From: Uther Pendragon <anon584c@nyx.net>

"HE_DOESN'T" ( mf f-solo zoo cons ) [1/1]

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                       HE DOESN'T LOVE HER LIKE I DO
                            By Uther Pendragon


    He doesn't love her like I do.

    I can still remember when we met.  I was locked up in a space much too
small.  The air from outside brought the smells of urine and fear and
death.  Then someone brought me to her.  I smelled her for the first time.
She was youth and freshness and clean air and love.  Even then it was love.
She hugged me to her bony chest.  I licked her face and she laughed and
hugged me tighter.  I was so happy that it wasn't enough just wag my tail.
I wagged all of me.

    "He wiggles.  Oh mother, can I?"

    "Well Theresa, do you promise to take care of him?  Feed him and clean
up his messes?"

    "Oh yes!"

    "I'll take care of the paper work."

    "Oh Wiggles!  You're mine."

    And I was.  And I am.  And she was mine.

    We were both young.  We both made mistakes.  Sometimes she forgot to
feed me.  I was not much help there.  My stomach said that it was dinner
time all the time.  Sometimes we both broke the rules and she slipped me
something from the table.  Sometimes she gave me a meat treat.  Once or
twice she slipped me something she didn't want.  Then her parents changed
the rules so that I couldn't be near when they were eating.

    I never said anything about her mistakes.  She was always saying things
about mine.

    "Bad dog!" she would say.  Sometimes it seemed that she would say it
all day.  But I learned.  It really wasn't the only thing that she said.
It wasn't even the commonest.

    "Come on boy!" she would say.  That meant a romp in the yard or a walk
outside.  In the yard it meant a game of fetch, usually.  Every once in a
while it meant a game of tag in the yard.  Those were the times when she
filled a tub with the hose and got out the soap first.

    "Oh Wiggles!" she would say time after time.  And it meant everything.
It meant that I shouldn't have done it but it was cute.  It meant that I
was learning and that she was proud of me.  It meant that she never could
understand the necessity of marking your territory on every walk.  It meant
that I *really* shouldn't lick her face just then, but she would forgive me
since it was a sign of love.  It meant that she was nearly as happy to see
me as I was to see her.  It meant that nobody else understood her like I
did.  It meant that nobody understood her at all.  Every time, it meant
that we were two together.

    I was growing up through this time.  I learned that the chew toys that
smelled of feet were forbidden.  I learned to predict my own needs far
enough ahead to get a human to open the door.  I learned which people liked
to be greeted and which didn't.  It seemed unfair that they moved me to a
dog house at the time I was becoming less of a bother.  The house was fine,
though.  It got better as I grew into it and it got snugger.  The problem
was that we were separated all night.  Then she went to school and we were
separated most of the day, too.  But she would come home and I would be at
the fence.  She would say "Hi, Wiggles."  Then she would come in the gate
and we would greet each other properly.

    One day, her parents got into the car together.  As always, I went over
to see if I could ride too.  They put the leash on me and let me in the
car.  Then we got out at the vet's.  I smelled something awful and when I
woke up, I hurt beneath my tail.  They had put an odd shield on my middle
so I couldn't reach back and sniff.  When I got home, she hugged me in
front, but she laughed at the shield too.

    She was growing, too.  It took me a bit of time to notice it.  When I
used to bump her ankle, I bumped her knee.  It was hard to figure that she
was really a little bigger.

    Then she changed in ways that were too obvious to ignore.  She started
to smell a little different.  At first I thought that she had changed her
food.  She sometimes ate spices which would change her smell for a week.
Then the changes concentrated between her legs.  The odor there was much
more changed than her sweat.  She seemed healthy enough, so I was more
curious than worried.  What did worry me was her moods.  It is nice to be
hugged.  It isn't nice to have the one you love most crying and hugging you
and smelling sad.

    One day, there was a new smell and the now-familiar hugs and tears
before I was sent out for the night.  The next morning, she smelled
different again.  She smelled of five new things and of old blood.  That
scared me.  It was *her* blood, I can tell.  She patted me absently and
then hurried off to school.  I was frantic by the time she got home.  I
raced to the fence.

    "Oh Wiggles," she said, "are you glad to see me?"

    And then she burst into tears.  After a little fumbling with the gate
while I ran around in circles, she came into the yard.  She dropped her
books and hugged me as tight as she ever had in her life.  I licked at the
tears before they even stopped.  They finally stopped, though.  She
laughed, without meaning it.  She often did when she didn't think that she
should have been crying.  She picked up her books.  I took a quick sniff at
her crotch.  The odd smells were still there.  She exploded.

    "Bad dog!" she barked.  "What a bad, bad, dog!"

    She was really angry.  I couldn't remember when she had used such an
angry tone with me.  She closed the gate.  She started around to the back
of the house and I slunk after her.  After she went in the back door she
said, "Well, are you coming?"

    I came in.  It wasn't real forgiveness, but it seemed to be permission
to stay.  She hung up her coat and set down her books.  Then she got down
on the floor and hugged me again.  "Oh, Wiggles."  And it felt like she was
crying but no tears came out.  Finally, I licked her face anyway.

    "Oh Wiggles, you're silly!" It was the first real laugh I had heard
that day.

    We sat there for some time.  She had her hand on me but wasn't really
hugging.  Usually when she is like that I wonder, "What's next?"  That day
it seemed this was the best we were going to get.  After a bit, her mother
came home.  That reminded me.  I gave her crotch a fast sniff.

    "Bad dog," they both said, but not very hard.

    Her mother ordered me out but I had remembered something.  Her mother
smelled a little the way that she did, old blood and all.  And I remembered
that the mother often had smelled that way.  That wasn't too bad, then.

    That evening, they went out for dinner.  She brought me back two bones.
The next days went a little better.

    I learned the pattern and it happened again and again.  She didn't have
much time for play with me when she was in school, but she seemed to have
more time for hugs and sitting beside me holding me.

    Summer came and there was more time for everything.  We went to some
classes where there were other dogs.  The idea seemed to *not* talk to
them, which is silly.  She actually taught me two things:  to stop sniffing
crotches, and to lie at her bedroom door.  It isn't really necessary to
sniff at anything, the odor comes to you.  It doesn't seem polite or
honest, however, to pretend to take no interest in others.  You can bet
that a dog that I walked by without sniffing his or her backside would feel
snubbed.  If humans want to be snubbed, I can learn to do that.

    As for the door, I never saw the use.  But she gave me a treat for each
time I lay down there.  Then it became a whispered "What a good dog!"  It
was always whispered, but it was always meant.  I can tell.  These were odd
times.  I was allowed in her bedroom when she was there and awake.  It
wasn't a place where we had spent much time, though.  She had held me and
cried, then we had gone somewhere else to play.  She held me and cried
still.  She did it more than before.  But she also wrote and dreamed and
changed her clothes five times in a row.  All this time, she had me lying
in front of the door.

    Sometimes her parents would come in.  This meant a bump for me.  There
were better places to lie.  But she wanted me there.  Finally, her father
put a sort of latch on the door to stop them from coming in while I lay
there.  After her father put it on she thanked him.  And she said that I
thanked him.  That got a laugh for her and a pat on the head for me.

    "And thank you very much, Wiggles," she said.  That came with a BIG
hug.

    School started again.  When her friends came over now, they seldom did
any more with me than greet me.  She would sometimes play with me as much
as before.  She would sometimes bring me into her room and ignore me to
read a book or scribble in another.  She would sometimes bring me into her
room to cry into my fur.

    She started to go off in the evening really stinking.  If I were
downwind, I would have to sneeze.  After a few such times, her mother
complained.  She stormed back at her mother, but she only stank half as bad
on later evenings.

    She came back from some of these sad.  She came back from some of these
laughing.  She didn't want me too close to the fancy clothes that she wore
at these times, but we would meet at a wooden chair that sat on the back
porch summer and winter.  I would put my feet up on the chair and she would
bend over and kiss the top of my head.  Sometimes, she would forget the
clothes and hug my head then.

    Summer came again.  I noticed that she never hugged me as hard as
before, even when she was laughing hard.  And when she did hug me, her
chest was softer than before.  I didn't mind.  Hugs were love.  I could
tell the love without a tight hug.  She had more friends over that summer.
Sometimes there was one girl, sometimes several.  Sometimes there were both
girls and boys.  On those days, she smelled different, and it wasn't only
the little bit of the stink that she put on.

    Several times, she had girls over and they took me into her room.  She
would latch the door and have me lie in front of it.  The girls would look
at me and laugh.  Then they would trade books, or they would take off their
tops all at the same time and look at each other.  Then they would stop and
go back to the same giggling and talking that they had done outside.

    Sometimes, when we were alone, she would go in the house without me.
She came out smelling a little different.  If I sniffed at her crotch when
that happened she got really angry.  I sniffed at her fingers, which
smelled the same way.  She laughed.

    "Don't tell, Wiggles."  I never did.

    School started again.  One weekend, she was playing with me but acting
like she wanted something else.  Her parents were in and out of the house.
She took me into her room and latched the door.  I lay in front of it and
she changed into a skirt and got out a book from a drawer.  She was
ignoring me, like she sometimes did in her room.  Then I smelled that
different smell.  Her hand was under her skirt and her other hand held the
book.  This was too much to ignore.  I followed my nose.

    "Wiggles, no!" she whispered.

    I sniffed once.  She used her hand to push away my nose and I licked
it.  It tasted interesting.  I licked where her hand had been.  That tasted
even more interesting than it had smelled.  After a few licks, she fell
back on the bed and stopped pushing me away.  I licked her crotch as
thoroughly as I had ever licked her face.  The taste changed suddenly.

    "Oh Wiggles!"  she said.

    She pushed me away.  But a minute later, she gave me a big hug.

    "Oh Wiggles, you are a nice dog."

    After that, she sometimes took me into her room when her parents
weren't home and put a little bouillon powder on herself.  She didn't need
to.  I had learned how happy being licked there made her.  Her happiness
was enough.  Of course, I never stopped her from getting the meat powder.

    She kept going out in the evening with the bad smell.  Sometimes she
wore special clothes and sometimes she didn't.  Sometimes she came home
happy.  Sometimes she came home tired.  Sometimes she came home sad.  One
of those times she didn't even speak to me until she was in bedclothes.
Then she went to the door and called me in.  We went in to her room and she
cried and hugged me.  I am NOT allowed on her bed.  That night, however,
she pulled down the blankets and slept on the floor.  She held me all
night.  When her father got up that morning, I whined to him.  I needed to
go out *bad*.  He opened the door to her room and let me out.  He looked at
her on the floor and said, "That bad, eh?"

    After he let me out, he wouldn't let me back in, but he got me a
treat.

    "Gooood dog," he said.

    Summer came again.  She didn't want much running play, but I didn't
miss it.

    We spent a lot of time in her room with the meat powder.  With her
parents gone all day, we weren't so rushed.  I learned to lick slowly and
then fast.  I learned what she liked most.

    One good time, she took me in the room but left the door open.  She was
reading a book.  I was lying in the doorway enjoying the coolness.  After a
while, she smelled as if we might start the special way.  She went and got
a beef cube.  When we came back, she latched the door and took off her
jeans and panties.  I watched, but I knew that she didn't want me until she
was ready.  She lay on the bed with her legs on the floor and her crotch
just on the edge.  She crushed the cube and spread some where she wanted me
to lick.  I licked up all the flavor from the outside first.  Then I got
between the layers and licked one side until she was supplying much more
flavor than the beef was.  Then I switched sides and licked the other side.

    "Oh Wiggles," she said.

    On that side I tried to go deeper into the crannies, but my tongue
didn't really fit.  I would lick the side a few times and wait for the last
specks of meat powder to flow out of her.  I also went closer to the top.
She spread her legs more and I started licking the center between the
layers.  I took the whole way from the bottom to the top.  At the top,
there were some interesting folds and crannies.  I licked all over them.
She stiffened and her smell changed in the special way.

    "Oh Lord Roland,"  she sighed.

    She moaned a few times and then she pushed me away.  I went and lay
down and watched her.  I learned more from my nose, though.  She lay there
a long time and then she squeezed the cube again.  She took longer
spreading the material this time, and spread it more widely.

    I started by licking everything off the sides of her legs.  As I went
higher, she spread her legs wider.  When I finally licked within the folds,
she moaned.  The special smell came much sooner and she spread her legs
wider.  I kept licking.

    "Oh Billy!" she cried out.  She said it several times, each time
louder.

    I licked and she moaned.  She'd managed to place one crumb in a tight
cranny just at the top of those folds.  It took me a while but I got it
all.  I sat up and looked at her face.  I wondered if she wanted me to go
on.  She didn't look at me at all.  So I went and lay down.

    Later, she tossed me the rest of the cube.  I caught it in midair.  I
could have got it from where she had placed it while she was lying there,
but I'm a good dog.

    Much later, I heard her father come in the house.  I went and lay in
the doorway.  She looked at me, but didn't do anything.  When she heard his
voice, she suddenly got up and pulled her panties and jeans on.  He rattled
the door.  I wagged my tail against it.

    "Watch out for Wiggles," she said.

    When all the greetings were done, she took me for a walk along the
sidewalk.  This time, she didn't complain about the number of trees that I
visited.

    "You are one SMART dog!" she said.  I knew that.

    She didn't keep quiet, any more.  She would moan, and talk to me.  We
would finish and lie on the bed (her) and the floor (me).  Then, sometimes,
we would start over.  She smelled happy as well as the special smells.

    If everybody had left us alone, we would both have been happy.  But
they didn't.  Girls came over.  She went away.  Girls and boys came over.
Sometimes boys came over.  Sometimes one boy came and she left with him.
Toward the end of the summer, she spent a lot of time with her father in
the car.  Every evening.  Every day when he was home.  Then, just before
school began, she started going off in the car alone.

    School began.  We had less time alone.  We used it when we could get
it.  She didn't always get the meat powder, but that was all right.  She
went silent again during those times.

    Friends came on evenings.  She would stink for those times, there would
be both boys and girls, and they would play loud music.  Nobody paid me the
least attention, even the ones who were nice to me during the day.  When it
started to get warm again, some people would come out in the yard from
inside.  At first, I thought that they had come to play.  Instead, they
ignored me more than ever, and kept to themselves two-by-two.

    Once, as a group was leaving, I was hanging around and getting an
occasional pat.  She was still inside, but I could almost smell her.  Then
I did smell her, on the hand of one of the boys who was leaving.  I
growled.  She came out then.

    "Wiggles!"  she said, "Stop it.  Gary is a *friend*!"  He was not!  But
I stopped growling.

    That spring, she started getting home from school just a little before
her parents got home.  We had less time together.  I smelled Gary on her a
lot.  Then she came home and hugged me and cried.  She smelled of Gary all
over.  When her parents got home, she stopped crying but she still smelled
sad.  After that she came right home and hugged me a lot.  These weren't
happy hugs, though.  She was sad most of the time.  If I ever get close to
Gary again, I'm going to bite him.

    When summer came, she played with me more.  Then she got a car of her
own.  She took me for a few drives, but mostly she went off alone.
Sometimes, she came back smelling of one boy or another.  One of them, I
hadn't smelled before.  Soon that was the commonest smell that she brought
back from the car trips.

    One day, when her parents were home, a strange car drove into our
driveway.  I went out to warn it off and to welcome any human who might get
out.  The boy who got out was the one whose smell she wore so often.

    "Billy,"  she greeted him.  Then said, "Billy, this is Wiggles.
Wiggles, sniff Billy."

    I already had, but I did it again.  Then they went into the house for a
while.  When she came out, she gave me a pat and climbed in the car.  They
drove away.

    When she came home, it was dark, and the car only stopped long enough
to let her out.  I greeted her.  I could smell blood.  Whatever the rules,
I had to sniff her crotch.  She was bleeding there, not old blood but
fresh, still flowing.  I could smell that Billy, too, lots of him.

    "Oh Wiggles," she said, "don't tell.  This is horrible enough as it
is."

    Then she hugged me hard and cried.  She wiped her face and slipped into
the house very quietly.  I didn't tell.  I never smelled Billy again.

    For a while there, she played with me almost every day.  She went out
driving much less.  For days, she would hug me when her parents were out
and sometimes cry.  One day, the old-blood smell came again.  She came
outdoors laughing.  We played that day like we hadn't in years, and I was
the one who tired first.

    She went driving more after that, but she still had time for me.
Sometimes we played in the yard.  Sometimes we went into her room with the
bouillon cubes.  After the tear healed, she didn't smell any different from
the wound.  She smelled of one boy or another sometimes, but not of Billy.

    School started again.  She went off almost every day.  Sometimes she
came home long before her parents, sometimes just before them, a few times
much later than they did.  A few times she came in smelling of some boy.
Then, more and more, she was smelling of Dave, a boy I had met.  She would
go out in the evening smelling bad again.  This year, she always came back
with Dave.  He would walk her to the door speak for a minute, kiss her, and
go back to his car.

    She would hug me when she had time.  She smelled happy those times and
a little bit scared.  How can you be both?  She was.  When she came back
from smelling bad in the evening, she was never crying.

    One day in the late spring, she went off to school and came back almost
before I could miss her.  Dave was with her.  She called me.  We all went
in the house by the back way.  She got some rope.  In her room, she tied
the rope to my collar by a complicated knot.  She held out her hand to Dave
and he gave her some keys.  She put them under my collar.  She closed and
latched the door and I moved in front of it.

    "Stay boy," she said.  I lay down in the usual place.

    "If I tell my father," she said to Dave, "He'll try to beat you up, and
maybe fail.  If I tell my mother, she'll call yours and try to make trouble
in your family.

    "But if you hurt me, my *dog* will *kill* you."

    Now she had the idea.  I sat up and smiled at them.  Well, I kept my
teeth together and my lips apart.

    "All I have to do is pull this rope, and he's free."

    "C'mon, Theresa," said Dave, "I wouldn't hurt you for the world."

    "Then we're all perfectly safe aren't we?"

    She started to unbutton her blouse.  Dave stopped her.

    "It won't hurt, but it won't be much good either, that way.  Let's do
what we always do, just not stop."

    She didn't smell happy.  She smelled angry and scared.  But she stopped
and he kissed her.  They did that a lot, and he put his hands all over her.
*I* wasn't happy with that, but she started to smell happier and less
angry.  She put her hands on his back.

    Then he turned her around and kissed her neck as he unbuttoned her
blouse.  He reached under the blouse and unsnapped her bra.  Then he held
her, while kissing the side of her face and her ear and her neck.  His
hands were always on her breasts, however.

    She started to smell happy and the anger smell was getting old.  Then
she smelled the way she did before she wanted me to lick her.  She moved
out of his arms quickly.  I wondered if she were going to come over for me
to lick her.  She never had when we weren't alone.

    Instead, Dave kissed her mouth again.  Then he kissed her breasts and
passed his hands all over her.  Now I knew how she came to smell of him,
even in the crotch.  After he'd done this for some time, she pulled his
mouth back to hers.  She held him to her by his shoulder and the back of
his head.

    Then they stepped apart.  She took off the rest of her clothes except
her panties.  Dave took off his clothes, but she finished first.  They
stood looking at each other.  She started to smell afraid again.

    "Will it hurt?"

    "We'll see that it doesn't."  He went back to his clothes and took out
something small.

    She lay down on the bed and he lay down beside her.  He put his hands
all over her and his mouth on hers.  Then he kissed all over her body.
Most of the time, it was on her breasts.  She lifted herself to let him
pull off her panties.  She still smelled afraid.  The heaviest smells,
though, were the smells that came before I licked her and during my
licking.  I looked up to see if she wanted me, but she didn't.

    He put his mouth back on her breast, but his hand was in her crotch.  I
stayed sitting up and could see what was happening.  I could smell her
special "lick" smells very strongly now.

    "Does that hurt?" Dave asked.

    "Not hurt, something ..."

    "Disturbing, that's all right.  If my fingers don't hurt you, then I
won't."

    He kissed her face again and she pulled him to her again.  My licking
could get those smells faster, but he was getting them.  He was getting
*my* hug, too.  But she wanted this.

    After a while, I could smell that she was close to the moaning stage.
There is a special scent right before.  At this point, Dave stopped.  I
hoped that she would ask me next time.  I would never stop just then.

    Dave fumbled with something at the side of the bed, and then I could
smell tires.  He climbed on top of her and I bristled.  But she didn't
mind.  She spread her legs to give him more space.  He kissed each of her
breasts for a very short time.  Then he lay down on top of her.

    "Are you okay?"

    "Fine."

    Then they started tussling.  I know the difference between tussling and
hurting.  I wasn't scared or angry for her.  I did want to join in, but I
was tied up.

    Then he grunted and moved much faster.  Then she moaned in her
special way.

    Shortly after that they stopped moving.  He lay on top of her and they
both panted as if it were very hot.  It wasn't.

    Finally, he got off her.  I could smell a lot of her smell of
after-being-licked.  It was all mixed in with the tire.  They lay side by
side.  He put his hands on her like before.  He kissed her like before.
But he moved slowly.  Lots of times, he hardly moved.

    "You go back to school," she finally said.

    "And you?"

    "If we both cut the same half day, the talk will be much worse.  Do you
want to use the shower?"

    "I'll do a sponge bath, can you dump a washcloth without it being
noticed?  I do love you.  Does this change anything?"

    "It changes everything.  I don't know how yet.  I have to think."

    They talked more.  He washed.  She got me a treat.  They talked more.
They kissed again.  He left.  She let me out.  When she called me back, she
smelled new-washed.  She hugged me and gave me another treat.  She smelled
happy but she cried too.

    Dave came over two days after that.  They talked for a long time, in
the yard.  She called me over and hugged me real tight.

    "Wiggles, Dave is a *good* friend."  I wagged my tail and Dave patted
me.  For that hug, I'd have wagged my tail to a squirrel.

    She would come home late from school smelling of Dave.  Dave came right
after school and before her parents came home a few times, too.  They would
go in the house and he would give me a treat when he came out.

    Once she sneaked me into her room after dark.  There was a scratching
on the screen at her window.  She opened the window and screen and it was
Dave.  He came in the window.  They kissed for a minute.  She helped me out
the window.  They pulled the screen down but not the window.  I lay down
outside the window.  There were rustling sounds.  I smelled her excitement,
and then the tire.  He was smelling very excited too, if that matters.

    I looked in through the screen.  She was lying on her back.  He was on
top of her and between her legs.  She was hugging him to her, though, not
pushing him off.  He moved back and forth.  The bed moved at the same time.
Her legs rose a tiny bit with each motion.  The scent of her excitement
grew strong.  She slammed her legs back down on the bed.  She was trying to
throw him off.  I got ready to go through the screen to protect her, but
her arms were still holding him to her.

    She grabbed a pillow and stuffed the pillow case in her mouth.  But I
heard her moans through it.  He was thrashing and grunting.  Then they lay
quiet.  She hugged him.  I lay back down.  Later he came out the window and
she shut it tight.  He had a treat for me.

    Summer came.  She was busy, but there was still some time for me.
There was *plenty* of time for Dave.  I noticed another new smell.  It was
centered at her crotch, and she got angry when I sniffed.

    One morning, she came out right after breakfast.  She threw my frisbee
and I caught it.  She was trying to take it from me when she suddenly
looked sick.  She ran into the house and I could hear retching noises.  I
waited by the door and listened.  She cried and her mother made soothing
sounds.  Then everybody was shouting.  Then she was crying and I couldn't
get to her.

    She came out that evening and hugged me and cried.  It was like old
times, but not like good times.

    "Oh Wiggles," she said.  It meant that nobody understood her at all.

    The next day, Dave came over.  She kissed him, but he just stood there.
They went in the house and talked with her parents.  A long time later,
they came out in the yard.  She barely noticed me.  She was talking to
Dave.

    "I am going to college," he said.  "It means my whole future."

    "Do you think I wasn't going to college?  I had better grades than you!
But *this* is the future too."

    "I know, but it isn't fair.  Dammit Theresa, why did you have to ..."

    "Me!  Me?  Who was it who knew everything?  Who was it who had the
birth control?  I didn't pester you to start.  It was all your doing until
there is a problem.  Now it's my fault."

    "Don't shout, the neighbors..."

    "Will be seeing my waist soon enough."

    "Not if you come to your senses.  This is not fun, but our entire
future is at stake."

    "I.  Will.  Not!  Kill my baby.  It's your baby too.  You want to kill
your own child."

    "It's hardly a child yet."

    He sounded threatening and I got between them and growled.  They both
looked at me.

    "That's the difference between a dog and a lover," she said.  "Dogs are
faithful.  I wish I had let him protect me from you when he wanted to."

    "That's not fair.  You wanted it too."

    "I wanted it and I was afraid of it.  You had all the answers.  You had
birth control which couldn't fail.  You would look after me if it did.  You
loved me.  Until you got what you wanted."

    "Oh Theresa."

    He opened his arms and stepped toward her.  He wasn't really being
threatening.  I was.  He stopped.

    "Oh Wiggles," she said.  It was almost a giggle.  Then she walked
around me into his arms.  They kissed.

    "I do love you," he said.  "I just ...  We'll work it out."

    After a few minutes, they went back inside.

    I saw him again the next evening, with two older people.  From then on,
he was there much of the time.  There was a period when she didn't smell of
him at any time.  Then, she began coming back smelling of him again.

    That whole period, she would come out to the yard and hug me and cry,
or hug me and be happy.  Sometimes she would do both without getting up.

    The house had more visitors at this time than ever before.  Then there
was a huge crowd of visitors at one time.  She drove away with Dave.  She
didn't come back.

    It was the worst time of my life.

    Finally, she was back.  I greeted her and she gave me a big hug.  But
she was busy that day and gone again that evening.

    I didn't know what to think for the next few days, but then her father
offered me a ride in the car.  I always liked those.  This was the best
possible ride, though.  It was a ride to her.

    I went up some stairs with her.  There were three rooms there, rather
small.  But she was there and had been there, her smell was all over.
Dave's smell was all over, too.

    We have some nice times.  She is here all day, and I don't get put out
in the yard away from her.  But not all of the times are nice.  There is no
yard to play in, either.  She has grown fat and doesn't bend down like she
used to.  A hug these days is more like one arm over me as she sits in a
chair.  But she means a hug.

    I've been here a long time and it is often wet when I go for my walks.
When it is raining, even she wants me to hurry up.  Sometimes Dave takes me
and he is always impatient.  I don't mind when he is angry with me.  But it
hurts her when he is angry with her.  He often is.

    Just this morning he barked at her.  She barked back and he tore out
smelling angry.  She smelled angry too, but mostly frightened.  And then
she cried.  I went over to comfort her, but I'm not that much comfort
anymore.

    Now he is home again.  They are speaking quietly but I can still smell
the anger.  I can smell something else too.  I sniff his crotch.

    "Oh Wiggles.  Bad dog!" she says.

    I smelled something from his crotch however.  It is a woman that I have
never met.  And a little bit of the tire.

    He doesn't love her like I do.


     THE END
     He Doesn't
     Uther Pendragon