard to be very enthusiastic without letting annoyance get the better of me.

"I'm going to make a dog!" she announced, a wide grin on her face.

That was like a splash of cold water on my face, darts forgotten. "A

what

?!"

"Didn't that grab your attention!" She was delighted. "And that's why I'm bound to win. The judges won't be able to ignore it. You know, Councillor Hugh Barton is going to judge the contest. Such a good-looking fellow."

My mind was trying to catch up. "Wait. I don't understand. A dog? Isn't vegetable carving all about peacocks with parsley tails or parrots with carrot-carved beaks?"

"Yes, it is, usually," she answered. "But it could also be about a dog with an olive for a nose. Think different, George. Think like a winner!"

And once she had convinced herself about the brilliance of the idea, she wouldn't let go. The next few days were filled with a sentence or two spoken about it at absolutely random times.

Like when we were driving down to the Adams' and there was a comfortable silence in the car, which she burst with, "Do you think the body should be gourd or a really large cucumber? Somehow snake gourds are dachshunds. So cucumber?"

Or, "How do you think I can make floppy ears? Spinach?" in the middle of the BBC news.

Twenty-two years of marriage had made me wise; I knew my answers didn't really matter. She was just thinking out loud. I only needed to show some interest and maybe nod a bit and smile at her vaguely with an occasional mumble as my contribution to the 'conversation'. But if you asked me, the enthusiasm with which she was going about this task had me a bit worried. Not that I think she was going insane in her old age or anything, I was just concerned, especially as she was acting quite unlike herself since this thing had started.

But all this was tame, compared to what came next.

* * * * *

"I have a surprise," she disclosed one night, just before we got into bed. "I'm not going to tell you what it is, you'll know later..." she trailed off, looking all coy.

"What? You're not thinking of doing up the living room again, are you?"

She evaded my eyes. "No." A small smile played on her lips. "George, I have something to ask you."

I was instantly wary. "Yes?"

"It is a bit unusual, we haven't really been 'out there' with each other, if you know what I mean..."

"No, I don't know what you mean."

"Well, see, I just wanted to... don't get shocked, dear, it's just that, I needed to know, that's all, I just want to see... well, I don't really know how to say this..."

"Margaret, just say it!"

"Could we make love with the lights on?"

I'm sure I felt a sharp pain in my chest and evaded a massive heart attack only by breathing through my mouth in short gasps. Margaret looked on expectantly. How could she just blurt it out like that at me? We'd didn't exactly have a very exciting marriage until then, and all because I thought Margaret was with me in believing that 'all that' happened behind closed doors and in the dark.

"I'm sorry, did I shock you?" she asked, all concerned.

"Isn't it obvious?" I snapped, and was instantly sorry. She

looked

contrite. I sighed. "Margaret, I just wasn't expecting that."

"I know, but, well, could we?"

I looked at my wife of twenty-two years, who had suddenly turned into someone I didn't know. Someone who wanted to have sex with the lights on. As I was wondering about this, she spoke up again.

"George, I only want to see you."

I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets as I stared at her. "You want to see

what

?"

She blushed. Then smiled and swatted at my chest playfully. "You want me to say it? You naughty boy, you!"

"No!" I gasped out in horror. "I don't. I just don't understand. Why, after all these years?"

"Well. It's kind of... think of it as a lesson in anatomy?" she replied, evading my eyes.

Something was up. I could smell it. "But why do you need a lesson in anatomy? You should know what's where by now."

"Yes, of course I do know. I just wanted to see."

"See what?!"

She gave me that half-smile, coy look again.

"No! God, Margaret! I am not asking you to name things. I meant, what's there to see? You know everything that's there."

"George? Is it making you uncomfortable? Because if it is, I can do my research on the internet."

"What? You'll look at strange men's..." I couldn't get myself to say the word.

"What's strange about men, George? They'll just be naked and more willing to help research than you are."

"

What

research? What are you

researching

?" I was desperate by this point. My wife had suddenly turned into... someone else. Someone

sexual

.

"How it looks." She smiled blandly at me and turned away. "So? Are you going to let me see?"

I had a whole-body blush by the time I was lying naked on the bed and Margaret took me into her hands. She turned it this way and that, looking at it from different angles. She murmured something I couldn't hear, but I wasn't sure I even wanted to hear it, so I ignored it. My eyes were closed; I obviously could not look at this spectacle. But I could feel her hands all over the length - stroking, pushing the foreskin around, running her fingers on the underside, and when she put a finger to slit on the tip, I couldn't control it any longer and my whole body twitched so hard that she let it go.

I sat up and glared at her. "Margaret! What are you trying to do? Just

what

are you trying to do? Lights on is fine, but what is this?"

"I needed to look at it!"

I shook my head; trying to understand what this was all about. "What's come into you?"

"Oh nothing, George. Now don't be stuffy. We should start having some fun..."

I tuned out the rest of the inane conciliatory dialogue and thankfully, there were no more surprises in what happened next. We had sex with the lights on for the first time in our marriage. Actually, I had sex with the lights on for the first time ever in my life. At this point, I somehow wasn't a hundred percent sure about Margaret.

* * * * *

That was the first of Margaret's odd little incidents. When I say odd, I mean odd even for her, as she had always had her quirks and could never be called a typical woman, but at least her idiosyncrasies were pretty much set by the time she had reached her age - or so I thought. I simply couldn't understand the new behaviour.

I caught her smiling gleefully into a spiral bound notebook into which she was scribbling something furiously as I entered the living room one day. And when I asked her what she was doing, she jumped up to go ferret the book away, muttering something about how it was 'girl stuff'.

More than anything, what I found puzzling was that she became suspiciously quiet about the Earth Day contest. After all the previous hullabaloo, I didn't hear anything more about the bloody dog in the days leading up to the big day. Considering that she had always been flighty and excited about such things, it did cause me some consternation.

Once I tried to ask her casually over dinner about the progress she was making. She merely reassured me that it was all going fine, with a secret smile playing about her lips. Perhaps her changed behaviour was some sort of mid-life crisis that had struck a bit late; I could only hope it was temporary.

* * * * *

Finally, the date of the contest rolled around. The ladies prepared their entries in the morning, they were judged during the afternoon and exhibited in the evening. I wasn't needed until the evening, when I had to make my obligatory round of the entries, oohing and aahing at everything, and stopping for at least two minutes at my wife's exhibit, with my mouth open, saluting her genius and vegetable carving ability.

I was ready for that; of course I was. I could pretend that a vegetable dog is the pinnacle of vegetable carving ability. Sure I could. Any married man can. But what happened there that day was something I couldn't have prepared myself for.

My misery started as soon I reached the hall where the contest was being held. I still shudder to think of it; the absolute trauma I had to undergo. Some would say trauma is a big word, but it's

my

suffering and I say it was trauma. Of course it was. How could it not be when I got so red in the face that Mrs. Longbottom looked at me oddly and asked me (in third person) if I was going to burst a blood vessel.

"George? Is George okay? Is George going to burst a blood vessel?"

Third person?! Who did she think she was speaking to? A three-year-old retard? To add to the insult, she said this while peering at me like

I

was that blasted offending thing Margaret had put up in that old ladies' insane show. I have

never

been so embarrassed in my life!

Ok, deep breath. Let's start again.

When I reached the venue, I couldn't find Margaret right away. Someone whose name I didn't remember shook my hand before I even entered the hall and informed me that Margaret had won the first prize in the contest. Of course I was happy for her, but... well... I couldn't help being surprised. What were the judges thinking? What had the other ladies done? A

dog

was the best there was?

I went in and saw the dog immediately. It was among the first exhibits, nestled between an obscenely grinning carved pumpkin and a garden of cabbage with little tomato baskets placed around it. Margaret's dog wasn't that bad, really. It had shock value, sure, but I personally thought that the expertly carved watermelon in the shape of a rose that I saw as I entered was far better than a dog with heads of matchsticks stuck into it as eyes.

As I was attempting to admire the dog, Mrs. Whiting came over and started fussing with it. "Do you like it?" she asked me, rubbing one finger fondly against the large potato-looking thing that was the dog's body.

"Uh, yes. Of course. It's a fantastic piece of art," I replied politely. And then, because I thought I needed to show some interest, I added, "So, what's this brown thing?" pointing to what she was caressing so lovingly.

She tittered. "Oh you men! It's a yam."

"Of course. And this?" I asked, pointing to the snaky tail.

"A week-old French bean. See how it looks mottled and droopy? " She smiled proudly.

I felt obliged to praise it. "Yes, it looks, uh, very authentic. I knew Margaret was doing a dog but I didn't know it could be this good."

She looked discomfited, which quickly changed to defiant. "Margaret? Oh, well, it was her idea but I did everything. See this?" she said aggressively, moving the French bean out of the way with one slim finger. "I thought of this on my own."

I moved closer to peer at whatever she was trying to show me. It looked like a puckered up cross-section of a brown something-familiar, but which-I-couldn't-quite-place. So I looked up at her and had to ask her...

"What's that?"

"Arsehole! Haha," she blurted out.

Both of us froze in acute embarrassment, unable to believe that she had actually said that. She flushed and looked so profoundly ill at ease that I scrambled to cover the situation.

"Yes. No. I didn't mean... I meant, what is that thing? What vegetable?" I mumbled.

"Berry," she whispered back, not quite meeting my eyes.

"Very, uh, ingenious," I said as my mind asked me why I was still standing there and talking to her.

"So see? My exhibit might've been inspired by Margaret's idea but it's my own," she said proudly.

Something from that sentence penetrated. "You mean this isn't Margaret's exhibit?" I asked her, surprised.

"No! Of course not. Margaret's won the first prize, don't you know?"

I was confused now. "I know she did, but I thought she won it for this. I knew she was going to make a dog. She told me."

"Oh, she was. But then she changed her mind. Her exhibit is in that corner," she said dismissively, probably deducing quite rightly that I had paid her dog the attention and the compliments only because I thought it was my wife's.

I thanked her and moved across the room to where Mrs. Whiting had pointed. There was a small group of people in front of the display, and as I neared it, they moved away, giving me a full view of...

the offending object

.

I stopped a few metres away from it, and stared, dumbfounded. I couldn't believe what I was seeing - not that it wasn't good, because it was. It was just... so totally unexpected. And so very embarrassing! Out of all the things that she could have made, Margaret had made

this

. I couldn't believe it. So I stopped and stared.

Mrs. Longbottom scurried over as soon as she saw me frozen in what I later labelled as a 'deer in the headlights' pose. I wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment as she neared and shouted my name out loudly. I felt thousands of eyes turn upon me. Well, there probably weren't so many people there, but I swear it

felt

like there were.

As she closed the distance between us, I tried in vain to compose myself, but seeing the monstrosity in front me, I just couldn't. My eyes darted from the exhibit to meet Mrs. Longbottom's and then back again. Hers did the same.

"George! How nice to see you!" she thundered. She clasped my hand and dragged me the rest of the way to stand directly in front of the table, looking down at it. "Isn't it inspired?!" she gushed, and looked at me expectantly.

I tried to make my mouth move, to say something, make some noise, any noise, something, but I could only stare at the spectacle before me, as I slowly felt my face getting hot. I tried to control it. I concentrated on swallowing it down. I couldn't

blush

. I just couldn't!

That's when Mrs. Longbottom's grip on my arm tightened. "George?" she muttered, a wisp of concern lacing her voice.

I felt the blush explode into my face and the back of my eyes hurt from the pressure I felt building up inside my head. I felt the mother of all headaches coming on.

Mrs. Longbottom shook my arm, trying to get my attention. "George? Is George okay? Is George going to burst a blood vessel?" A shrill, nervous laugh escaped from her open mouth.

I turned my head towards her and focused on her face.

"Are you okay?" she asked, licking her lips and looking worried.

I managed to mumble something about a headache.

"Oh, that's all? I was a bit worried here. Well..." that nervous twitter again, "I need to see to the refreshments. I'll see you around, okay?" With that she escaped, leaving me alone with my wife's creation.

My head swivelled back to it.

It

. It was an

it

, because I obviously couldn't call it anything else. Except, maybe... phallus. That's what stood before me. About a foot high, as thick as my overweight wrist, it was carved out of... I looked closely... was it a gourd or a melon? My eyes roved over it, trying to get used to the fact that my normally staid wife had made a giant phallus in the vegetable sculpture contest. I took in the splendidly carved crown of foreskin, the little raised grooves running down the shaft that looked like... veins? I looked at them disbelievingly. My wife had even carved veins into her phallus? As my eyes travelled further down the shaft, I spied two over-sized potatoes lying in some dried grass-like things at the base and my eyes widened. My wife's phallus came complete with pubic hair.

Just as I spied the little card at the foot of the table declaring it '1st', I felt a hand on my shoulder.

It was Margaret.

She smiled as I turned to look at her. "First!" she cried, and leaned in closer. "Now, aren't you glad we had the lights on?" she whispered, her eyes twinkling at me.

I could only nod and look back at the product of our lovemaking.

* * * * *

Author's note: Hello readers, I hope you enjoyed this story. Votes, comments and feedback are always appreciated. I like hearing from you so please do write. Every email with a return address will receive a reply. :)