My editor called me in and quite unexpectedly said, to my surprise, "You've been doing a good job. This story may be a nothing, but I want you to find out what you can about Konrad Jardine. He's a newcomer, lives in the suburbs, reported to be very wealthy, but no one seems to know where he gets his money. The story is that he's playing games with people. I want you to find out. You'll have the usual expense account, but try not to..."
"I know, boss, I know, 'don't try to buy the city, at least not all at once.' You say that every time some one goes on expenses...plus." I said that last to needle him.
"Yes I do, and I tell you every time not to call me 'boss,' too! An' whaddya mean by 'plus?'"
"Sorry. I mean I may need extra expenses, that's what I mean." I wasn't sorry about what I'd called him, everyone in the press room called him 'boss.' He grinned like a shark.
"Go on then. Keep your powder dry."
Shit, that wasn't fair. The boss knew I was a Civil War buff, he didn't have to rub it in. Maybe, though, he didn't know just how "buff" I was.
"Boss, how 'bout the I R S? Are they after him, too?"
"Dunno, find out."
I went first to the morgue to find what I could on Jardine. There wasn't anything much, just a squib, an attribution to some lawyer who had once said that Konrad "had no visible means of support, he likes to play games with folks." That was even a quote from another paper. The lawyer had not been sued.
I had acquired a few informants among the many people I chatted with at local fast food places and bars, so I made the tour to see what I could learn about this Jardine.
Billy the Keep, who I suspected from his street name might be, or have been, a fence, was the only guy from whom I could get anything at all about Jardine.
"Look," he whispered, having taken me back into an alley, careful that we would not be overheard, "the guy is strange, very strange. I know he has a big pack of bear hounds. There's a guy named Mearns. I've heard he..." Billy stopped talking just then, he seemed to choke, his face suffused and he fell limply against me. I lowered him quickly to the ground and looked around to see what or who might have struck him. There was nothing,.
I knelt and bent to his mouth, meaning to start CPR, so I heard his faint whisper, "Don't mess with the vet..." and that was it. I felt for a heartbeat, then felt his neck for a pulse... nothing.
Shit! I guess I acted more like a citizen than a reporter, I called the cops and waited. Lucky for me that Detective Sergeant Len Bristol was the first man to reach the scene with his partner, Les Arden.
"What's goin', Mac?" Len and Les were not on the murder squad, they'd just happened to hear the call, were close by, and then Les spotted me standing by a shape on the ground.. Len wasn't being a hard cop, that was my nickname. I naturally told him the truth as far as I knew it, but I held back about what I had asked Billy.
"So," asked Les, "what were you talking about, then?" Like most women she went straight to the meat of the question. She did that with me at home, too. Arden was her working name.
"Les, Len, I was asking him about..." I paused, thinking about where we were, what Billy and I were talking about before his death. And I thought, What killed Billy?
"What's the matter?"
"Les, this's not the best place to tell you what we were saying," I answered, sheltering as best I could between the two detectives.
"Oh," said Len, looking around with his hand close to his midriff, where he kept his gun. "Think it was a close in job?"
"Dunno, Len," said Les, moving nervously, "but let's let the murder squad take care of the scene so we can get away from here." "Yeah. Oh, here they are. Hi, Henry." Henry was a slim, nervous lieutenant, a real expert on forensics, followed by another detective, Sergeant Johnson, then the team: photographer, tape man, fingerprint man, all regulars, known to me and me to them.
"Hullo, Len, Les, Mac," said Henry in his hollow voice. Henry always sounded as though he should be the victim's ghost, not the investigator. I coughed in sympathy, but I answered all his questions. He said I could go, seeing who I was with, so I moved away with Les and Len to the car.
"Now, Johnny," asked Les, looking at me curiously, seeing that I was honestly frightened, "what were you talking about?"
"Les, we were talking about that assignment I told you about-the one Gus gave me." Her face creased in a frown. She had advised me to give it right back to Gus.
"You're working on that? Oh, hell, John MacRimmon, I asked you..."
"No, hon, you told me, but I can't throw this one back to Gus now Billy's had it."
"Yeah, I guess." She was resigned to being married to an idiot. She sighed,
"I know you too well. O K, I guess you've got to keep at it. Did Billy tell you anything?"
Len interrupted. "If you two lovebirds have talked enough, we should be getting back to the station, Arden."
"Yes...sir. Just a minute, please?"
"Yuh."
"John, what did Billy say?"
"He said something about the man I'm looking for having 'bear hounds.' There was something he started to say about some veteran, too, but I don't know what the hell that...oh! Vet! Hounds! Veterinarian...for the bear hounds. Have either of you ever heard of a bear hound?"
"What's a bare hound?" asked Len, puzzled, acting slow on the uptake, one of his acts. "A hound that runs around nude?"
He laughed uproariously.
"Jesus! Maybe that's what he... Naw, there can't be...can there?"
I was, I thought, suddenly on a clear track to this story. If there were such a thing as a hairless hound, and this man Jardine kept a pack of them, what a story! They'd be rare, so perhaps easy to find.
"All right. I'm gonna go talk to a vet I know and find out. Maybe someone knows someone else who actually raises such a thing as a naked hound. There's naked cats, huh?"
"Yeah, there are," said Leslie. "Remember, Len, that case last year....?"
Well, I got them to ride me to near the station where I got out, kissed Les, and went looking for a phone book and the vet's number.
******
That night when we lay in bed half asleep, Leslie asked me what, if anything, I'd found out.
"Les, I talked with this vet named Philips who told me about another, the guy named Mearns. That's the name Billy the Keep mentioned, I think. Seems this Doc Mearns got tight at some convention and talked some about nude hounds he'd been taking care of. Said they were the strangest dogs he'd ever worked on, according to Philips. Wasn't in the city phone book. I got Philips to look him up in the vet's register and Mearns practices in a small town about thirty miles out of the city.
"I'm going there tomorrow and see what Mearns has to say about nude hounds."
"All right, lover, but be careful, huh?"
"Sure, hon', considering what I have to come home to."
We'd been holding each other loosely as we almost always did before we fell asleep and I tightened my arm around Leslie's shoulders. My other hand slipped slowly and lightly onto her right breast, so invitingly poised barely under her low-cut shorty nightgown.
Les' hand stroked my already stiffening penis and I stroked her breast as I rearranged myself so I could kiss her nipple. She loved that.
"Oh-ah, yeas, love. That feels good," she murmured as she licked my ear. I felt myself rigid and throbbing, her soft skin as she pressed against me exciting me more each passing second.
My hand moved down to her pubes as she spread her legs to give me access as I liked and I sucked gently on her outstanding nipple. I could feel her left nipple, just as hard, against my breast. She was stroking me softly and I was beginning to hope that she'd be a little rougher when she said,
"Come into me, Mac, I need you deep inside me!" She was squirming in that way she had when she needed a rough one, so I knew I'd better be good.
I rolled onto my back and Les mounted me like a cavalryman onto his horse, settling her quim quickly and wetly over my hot prick. She slid down onto me easily and then she leaned forward and tongued my lips until I had to open to her. We tongue-wrestled that way for a moment or two and then I was back to sucking on her nipples alternately as she moved slowly up and down on me, stirring us both up to our mutual destination. I started heaving up under her downward strokes and pretty soon...
That was one of the good, straightforward nights, she and I climaxed almost simultaneously, our bodies tensed against each other in a perfect arch of passion.
"Christ, Les, I think I got you pregnant that time," I managed to gasp. "I was sure far enough in you."
"You were that, lover man. But... I'm on the Pill, remember?"
"Yeah." I tried not to show my disappointment, and I guess I succeeded. We had agreed that as long as she was a detective and wanted to stay with the force, I would not get her pregnant. For that matter, we'd figured if she had a kid and was temporarily or permanently off the force, or even back on the force, my job would be a lot harder, too. I was used to being on the streets doing a reporter's job anytime in the twenty-four hours, mostly while she was on shift...so who'd stay home with baby?
Les kissed me hard, and I started to feel better, in fact I looked so closely in her eyes that she could tell I was about to ask....
"Uh-uh, big boy." she chuckled, "tonight you did real good...I'm ready to sleep. Rough day tomorrow."
"O K, love, but don't think I couldn't."
"Yeah, right. You think you're a dog or something... an' I'm a bitch in heat, huh?"
A shiver ran down my spine, but I pulled the blankets over us and lay there, spooned around Les, just loving the feel of her smooth body against mine. Happy time.
******
I was astonished as I walked to the car to make the trip out of the city to the small town where this veterinarian Mearns practiced to find Leslie waiting for me.
"What's with this, lover?"
"Day off, I'm armed, and if this guy gives you any...."
"Now, now, love, don't swear. O K, I guess. Did you tell Len where you're going?"
"Just told him I was taking a day off to go on a short trip with my husband. He laughed and said 'Good Luck.'"
"I guess. All right, let's go. Feels good to know you're along, dear, y'know that?"
"Thanks, lover. That's nice to hear. Where'd you say this town was?"
I pulled over to the side of the road, got out my large scale map.
"Look here. Our city is off this map about fifteen miles to the right. We come onto the map from the east. This is the main street, Route 12, slanting down and the map shows the businesses in the town. It shows the vet hospital where Mearns works, see, and even shows houses. There's the police station, here's Mearns' home, this is the dog and cat hospital. It's a pretty big place for such a small town."
"Boy, if that's to scale..."
"Yeah, it is. So, now you know where we're going."
"O K. Stop at a filling station, I think I'll call Len and let him know where we'll be."
"Not too bad an idea. Soon's I find one."
We drove on to the small town without any further stops. I don't know why, but neither of us remembered to call Len, perhaps because there were no gas stations, restaurants or stores along the road we took.
.On the main street, we didn't have to ask the way to Doctor Mearns' place of business, it loomed before us. We stopped for a coffee and I asked the guy behind the counter if he knew the vet, and he said,
"Yeah, Doc Mearns...he does a lot for the town. He's running some kind of experimental hospital now, as well as his vet clinic. He's gotta lot of rich people with their pets coming around. He cures incurables!"
That was interesting. We went on and parked in a pretty big parking lot that the clinic seemed to share with the undertaker next door. Oddly, there were no other cars on the clinic side.
We walked up to the front door and entered a remarkably plush lobby and reception area for a veterinarian. There was little if any animal smell.
The receptionist, a slightly built, dark skinned woman, not unattractive, looked at us expectantly.
"Did djou wish to make an appointment for djour pet to zee ze doctor?" she asked in a husky voice. She kept clearing her throat. I noticed that her apparently dark skin was really dark hairs, even on her face, shaved, but like a heavy beard.. Her short sleeved blouse revealed a lot of short dark hairs on her arms. It was a little startling to note that in the opening of her blouse above the swellings that I took to be breasts she also had longer black hair.
I explained that we wanted to talk to the doctor directly.
"Did you see that?" murmured Les in my ear as the secretary turned rather stiffly to make a call on a phone behind her.
"Hm-hm, looks like the Island of Doctor Moreau," I answered very low, nodding slightly as the secretary turned back.
"Ze doctor would like to know who you arre, plizz."
"I'm John MacRimmon, the Herald. I'd like to interview the doctor about a person I think is one of his clients. Or whose pets are, that is"
"And djou, madame?"
"I'm Mrs MacRimmon."
"Verry we-ell." She murmured into the phone for a minute, listened intently, then waved toward the door, "Plizz, sroo zere, zen to ze right iz ze doctor's offeece."
"Thank you."
We walked together through the door. I thought for just a moment that it was odd that it closed so quickly, silently and snugly behind us.
"Johnny, I don't see any door, do you?"
Before I could answer Leslie the light went out, and I heard a very low hissing sound. My head felt light, I was dizzy for a moment, and then I said, in a voice I did not recognize,
"I don't care about the...doc...who are you talking...who...are you?"
Something big moved, but I was standing perfectly still, not trying to feel around me, although I could sense a presence near me. Despite the very strange situation, I was not in the least frightened, my pulse was steady, I felt fine. Then the light came on and I was standing next to a stranger, a woman. We looked at each other with complete non-recognition.
"How do you do?" I said, stammering just a bit, "I'm....uh...."
"I...I, I do not know who I am, either," she said. "But it's not important, is it?"
She smiled. My mind adjusted to the circumstances. I thought it odd that a bitch would show teeth. A grin like that was usually a sign of anger, aggression.
A voice, a compelling voice, said, "Come this way, come!"
We moved together through another door which had suddenly opened behind us, and we were in a bare white room. There was no one there. The floor was hard, grey, shiny terrazzo and I sniffed, trying to scent who had been in it last. All I smelled was the bitch. She was sniffing, too, and apparently all she smelled was me.
She said huskily, as though accused of wrongdoing, "We are not supposed to wear clothes?"
Instead of answering, because my throat seemed too thick to let me speak, I was already taking off the stuff that hampered my movements, finding the upper covering impossible and ripping it off. My nails had grown thick and long, as they should be.
The bitch had also taken off the coverings and we just stood side by side, not moving very much, save to breathe. She smelled like any bitch, warm but not particularly attractive at the moment.
"Come, you two," said a master's voice, again. I tried to wag my tail at the sound of the voice to show my recognition of authority and obedience, but there was nothing there to wag, which puzzled me briefly. I saw the bitch had no tail, either, which was strange. "Now," said the voice, and I knelt at once, as one should for a master, "we will fit you better for your new roles. You won't remember in a little while, but I am Doctor Mearns, plastic surgeon and reshaper of bodies. Of course, your names must be changed to proper ones, but for the moment you will answer to your present ones. John, you will obey, no?"
I whined, all I could "say" in answer.
"Yes? Well, Leslie, you know this dog, smells familiar? You will obey me."
The bitch whined, too, by way of answer.
"So. Nosy reporter, detective wife no longer. I am going to give you each several injections. Hold very still, you will feel very strange...but of course you won't mind at all. I am going to realign your hips and legs, and I must make your bones more plastic to do so. Hold still, Leslie."
I watched, interested in a rather detached way, as the master molded the bitch's legs so that they became more shapely and were a lot slimmer. He did something to the bitch's wide hips so that they narrowed a bit, molded her billowy buttocks to a more compact shape and manipulated her lower legs so that her heels became her backwards bent "knees." The long, bare back paws became short and padded, the nails shrinking to respectable claws. The bitch whined once or twice, but made no move to bite or hurt the master, which was as well for her. When she got up to stand on all four feet she definitely interested me more... she smelled really good, too.
Then I had to endure the realignment, and I found that the bitch had been braver or less sensitive than I, for I yelped several times. It truly felt more odd than painful, so if there was real pain, I bore it fairly well.
"Well, that is all I can do for the moment," the master sighed. "I'll put you in the same pen for now. You'll get over the effects of the 'ennuigen' soon, anyway. Maybe you'd like to talk to each other - who knows what about? - before I reshape your throats and heads, 'cause then you'll lose your larynxes and won't be able to. But that can wait a day, I suppose. Jardine does not want new dogs until next week anyway "It'll be interesting if the bitch should come into heat, don't you know it, doggie?. She's close. Jardine says I should enjoy that."
******
I returned to what I thought was myself after a weird dream. I was lying on my side on a thick mat of some kind in a low ceilinged room with heavy wire along one wall, a corridor beyond. There were no windows, but there was muted light.
Lying on the floor near me as I got up on my haunches was another form, a female by smell...Thassa bitch, I thought, that's Leslie's face, but why is she hairless?
I thought I would bump my head on the ceiling as I stood so I instinctively ducked my head, but there seemed to be plenty of room overhead, low as the ceiling was...about four feet above me. I looked at myself and I was quite normal, I thought, standing foursquare on my paws. My body was hairless like Leslie's and I wondered when the master had clipped and shaved us. I felt well. I wondered, Are we back in the kennel, that she's lying there asleep like that?
As I went over and sniffed at her, she awoke and stretched, her back legs extending from the right angle they had formed with her torso as she lay flat on her side. The floor was covered with thick rug-like material and it was easy for her to scrabble to her feet.
"Wha...? John, that's...you?" She sounded incredulous, but at least she knew my face. We each had to roll our eyes, or turn our heads sideways to see each other. Our eyes were oriented toward the floor and it was very hard on our short necks to tilt our heads back. Leslie's eyes were still that lovely grey, her lashes as long as always. Her face was the same, but she was having as much trouble as I, trying to look at an angle to her short neck, her head straining to be horizontal against the pull of the neck muscles. Somehow it felt wrong to have a human head on my own body like that.
"Sit," I said in unconscious parody of a master's voice, and we sat on our haunches, our legs naturally folding under and in front like any dog, so that our heels were now flat on the floor, our knees in front of our chests,. That made it a lot easier to look at each other.
Leslie's chest had changed. She no longer had those pretty breasts and nipples on which I had suckled so happily in a vaguely remembered dream. Down her barrel ran eight nipples and as I cocked my head to look down my torso, I saw the same number. While I looked I saw that instead of what I vaguely thought should be a dog's penis sheath my own glans peeked from my lower belly, my balls drawn up under it, just off the floor.
Les seemed to have a slightly modified pubic area, too. Her labia were indrawn making a puffy mound, her slit was visible in the mound. It, too, was sufficiently off the floor not to touch it. She smelled different than she had earlier, and I saw her sniffing at my scent, too. I managed a question.
"Les...that is you? Do you...feel all right?"
"I feel strange, my belly is hot, I have a little itch in my...my...what is it, Johnny?"
"Where?" She got up, turned her head and licked at her privates.
"Oh, that's your...your...it smells good, Les, I want to lick, too."
"Yes. Lick it, cool it, Johnny." I saw her gaze slip down my front, and she looked astonished.
"Your...thing...it's all pink, Johnny, and oh...very long. It's got...big...knots on it, doggie. Oh...smell me, lick me!"
My mind pretty much blanked, I could only remember that I was supposed to do something with this bitch. Ah! She was in heat.
The bitch stood facing away from me and spread her hind legs wide so that I had access to her rear. Her asshole smelled different but as good as her cloaca, and I could feel myself swell and elongate along my belly. My balls were stiff, I wanted this bitch...oh, she smelled so good, scent like an aphrodisiac, the heat of her rear, was drawing me to her like a ...a ...magn.... I went to her, stiff legged. No dog had better get between me and this bitch!
I sniffed at her and she wriggled her rear, the scent becoming stronger as she opened herself to my exploring tongue. It seemed to me to be much longer and more labial than I remembered, but then I seemed not to remember very much.
I still had a hard time trying to see her from up close, I had to turn my head sideways to get my tongue and nose against her rear, but I was smelling her much more than seeing her. She stood fairly still, whining, as I investigated, becoming more excited as I sniffed and licked.
"Up, uh-up," the bitch whined and I reared over her back. For a few moments we whined and gyrated as I licked at the back of her neck and naked head and jerked my hips around as we moved this way and that, trying to get my stiff doggieness to find her delicious smelling opening. Finally! It slid in her slowly at first, but she was so wet with juices that in a moment I was plunging into her opening until my penetration was stopped by the big knots which her muscles would not allow to enter.
The bitch's back curved down, then up under me, she pushed back as I pushed forward. My front paws were wrapped under her lower belly just ahead of her back legs trying to pull her body into mine and I could feel her muscles working to engulf me. I was more and more certain that she must be getting as much good feeling from this penetration as was I, she was whining eagerly and I could feel the bitch's rear get hotter and hotter as I pumped away, my back claws deep in the fabric floor covering. I could feel my stomach muscles helping me to punch and withdraw, the bitch's opening clasping and relaxing around me. I felt my balls tighten, tighten, and the first small flow of semen moving up my penis into the bitch.
It felt glorious and as though it were taking a nice forever, but we did not hump like that for very long. Suddenly as the feeling in my penis became almost more than I could stand, her vagina muscles slacked their resistance to my knots and I slid triumphantly within her all the way. Her muscles immediately closed tightly around me, locking us fiercely together, so with some more frantic and altogether pleasant bucking and twisting, I came to a tremendous climax. I could feel the rush of semen up my penis and into her waiting body as the bitch yelped in, I thought, pleasure.
After we'd been locked tightly together, our muscles rigid, for a few seconds, there was a most uncomfortable time...maybe five...maybe ten...minutes of trying to get my increasingly sore penis out of the bitch. If I pulled she yelped, and if she tried to walk away from me she dragged me by that sore appendage, straining it to its limit... I yelped and wanted to nip her on the neck, if I could have reached it.
At last I think our bodies must have mutually agreed to just relax, and a couple of minutes after we did, I slid free, the knots diminished to almost nothing. I immediately sat and licked my still semi-rigid self tenderly, not even caring about the bitch, who was licking her sore cloaca, as I could glimpse from the corner of my eye. I was tired, so I went to one corner and lay down, curling up with my nose against my rear, the most comfortable position I could find. I had no further use for the bitch.
I must have slept, for when I awoke I smelled the bitch's enticing scent again, and my penis willy-nilly lengthened and began to feel extremely ready to enter her opening. I could smell her leaking down the back of her legs. She seemed just as willing to have me in her, and we repeated the previous operation for a slightly longer time, but with less trouble after I climaxed and pumped my seed in. We, or our minds, had learned to relax as soon as our excited bodies were able, and without all the pain and fuss of the previous time. I slid free. I still liked the feel of licking myself, though, as she must have, for we had finished and were both asleep when a voice barked,
"Come, up! Come here!" and we rose, shook ourselves, and padded over to the open gate. I had a fleeting thought for just a second.
Why am I obeying this...master? but that vagrant thought fled as soon as the master placed a collar around my neck and fastened a leash to it. I discovered then that I could think about some things, but I had lost any ability to consider other than practical matters, such as sleep, time as a period between feedings and sleeps, warmth, food, bitches in heat. I noticed that when the master fastened the leash, the bitch and I wagged our tails.
The bitch's head still looked odd...the front was too flat, no muzzle, the lack of hair on the head all wrong. Mine felt the way hers looked, I was sure.
******
The master who we had first seen was muttering to himself, something he seemed to do every time he did something to us.
"Damn pervert. 'Keep thuh female like a woman as mush as you can,' he shays. Jehoshephat! Shilly bashtard. I guesh he wan's thish one ready f'r 'im now, huh?"
He had again injected the bitch with something that made her whine, but certainly not in pain. She kept rubbing her rear against the floor. Must have itched her a hell of a lot.
The master coupled the two of us together and led us down a long passage, much higher than our pen and a lot narrower. I didn't care where we were going or what we were going to do, I'd been made to inhale the funny scent for a while this...when had it been? There was a....something that went over my face, real tight and I breathed and felt good. I was still feeling good. the bitch did not smell like she was in heat, but she sure was acting like it.
We came to a big, big thick door. The master pushed something at the side and the door opened and we went in. I wondered why I could understand a lot of what was said. Was I meant to?
Another master, this one bare, said,
"So, you have prepared her?"
Master said, "Yes, but I think this is foolish, it can only be wrong, she's a bitch, not a woman, no matter how I fix her now."
"You just do what you're told, though, don't you, doctor?"
"Yessir."
The other master sent our first master out of the room. He had taken some kind of bottle from him first, though.
"Now, doggie, I'm going to fuck your wife, the former detective, she'll love it, every bit of it, she can't help herself...and I want you to know who she is, and what I'm doing to her and you'll watch us, and eat your heart out. So you won't have to worry about it later, I'll have the doctor fix you when this is done, doggie!" I just wagged my tail, not really caring what he was saying or about to do. Then he held my nose and forced me to drink what was in that bottle. I was tied tightly to the railing that ran around two of the walls, so I could not put up much of a fight against his strength.
Then I came back, suddenly and awfully, to being myself...in a dog's body! I couldn't speak, but I barked, whined and tried my best to get at him but without hands, my teeth not able to reach the leash that tied me tightly against the railing, I could do nothing but watch the man take the bitch that I knew was my wife. She had no tail now, I saw, and wondered in between my bouts of blind rage, why?
Then I saw. She was backed against the man's hand and he had a finger or two within her, her rear wagging as she tried to impale herself fully on them. I caught no scent from her, so she wasn't in heat like a dog would be. The bastard had given her some preparation that made her human mind want to be fucked! She certainly was beginning to show that to the man, for she whined and turned her head with its human face up toward him as he manipulated her. Her tongue was out and she actually licked his other hand! She was clearly ready to be penetrated, for fluid was sliding down the insides of her back legs. I wondered again what kind of man would fuck a dog?
But then I realised that she wasn't really a dog, even in her present partly dog shape, not any more than I had been, probably at that moment a lot less. The man was on his knees, now, his rampant penis within inches of her. There was a sudden small noise and the man fell slowly sideways, his penis sticking straight up as he collapsed onto his back and lay still, his knees still bent and his legs half under his torso. A little black stick protruded from the side of his neck.
The frustrated Les-bitch turned her head and looked at the prone body, then backed slowly and settled her rear over the still erect penis. She began humping the thing as it went flaccid. I saw her and it and although I could not laugh or cry, I felt like both together. Poor bitch! She couldn't help it, but I was glad the bastard was dead or whatever and his prick was soft. In fact it was so soft by now that she was humping a little lump of flesh, no more. I was still enough dog that I wished that she was smelling as though she was in heat, for then my penis would get hard and I could mount her, but no, she wasn't...just hyped like a nympho on that stuff the doc had injected her with.
The doc's voice came to my ears. I of course understood him, I was partly human, wasn't I?
"All right, John. I'll take her out of here and give her the Calmo and then I'll come back and untie you in a minute. He's out for the count, don't worry." It was Doctor Mearns.
I waited...what else could I do, tied up as I was?...until Mearns returned. Les, looking as dazed as a part canine could, but not inflamed any longer, trotted alongside.
"C'mon, John," Mearns mumbled as he untied me and unsnapped the leash from the collar.
"I'm going to do my best to turn you both back. It's a lot harder, I have to restore flesh...ah, ha! Jardine can provide that. Wait, please."
Well, we had not been spoken to that way since we'd been converted, so Les and I sat and waited, looking at each other but unable to speak. Les blushed a little, but I licked her lips and then, suddenly, the urge to kiss her came over me and we did, her mouth opening as I invaded her with my tongue. I still couldn't erect, though.
Mearns came back with this other man shambling stupidly along behind him. I tried to bark and made a halfway "rarf" sound. Mearns shook his head and answered what he must have thought was an objection on my part...it was, sorta.
"He's not going to get away, he's not going to hurt anyone else, the no good lying bastard!"
He was rather vehement in his way of speaking about whoever the guy was.
When we had finished our stroll back up the hallway, we turned into the room where Mearns had worked on Les and me. I didn't really want to go in, but Mearns pulled me by the collar and since he was stronger than I, I went. Les followed, and stumble-bum came last.
"Sit," Mearns said, and we and the stranger sat, he on a wooden chair that Mearns shoved over behind him almost in time. The man cracked his tail-bone on the edge, but it didn't seem to faze him, he readjusted and sat quietly, stupidly, on the chair. "Now, I'm going to try to put you back, John. Better you first. If I make a mistake..."
I tried to growl at him, but didn't succeed,. I think he got my meaning, 'cause I remembered to smile at him and he backed off.
"Now look," he said, nervously...I don't blame him, "if I work on you first and make you a man again, then I'll know that I did it right and can make your wife a woman again, O K?"
I could not speak, but I sat down and whined.
"All right, then? Jump up on the table. Lie down. I'm going to give you some ennuigen. It won't hurt you, and you won't mind what I do, see?"
Before I could move he had injected me and in a moment I was lying there perfectly happy and content to let his hands roam all over my legs and lower spine. I could feel him, but nothing hurt. I could not, or did not want to, raise my head, so I had no idea what he was doing, but after a while he stood back and must have looked at Les, for she made a sort of happy whimpering sound and she placed her front paws on the table edge and looked at me with her head cocked to one side. I could almost swear she winked. Then I must have slept for awhile.
When I woke I was sitting in a chair, a strap around my chest to hold me sort of upright. The strap was longer than enough to hold me, and the slack of it was where my right hand...my hand!...could reach it. I could pull it free.
"Les?" I queried, and she said my name, weakly but clearly. I looked and she was on a padded table, lying there, a real woman, her breasts and everything I could see...she was as naked as I...back in place and looking almighty good to me. She was smiling and I didn't think she was threatening me this time. I staggered to my feet and went to her. I bent own and laid my lips on hers and we kissed. I don't know whose tongue got into whose mouth first, but we tongue wrestled for a few moments before stopping for a breath.
"God! It is good to be me again," I breathed, kissing her more lightly this time.
"Yeah, me too...but I sorta miss...."
"What? You miss being a bitch? You've never been a bitch in real...I mean, you're a real good woman, a wonderful wife...and still are, I hope."
"Oh, sure. But didn't you learn a few things, hon'?"
"Like what? Being dragged around on a leash...or injected with happy juice so I'd not mind what some idiot wanted to do to me...or being changed into a dog, for gossake? Learn something...hah!"
"No-o. Not exactly that, hon'. Didn't you sort of like the taste of me?"
I thought back to when I had licked her. By gum, she had tasted good. But then I wondered.
"Sweets, was that because we were acting and maybe thinking like dogs, h-m?"
"It's not something you want to try again?" She was pleading, sort of, and I never could resist that from her.
Sotto voce I said, looking at her and winking once, "Big stwong detecatif lady wans a lilly man's tongue up her, huh?"
"Big damn' strong detective lady's gonna tie up her hubby and make him want to use his tongue," she pretended - was she pretending? - to snarl back at me, her incisors showing.
Just then Mearns walked back in and chuckled.
"I think I restored you right, eh? Fighting already? Come with me and see your famous Jardine and how he looks now."
Crap. That had been Jardine, had it? Could Leslie arrest him for...what?
"Les, can you arrest the bastard for what he had Mearns do to us. Or Mearns, for that matter?" I asked, sotto voce.
God knew the doc might be able to turn us right back into dogs again if we got too much on his case.
We were back in the "clean room" once again. A dog lay on its side on a gurney, a dog complete from shaggy head to inert tail, from rows of little nipples to cock in a sheath and...uh, oh...this was a sterilized male!
"That's Jardine?" asked Leslie, holding my arm. Perhaps she thought I was going to attack the prostrate dog on the gurney.
"Yes, that was the bastard that had me so full of ennuigen that I never got to think for myself until he didn't give me the dose yesterday. I think he must have been so full of his schemes that he just plain forgot. I had sense enough when I came to myself to act as though I were still under, so he trusted me with you two. Damned if I knew before you got here what...I did not know who or what you were."
"You certainly knew who and what we were when you put us under!" snapped Leslie, all cop.
"Yes, he told me. See, here's the wireless earphone he made me wear." He fished in his breast pocket and showed us a tiny button, less than a dime in width, almost as thin.
Leslie started to say something that sounded like the beginning of a Miranda, but I nudged her and murmured in her ear. "Where's your gun and cuffs, sweetie? Len, too, for that matter?"
"Shit, Mearns. Tell you what. Is that dog gonna live? Got any bitches in heat? Shut the damn' dog in with them, make sure it knows who it is, see how it likes that.
"Will you make a statement later about this man Jardine...? If you ever knew him...? What he wanted you to do that you refused to do?"
That little set-up seemed to make Mearns right happy. It got us out of there pretty soon as people, not dogs, but first he showed us what he was doing with Jardine.
The dog and three bitches in heat were in that pen Les and I had been in, and I could see that the dog wasn't exactly unhappy, it just didn't know what the hell to do with those frisky bitches! It would try and lick, then stop, then try to rear over one and she'd snap at him and walk away. Last I saw of him, he was licking his privates, looking at what must have been good smelling bitches in heat...to an entire dog. I thought I could catch a whiff of their scent and I know that Leslie was tugging extra hard on my arm as we walked away.
******
I got to like what Les had liked while we were almost dogs. Seems to me now I like her taste fine. It's odd, but she seems to taste the same now as I remember her tasting then, and she sure does a lot of whining and moving around while I'm doing it, too. So you could say some good came out of that weird experience. Every once in a while I'll remark to Les, if we see a nice thoroughbred bitch on a leash,
"Man. Wouldn't I like to have that bitch, she sure smells good!"
I duck the resultant slap easily...practice.