The Search

“You’d think I hammered spikes into his brain. Come on now, Peck.” Mai stroked, even as she checked joints and fur and skin. “Man up.”

Peck kept his head turned away, refusing to look at her. Instead he stared accusingly into Fiona’s eyes. She swore she could see tears forming.

“I think he was tortured by the Spanish Inquisition in another life.”

While Mai examined his ears, Peck visibly shuddered.

“At least he suffers in silence.” Mai turned Peck’s head toward her. He turned it away again. “I’ve got this Chihuahua I have to muzzle for any exam. He’d eat my face off if he could.”

She took the dog’s head firmly to examine his eyes, his teeth.

“Big healthy boy,” she crooned. “Big handsome boy.”

Peck stared at a spot over her shoulder and shivered.

“Okay,” Mai said to Fiona. “You know the drill.”

Fiona took Peck’s head in her hands. “It’s only going to take a second,” she told him as Mai moved behind and out of eye line. “We can’t have you getting sick, right?”

She talked, rubbed, smiled, as Mai pinched some skin and slid the needle in.

Peck moaned like a dying man.

“There. All done.” Mai walked back to Peck’s head, held up her hands to show them empty of all tools of torture. Then she laid a treat on the table.

He refused it.

“Could be poisoned,” Fiona pointed out. “Anything in this room is suspect.” She signaled the dog down, and he couldn’t jump off the table fast enough. Then he stood, facing the wall, ignoring both women.

“It’s because I cut off his balls. He’s never forgiven me.”

“No, I really think it all comes down from Newman. He fears, so they all fear. Anyway, two down, one to go.”

The women stared at each other. “We should’ve taken him first. The worst first. But I just couldn’t face it.”

“I bought a really nice bottle of Pinot.”

“Okay. Let’s do this thing.”

They released Peck into the yard where he could exchange horrors with Bogart and seek sympathy with Mai’s one-eyed bulldog, Patch, and her three-legged beagle-hound mix, Chauncy.

Together they approached Fiona’s car where Newman lay on the backseat, nose pressed tight in the corner, body limp as overcooked pasta.

“Heads or tails?” Fiona asked.

“You take the head. God help us.”

He squirmed, tried to roll into a ball, leaped over the seats, then back again. He slithered like a snake in an attempt to wedge himself under the seat.

Then, unable to escape, went limp again, forcing the two women to carry his dead dog weight into the examining room.

“Fuck me, Fee. Couldn’t you raise Poms?”

“He could be a face-eating Chihuahua.”

“Please tell me you got his weight at home because there’s no way we’re getting him on the scale.”

“Eighty-two.”

It took a solid and sweaty thirty minutes as Newman resisted every second.

“You know,” Fiona panted, using her own body to hold Newman’s down, “this dog would walk through fire for me. Through fire over broken glass while meteors rained out of the sky. But I can’t get him to just hold the hell still for a routine exam. And he knew. The minute I called them to get in the car, he knew. How many times do I put them in the car for work, for play, for whatever? How does he know? I had to get the others in first—they’re more easily fooled. Then drag him. It’s humiliating,” she said to Newman. “For both of us.”

“Thank all the gods, we’re done.”

Mai didn’t bother to offer the treat as Newman would very likely spit it in her face. “Cut him loose, and let’s open that wine.”

Mai’s pretty bungalow sat with its back to the sea. Once it had been part of a farm, then the house had morphed into a B&B. When Mai and her husband moved to Orcas, he’d wanted to farm.

Mai moved her Tacoma practice to the island, pleased to work at home, content with the slower lifestyle while her husband raised chickens, goats, berries and field greens.

It took less than four years for the bloom to wear off on the gentleman farmer, whose next brainstorm had been buying a bar and grill in Jamaica.

“Tim’s moving to Maine,” Mai said as they carried the wine out to the yard. “He’s going to be a lobsterman.”

“Not kidding?”

“Not. I have to say, he lasted longer than I expected with the bar.” Even as they sat, dogs hurried over to vie for attention. Tails wagged, tongues licked. “Sure, now we’re pals.”

Mai passed out the biscuits she’d brought with her.

“They love you—and the treats aren’t poison except in the exam room.”

“Yeah, all’s forgiven. I’m sorry I couldn’t run the base for the search on the little boy. I had that emergency surgery, and I just couldn’t postpone it.”

“It’s no problem. That’s why we have alternates. They’re a nice family. The kid’s a champ.”

“Yeah?” Mai sighed. “You know, it’s probably—certainly—best that Tim and I put off having kids. Can you imagine? But my clock’s ticking double time. I know I’m going to end up adopting another dog or cat or other mammal to compensate.”

“You could adopt an actual human child. You’d be a great mom.”

“I would. But... I still have a tiny crack of a sliver of hope that I could start a family with a man, give the kid the full complement of parents. Which means I have to actually date, and have sex. And when I think of men, dating and sex, I remember how horny I am. I’m considering naming my vibrator Stanley.”

“Stanley?”

“Stanley is kind, and thinks only of my pleasure. I’m still winning our dry spell contest, I assume. Fourteen months.”

“Nine, but I don’t think that one time really counts. It was lousy sex.”

“Lousy sex is still sex. It may be a crap contest to win, but there are rules. And while there will always be Stanley, I’m seriously considering other options.”

“Girls? Club trolling? Personal ads?”

“All weighed and rejected. Don’t laugh.”

“Okay. What?”

“I’ve been checking out the Internet dating sites. I even have a profile and application ready to go. I just haven’t hit send. Yet.”

“I’m not laughing, but I’m not convinced. You’re gorgeous, smart, funny, interesting, a woman with a wide range of interests. If you’re serious about getting back into the dating arena, you need to put yourself out there more.”

Nodding, Mai took a long sip of wine, then leaned forward. “Fee, you may not have noticed, but we live on a small island off the coast of Washington state.”

“I’ve heard rumors.”

“The population of this small island is also relatively small. The single-male element of that population, considerably smaller. Why else are two gorgeous, smart and sexy women sitting here on a pretty evening drinking wine with dogs?”

“Because we like to?”

“We do. Yes, we do. But we also like the company of men. At least I think we do as it’s been some time. And I believe I’m correct in saying we both enjoy good, healthy, safe sex.”

“This is correct, which is why I really think that one time shouldn’t count in the contest.”