*Author's note: The basis for this story comes from something which happened to me last year when I was out on a long bike ride. A very attractive woman who was maybe 10-15 years older than me was in her car flying around a big curve in the road. She saw me and started frantically waving her arms and hollering at me for help so I stopped to see what was going on thinking the worst. As it turned out, her dog got off the leash and she was panicked about it getting run over or never coming back. I found her dog and waited for her to arrive and take him from me.
She was so grateful, she was almost beside herself. In fact, after checking me out (sorry for saying that as it sounds very pretentious—maybe her eyes needed to be checked) she was so grateful she made it clear just how she wanted to thank me. If you've read my own personal stories, Creative Writing and Bagging Lauren, you know I've had a thing for older women since high school. Were I not living with someone I dearly love, I'd have definitely taken her up on her very um...generous offer.
*****
"Oh, good girl! Okay, go play!" he said as he took the leash off his dog after their daily mile-long fast walk next to his bicycle. He loved running and bicycling but he hated walking so this was his favorite way of exercising his dog.
Shea was panting hard and happy as could be after another brisk morning walk. She sniffed around the yard until she found the perfect spot the squatted down and watered the lawn. She finished, jumped up, and ran straight to him. "All finished? Yeah? Okay. Good girl. Let's go inside. Heel!"
Shea took up her spot at his left side and followed him in, her tail held high. When the got inside he petted her for a good long time and praised her for doing such a good job. When he released her she headed straight for her water bowl and lapped up nearly half of it. He wiped up the drops she spilled all around it and refilled the bowl.
Curt Grimes loved Shea like he'd never loved anyone or anything in his 26 years. Sure, he loved his family but who didn't, right? And when it came to women, Curt had never had any intention of having anything close to a relationship since girls started flocking to him his senior year of high school.
He'd been very overweight and desperately in need of braces to the point where not a single girl had ever paid him the slightest bit of attention. After years of begging, he finally got braces during his sophomore year and the summer before his senior year they came off. Curt had just one friend who, on a whim, talked him into starting a workout program at his house after school at the start of his junior year. His friend's dad had bought his son a weight bench, a bar, and enough weights to work out with. He'd also scrounged together a few dumbbells and the two of them begin playing around with them and after reading some articles online about what exercises to do for what body part, they got very serious about it. Curt also stopped eating junk food and started walking and then gradually jogging.
By the time his senior year rolled around, the metamorphosis was incredible and Curt found himself in a completely new and unfamiliar world. A world in which attractive girls now came to him rather than taunting him or avoiding him at all costs.
By the time he started college, his confidence had grown from less than nothing to a point where he felt he could sleep with pretty much any girl he wanted. And he'd wanted a lot of them—one night at a time. He'd lost track of how many women he'd bedded, but he could count on one hand the number he'd asked back for an encore event. Until Mindy Franklin.
Mindy was a research scientist at a cancer clinic in Seattle and she was as beautiful as she was smart. Curt met her when the company he worked for as a software engineer won the contract for upgrading Mindy's entire building. He was there doing a site survey to determine how many terminals were needed, what kind of server upgrades would be required, wiring/connectivity/WiFi issues, and any other problems that might impact the job.
Mindy had been assigned to provide him any support he needed and the two of them began flirting almost immediately. What Grimes didn't know was that Mindy was also a professional at the love-'em-and-leave-'em game nor that she too, had no intention of settling down anytime soon. She also happened to be nine years older than him and although he'd 'dated' older women before, this was the first time he found himself really, deeply attracted to someone, let alone someone that much older than himself.
She'd accepted his offer of dinner and they found themselves in bed together that first evening and for the first time ever, he didn't offer to get her a cab when they were done. Contary to her own one-time-only policy, Mindy stayed that night and stayed many other nights for the next three months, and Grimes soon found himself in another completely unfamiliar situation. "Shit!" he said to himself one morning when he woke up before her and saw her laying next to him. "Could I possibly be in love with her?"
He shook off the feeling during a very long, very hard bicycle ride that morning but the feeling came back again that evening and it wouldn't leave him alone. He was having trouble concentrating at work. He was making simple mistakes. He was having difficulties sleeping and those nights when she stayed at her apartment, he barely slept at all.
He and his buddy from high school still stayed in touch and Curt asked him for his advice. "Sounds like you've got it bad for her, Curt. Have you given any thought to asking her to marry you?"
"I have, actually," he told him honestly. "And that scares the hell out of me."
His friend laughed and said, "I felt the same way until I met Jamie, but when I did, I just knew. We've been married almost two years now and I still love her. Maybe even more than when I first met her."
Curt thought Mindy felt the same way. She'd been the first to say 'I love you' and she always said it back when he said it to her. After talking to his only other real male friend, his very own father, he decided it might just be time to settle down. He made reservations at a very nice restaurant and after dinner he told her again he loved her. "I love you too, Curt," she said with a bright smile. "And dinner was lovely, as usual."
That's when he reached for the brass ring and fell flat on his face. He was on one knee proposing to her in front of a restaurant full of people and he wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly when she'd told him, "I love you, Curt, but not like that." She went on to explain that by 'love' she meant fond feelings, not some deep desire to spend the rest of her life with him. The hurt was so deep he was completely unaware of the reaction from most of the woman who felt awful for him. To add insult to injury, it was Mindy who said, "Don't worry about me. I'll just take a cab, okay?" He put the ring back in his pocket, paid the bill, then walked out in a kind of stunned haze. He made his way home on autopilot and spent the next week with that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. She came by for the few things she'd left at his place the next day and he never saw her again.
He got up one morning a few days later to go for another long run and that's when he found Shea, a skinny, nearly emaciated yellow Labrador Retriever, wandering around lost in the cul de sac where he lived. She was all too happy to come when he called her and after giving her some leftover chicken, he decided to keep her inside. He took her picture then put up signs all around his development, but he didn't receive a single call and by the third day, he was almost praying he never would.
Curt had never had a dog growing up and he'd never really given any thought to owning one, but Shea had grown on him so fast and so hard it shocked him. Once he was sure no one would claim her, he took her to a vet and got her checked out, bathed, flea dipped, and given her necessary shots. The vet said he'd never heard of anyone abandoning a yellow Lab before as they were one of the most sought-after, family-friendly dog breeds. He told Curt it happened all the time, but almost never with Labs.
Curt wasn't about to look a gift...dog in the mouth and took her home with him to stay. The following week he enrolled her in an obedience class and Shea absolutely loved the new bond the owner-pet discipline created.
He hated leaving her home alone each day when he left for work and couldn't wait to get back to see her. He put a doggy door in the back of the house which led out to a fenced-in backyard so she could take care of business while he was gone. Beyond that, everywhere Curt went that he could take his dog, Shea went with him.
It was over two months since Mindy's very public rejection before he dated anyone again and when he did, it just wasn't the same. That fire he always felt when he was 'on the hunt' wasn't there. He'd even turned down an offer to go home with a girl for the first time. In fact, he found himself preferring to hang out with Shea in the evening and just listen to music or watch some sappy romantic comedy on TV.
He sat there one evening watching Must Love Dogs and found himself tearing up at one point before he sat up straight and said out loud, "What the hell is wrong with you, Grimes?" Shea sat up and barked and he called her over and petted her head and ears the way she loved. "Why can't human girls be like you? Huh? Why is that, Shea?" Shea just panted and 'smiled.' Curt knew better than to attribute human emotions to animals, but with Shea he just couldn't help himself. And who knows? Maybe she really was smiling. After all, she made him happy enough to smile all the time so why couldn't whatever she was doing be considered smiling and the result of being happy?
He knew it was probably a bad idea, but he'd let Shea start sleeping in his bed the first night after he took her to the vet and considered her his dog. It was weird, but Curt found himself preferring the company of his dog to that of the endless one-night-stand chicks who'd graced his bed over the years. For that matter, he felt comfortable not 'dating' anyone and just quit looking. As crazy as it sounded, he'd never been happier. Except maybe for that brief period of time when he'd convinced himself Mindy loved him the way he'd loved her.
"You ready for our walk?" he said one morning.
There were certain words Shea just knew: Eat, water, food, potty, bed, play, fetch, ball, and walk. Sure, she understood, 'sit, stay, stand, heel, shake,' and other commands, but just the mention of the word 'walk' and her ears went back as she'd tilt her head to make sure she heard correctly. Then the tail wagging started along with her 'happy' face.
