Little Brother 5

This is more of a romance with some pretty explicit sex than an actual sex story. If you're looking for heavy erotica, this isn't going to please you. But maybe you'll care about my characters, human and otherwise. Everybody who has sex in this story is well over eighteen, except the dog, and the dog limits his romantic attentions to a female dog of an appropriate age. No animals were harmed in the making of this story.

Little Brother

It took about three weeks after my girlfriend left me before I began to function again. I had thought she was the one for me. I was looking at diamonds and trying to decide if I should go for beautiful, impressive, or pricey. My plan was to buy the rock, then take her with me to choose the ring. But I never bought the rock, because she told me she was pregnant, it wasn't mine, and she wanted to marry

him.

I said, "Has he asked you yet?"

She glared at me and walked away without answering.

It takes some effort to move out — especially because I had lived in that rented town house for two years before she moved in. I had a

lot

of stuff, including boxes of photos and letters that I inherited when my mom died. Yeah, looking at all

that

sure cheered me up.

My ex let me go through the whole moving-out project before she told me

she

was leaving the apartment, and since the lease was in my name, it would be my privilege to pay for it. It was easy for

her

to pack out, since all she had to take was everything that was left.

Then I had to clean up. I brought in a maid service because she hadn't been much of a cleaner, and even though I did all the cooking and kept that kitchen clean,

her

bathroom was a pigsty. Did this woman wash

nothing?

What's hilarious is that the reason she absolutely forbade me to get a dog or a cat was that she knew she'd end up having to clean up all the hair and poo. I didn't realize that she didn't clean up diddly-squat, never had, never would.

So three weeks later, after moving out, a deep cleaning, and moving back in, I noticed that along with being deeply disappointed, broken-hearted, annoyed as hell, and sick of the world, I was also very, very lonely.

If I were one of those guys who had a bunch of bro-type friends, they might have helped me moving in or out, and maybe we would have gotten a bunch of drinks together and cemented our friendship.

But I don't drink — I just don't, tried a couple of drinks in my teens, hated the taste, saw plenty of drunks, and didn't want to have their kind of fun. So I didn't join a frat in college, since drinking seemed to be a minimum requirement for membership, and I didn't want to spend four years of college being a designated driver getting my car thrown up in.

Mostly, though, I'm pretty much an introvert. I'm good company — people invite me to stuff, and they invite me back again. And I accept those invitations because I like company. I'm funny, and I really enjoy funny friends. I'm good at board games and trivia games and I do totally ridiculous drawings in Pictionary. I don't care about winning.

I don't play sports, but I'm happy

not

to be invited to play soccer, flag football, or croquet. I don't enjoy falling down or getting hit with stuff — like balls. Especially wooden balls. But if I played sports, maybe I would have bonded with a team or at least a bunch of athletes.

And it's not that I'm not athletic. I run. I take long walks. I cycle. I climb on rocks — at least when I'm attached to a rope firmly secured at the top of the rocks. I mean, I'm not immune to gravity so I don't pretend like I think I am.

So yeah, I'm an unshy introvert, I like good company, I

am

good company. I also don't mind a bit staying home alone and reading books or watching

Ridiculousness

reruns or nature shows on BBC America. Or Game Show Network, though sometimes I have to scream at people who give stupid stupid stupid answers on quiz shows.

It takes three

stupid

s to express my horror at their stupidity. Cuba is not in the Caspian Sea. It just isn't. How can somebody even think that it might be? Okay, they probably don't know the name of

any

sea or that Cuba is even an island. They just picked a multiple choice answer randomly. I get that. But yelling at the screen — that's some of my strongest human reactions. Maybe if I had gotten that mad at ol' Whoozit she would have stayed. Or left me sooner. Either one would have been better.

I remember her name. I just don't like to say it. Or write it down. Thank God I never got it tattooed anywhere on my body. I got nothing tattooed on my body because I hear that it hurts, and I see how dumb most people with tattoos look, no offense if you got a lot of ink, but I've seen like five pictures of tattoos that I thought were attractive. Even beautiful. I'm betting that getting ink that good costs a lot. And the pain is no easier just because the outcome is going to be fine.

I've got a lot of negative attitudes about a lot of things. More of them after Whoozit left. Lonely, bitter, angry, and too sad to even

want

to watch porn or jerk off. That's pretty damn sad.

So three weeks after she turned my life upside down, inside out, and threw it down the garbage grinder in the sink, I was sitting on my too-wide sofa looking at a National Geographic program that I've seen before, watching animals do what they do, which includes a lot of chasing and watching their prey get away, and then they show a sequence of two turtles fucking and making little squealing noises and showing what looks like screaming faces, and

that

reminds me of how brutally lonely I am.

And I remember. The only reason I don't have a cat curled up on my lap or a dog sitting beside me so I can scratch his head or whatever he likes me to scratch is that Whoozit didn't want to have to clean up after any animals.

Well shit, I said to this absent bitch who I used to love and probably still did, I'd rather clean up after a dog or a cat, or a dog

and

a cat, or a possum and a raccoon, than clean up after

you

again, you filthy overly made-up sow.

Since none of my friends were actual

friends,

so none of them even knew that Whoozit had left me — because what am I gonna do, call them up and spread the joyous news? — it's not like anybody was eager to comfort me. It's not like when a well-off man's wife dies, all the single women in their church start bringing him home-cooked meals. It's not like my richest friend was inviting me to go sailing on his yacht to console me. Mostly because, right now, without a woman in my life, I

was

my richest friend. Money to spare. Useless money.

No restaurant meals because nothing sounded any better than a bowl of Crispix in ice-cold milk, or a meal from Chicken Salad Chick, or a Big Mac with Hot Mustard Sauce right on the burger. And I get it, the Big Mac

is

a restaurant meal, but I can get it from the drive-thru and smear the Hot Mustard on the bun in the car, so it's

not

like eating out where I have to chat with a waiter and look at couples happily eating together while I sit there wishing the guy's dick would explode like mine, in effect, did.

With her gone, I could get a dog. I could get a cat.

So I started researching breeds. Dogs that don't shed much. Hypoallergenic dogs. Danderless cats. Cats that don't carry toxoplasmosis, though if I

did

catch that disease from a cat, it would make me more likely to start my own business or go rock-climbing without a safety rope. So ... go broke or die.

If I started my own business, what product or service would I —

I got back to thinking about pets. What I wanted was company, not a personality-changing feline disease that would erase my fears and dreads. My biggest fear would be falling in love with another two-timing bitch who would make me wear a condom while getting knocked up with another guy's baby. The last thing I wanted was for

that

fear to get weakened.

So ... no cat, not yet, not ready for the risk. And a dog? Purebred would be expensive and a lot of purebreds were so

in

bred that they were hard to live with. A rescue dog — a rescue

mutt

— was probably my safest choice.

There were cute dogs that would make women walk up and talk to me in the park. They might flirt. They might hint. But I figured they probably already had another guy's semen in their cunt, even as they made me use a condom. So I didn't want a dog that invited women to flirt. I wanted a dog for the

dog's

sake, not so it could help me get laid.

But I didn't want a dog so big it would drag me around the neighborhood, or try to hump me any time it caught me on all fours. I watched a lot of

Ridiculousness

and I've seen dogs trying to hump anybody whose butt is below the level of their dick. I think there must be a secret cult among dogs that the epitome of joy would be fucking some human up their butt. I don't want one of those dogs, or at least not a humper that's bigger than me.

So a medium dog. Border collie, Australian shepherd, like that. Maybe even a terrier, since they're much better ratters than any cat. Not that there are any rats in my superclean kitchen. Or maybe I get a poodle that I have

all

the hair trimmed off of, instead of leaving those stupid poufs of hair that humiliate every poodle who has to go through the world like that.

I get my ass off the couch and I drive to a kill shelter — I mean, who needs rescuing more than a dog with its life on the line? And because I haven't made up my mind about anything, I go in like a hero and say, "Show me the dog that's next in line to be murdered."

"You do understand," said the young woman at the counter, "that you just revealed yourself to be a flaming asshole."

"The dog you can't get anyone to take," I said. "At least let me see what dog has garnered maximum hate from your clientele so they

want

him dead and leave him behind?"

"All right, Flaming Asshole, I'll show you our least-wanted dog."

"Not Flaming. Just Asshole," I corrected her.

"Suit your self, Fucking Asshole," she said, and I decided I kind of liked her.

The facility wasn't exactly overfitted with dog-friendly accoutrements. Not a bunch of individual dog-carrier kennel units, just open cages with dogs bounding forward to whimper I'm cute, take me, I won't rip your baby's face off, I won't shit on your car seat, I won't pull down your bookshelves, I would never pee in your shoe. Liars, every one of them, like a fake-friendly third-grade class greeting a gullible substitute teacher.

Third big cage, there was one dog that stayed way in the back. Very short hair, brown, fierce-looking face. Maybe fifty pounds, not a monster, not a mastiff or a Dane.

I pointed. "Mr. Lonely back there, he

wants

to die? He's not even trying to make friends?"

"You want to meet him?" she asked.

"Is that a trick question?" I asked. "Since you already hate me, are you setting me up to have my balls bitten off?"

"I don't want to cause myself more paperwork," she said, "so I'm not putting you in any danger."

But I thought it was significant that she looped his neck with a noose on the end of a pole and never got closer to him than five feet. She dragged him out of the cage through a back door, kicking other dogs back till she could close the door behind the dog.

"Looks like a pit bull," I said.

"Most people are ignorant enough to think so," she said, "but he's a Staffie. An American Staffordshire terrier."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but ... a pit bull."

"Yes," she said, sighing. "As soon as I call him that, there's zero chance of anybody taking him. But pit bulls get a bad rap."

"Because babies like having their faces torn off by the family pet?"

"Never happens," she said. "A well-socialized Staffie is going to die

protecting

your child from

anything.

He'll go after a charging rhino to protect you or your child."

"I've got no child."

"Or your wife, or your girlfriend."

"Got neither of those. What I have is me. I need a friend. I can't believe I said that out loud to somebody who despises me, but yes, I'm not just a Fucking Asshole, I'm a pathetic Fucking Asshole."

"Makes me hate you a little less, actually," she said.

"Can you take that thing off him to let us get acquainted?"

"Safer to leave it on."

"Would

you

warm up to somebody who left a noose around your neck when he met you?"

She shrugged, loosened the noose, pulled it away.

The dog just sat down and waited. No hostility. No particular interest.

I patted the side of my leg. "You want to come meet me, son?" I asked him.

He cocked his head and looked at me.

"Not your enemy, just a guy who wants somebody to sit on the couch beside him to watch TV."

"Hey," she said, "are you one of those perverts who watches porn with his dog and paints his cock with peanut butter and expects the dog to lick it off?"

"Only if it's

his

idea," I said. And when she glared at me I added, "I never heard of anybody doing shit like that. They let the dog get hold of their most personal treasure that he might bite off? Stupid."

"So you don't want your dog to give head."

"I don't watch porn," I said. "I'm not going to train my dog to watch porn. Will he get bad ideas if I let him watch animal documentaries where pumas take down alpacas?"

"It was a puma and a guanaco," she said. "I watched that one last night, too. The Patagonia one."

"Careful that you don't discover compatibilities with a Fucking Asshole."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't be. The last woman I loved called me worse. Which is why she is the

last

woman I'll love."

She cocked her head at me. So did the dog.

"You're still in love with her, right?" she asked.

"God, I hope not," I said. Instead of the honest answer, which would have been "yes."

The dog got up and padded over to me and put his chin on my lap.

"Is this love?" I asked. "Is this a match made in heaven?"

"That's more interest than he's ever shown in anyone else."

"How many days has he got left to live?"

"Already one day past his term here," she said.

"So ... living on borrowed time."

"Why does it matter?" she asked.

"I just wondered how much time I had to think about the decision."

"We close at five," she said.

That was seven hours away.

"What else do I need to buy, to get him to feel at home?" I asked.

"A place to sleep — cut-down cardboard box with an old blanket is good enough, it's more than he's got here. Dogfood, dry or wet, you'll find out what he likes by feeding him different products, just don't start him on raw meat."

"So he won't start thinking I look delicious?" I said.

"Because it makes their shit smell astonishingly vomitworthy."

"So that would make him proud of his shit, right?"

"Will it make

you

glad when he shits on your bed?"

"Is he known to do that?" I asked.

"All dogs do that when they're lonely or pissed off," she said.

"Not housebroken, I take it."

"He doesn't shit in the cage, he waits till he gets yard time."

"So that's promising, right?"

"He might have been housebroken at some time. Might even have been trained. We have no time to test for that. He pees in the yard, too, instead of spraying around in the cage."

"I'll take him," I said.

"The hell you will," she said. "We don't give these dogs to just anybody. For all I know, you want him to get killed in a dogfighting ring."

"Can I possibly fill out your paperwork and pass your investigation while there's still time for me to buy some dog food before the stores close?"

"The Farmer's Dog," she said. "There are other fresh-food vendors, too, but Farmer's Dog is what I feed my two corgis."

"Like the queen," I said.

"Like the late queen," she said. "The woman who

should

be queen is also dead, so we've got Charles and his mistress, and if they own dogs I don't care."

"Got opinions about the royal family."

"Di had class. So does Kate. So of course she has cancer."

I didn't venture any opinion. If I said something wrong and made her mad, she might not let me have the dog.

"Just because we euthanize unwanted dogs here doesn't mean we'll give them to someone who will make their lives hellish."

"I tried really hard to make my ex happy," I said. "I couldn't help it she got pregnant with some other guy's litter."

"So you're saying you'll try really hard to make this fella happy?" she asked.

"Unless he expects me to lick peanut butter off his dick."

"He can lick his own," she said. "So keep the jar closed."

"Let's do some paperwork," I suggested.

We did. Took about an hour, including her websearches to see if I had some kind of criminal record.

"What do you do for a living?" she asked.

"Breathe a lot. Eat sometimes."

She looked at me blandly.

"Family money," I said. "I do nothing for a living unless I feel like it."

"You have family money and your girl left you?" she asked, incredulous.

"When you're a fucking asshole, women won't stay with you even for your money."

"They sure as hell don't

leave

you. They

poison

you."

"Well, I'll be damned. You just made me feel lucky."

"You

are

lucky. Because this is a beautiful animal. That's why I gave him an extra day. That's why I really care what happens to him."

On impulse I said, "Come by and check on him whenever you want. You've got my address."

"If you think I'm going to come by, pet the dog, and fuck the owner, think again."

"Didn't cross my mind," I said, "until you said that."

"Never happen," she said. "But yes, I would like to check on the dog."

"You give him a name?" I asked.

She blushed. "We're not supposed to do that," she said. "Makes it harder to euthanize them."

"As you have demonstrated." I smiled. "What did you call him?"

She blushed even more. "Does it matter?"

"Why shouldn't I use a name he already knows?"

"I call him Motherfucker," she said.

The dog perked up, looked at her.

"Well, maybe I'll have to change that," I said, "in case I have to call for him in the neighborhood."

"I said it very gently and kindly to him. Whatever you call him, say it gentle and kind, and he'll probably know you're talking to him." To demonstrate, she said, "C'mere, Motherfucker," and the dog padded over to her and nuzzled her crotch.

She didn't seem even slightly embarrassed. Maybe they just had that kind of relationship. Or maybe he liked the smell of pussy. That was a smell he wasn't going to get much of in my place.

I decided to name him Little Brother. That's what my older brother always called

me,

whenever he was about to treat me with special brutality. I wanted to turn it into a loving name. And calling out for "Little Brother" in the neighborhood wouldn't raise any eyebrows.

If he ever shat on my bed or peed in my shoe, calling him Motherfucker wouldn't hurt his feelings. I'd have to step up my cursing, or hope that he didn't get mad at me and do that stuff.

At least I wouldn't leave him alone all day. Maybe that's why Whoozit left me, because I was home all day. I worked at being a writer — I had a huge fantasy epic that kept turning out to be nothing at all like

Game of Thrones

or

Way of Kings

. But since he wasn't a cat, he wasn't likely to curl up on my keyboard when I wanted to write.

She must have fucked around with her baby-daddy while she was supposedly at work. Or out spending my money with one of her girlfriends.

Not thinking about her. Thinking about Little Brother. Thinking about Jane Crooner, the dog woman who hated me but brought up the topic of fucking me before I did. Not thinking of my older brother, either, even though he still hadn't done me the favor of dying under torture the way I figured he deserved. I was definitely

not

going to tell him that I had a shitload of baby pictures of

him,

the son my parents loved. Still, I didn't throw them away. Because if I ever got a hint that he wanted them,

then

I could burn them individually in front of him, or spill blotches of India ink on them and mail them to him.