Mistress

Matthew McFarland

I’m sitting in what used to be my house. I used to complain about it. Roof leaked, stairs creaked, that sort of thing. “But,” I’d say, “four walls, yeah?” Not now.

I’m standing in a pile of wood, ash, and questions. The fire department folks left a while ago. Police, too. We had the standard little chat: “Sorry, Mac, your house burnt down. Probably arson. Our condolences. Insurance paid up?”

Yes, it was arson, Mr. Cop. To hell with your condolences. And I haven’t paid my insurance in some time now. Oh, well.

I’m pawing through the ashes of what was probably my dining room. I’m totally covered in soot and charcoal, and it feels like beetles in my lungs. The street curves around my house in such a way that headlights don’t touch me. Just as well. I’d hate to be arrested for looting my own place.

There’s one thing in this wreck that I want. Then I can leave. And I’m sure the fire didn’t touch it, couldn’t ever harm it. I have to believe that. It’s here somewhere.

I kick over the charred remains of my ottoman, sending another plume of ash down my throat. I stumble around, choking, trying to catch my breath, and my foot kicks a warped picture frame. The picture inside is gone, but I know what it was. The day that picture was taken is about the best starting point for this whole insane saga I can think of.

I used to work in a pet supplies store. That’s very different than a pet store, of course, because a pet supplies store is huge and makes more money selling 1000-pound bags of dog chow than it ever would selling the actual pets. We always had some animals in stock, so to speak ¾ typically low maintenance stuff like spiders, snakes, lizards, and so on. Mammals are harder to keep happy and alive, and if they die, people get upset.

So anyway, one day we have a photographer doing pictures of people and their pets for a very low price. And of course, we get a line around the block. The store did a lot of business, too (because after Fi-Fi was such a good girl, you just had to buy her a toy). My job was to stand next to the shutterbug and make sure the customer’s beloved pets didn’t start killing each other.

I remember it was freezing that day. Not really poor planning, either: it was the middle of September, and the warm weather should have lasted another week. Instead, the temperature dropped like a brick Thursday and Friday, and by Sunday morning I was scraping frost off the windows.

So there I am, walking up and down a line that must have reached halfway around the store, petting dogs, avoiding cats (so sue me), giving updates on how the line was moving, and so forth. From behind me, I heard someone call “Excuse me!” I turned around to see if it was me she meant.

It was. I’d love to be able to say that the first thing I noticed was her hair, her eyes, her breasts, whatever. Nope, it was her dogs. First off, she had a half-dozen of them. They were sitting remarkably patiently at her feet, six beautiful huskies. All of them were snow-white and fluffy, and I remember thinking that the weather outside must have agreed with them quite well. I stared at the dogs for a few seconds ¾ it was really bizarre to see that many of them with one person. Then I looked up and saw her.

White sweater, blue jeans, black hair band. Even if I hadn’t managed to get a print of the photo later, that’s how I’d remember her. She was blond, which, believe it or not, is not a turn-on for me, but the eyes cancelled that out. See, I feel that blonds tend to look sculpted and too perfect. Her eyes, though, were different colors ¾ one blue, one brown ¾ and that screwed up any chance she had of being perfect. And that I found absolutely beautiful.

So I walked over to her, did my best “May I help you?” riff. She nodded to one of her dogs, who was shifting uncomfortably and whining. “He’s well trained,” she said, “but when you’ve got to go…”

“Yeah.” I considered. This really wasn’t my job. If I took her dog out for a piss, I couldn’t go far, and that meant the dog would end up going on our sidewalk. Plus, it might set bad precedent ¾ I could just see everybody here asking me to take their pet out for a little walk. Hell with that.

She saw me waffling a bit. “I just don’t want to lose my place in line. I’ve been here all morning.” If she had batted her lashes right then, I probably would have made an excuse. She didn’t do that. She didn’t whine, or plead, she just asked me a favor. So I shrugged, and took the dog’s leash.

Why I didn’t think to grab my jacket is a mystery to me. Remember, it was below freezing (with wind chill, anyway), and here I am with a husky, happy as a lark, sniffing about the outside of the store looking for a place to whiz. My boss frowned on this sort of thing, to say the least, and I can’t imagine she’d have been too forgiving if she found out that I’d not only left the store but allowed a dog to pee on the sidewalk. But what the hell.

So the dog finally picked a spot and I walked it back into the store. The woman had moved up a few yards in the interim, and she nodded to the dog (who sat dutifully next to the others) and then looked up at me. “Thank you.” She was just as direct as before ¾ no gushing, no blushing.

“You’re welcome.” I looked down at the dogs, still amazed at their behavior. “Do you raise them or train them or what?”

“No. They’re my own personal dogs. I used to work for a dog trainer in California, so I’ve trained these guys since they were pups. I’ve got a special place for huskies.” She pointed to her eyes. The dogs all had the same eye color(s) that she did.

“Must be expensive,” I commented.

“Not as bad as you’d think.” The line moved, and someone further back called out “Excuse me, sir?” I ignored him for a moment. I hate being called “sir”. “So you must love animals,” she said.

“Yeah. Dogs, anyway.” A woman behind us in line, holding a Persian cat, sniffed a bit. “I just can’t afford to have one right now.”

“No employee discount?” She was smiling politely, and I was thinking about asking her out.

“Not so you’d notice.” I smiled back. Her smile didn’t change. No real chemistry, here, I thought, and then the guy behind us called for me again. I nodded to her and walked off.

The line moved on, slowly, and it was another thirty minutes before she got her portrait done. The dogs sat in a perfect circle around her, some upright, some lying down. It looked almost like a yearbook photo of a football team. I reflected again that I’d never seen more well-trained dogs.

She left, dogs in tow, gave me a wave on the way out. I slipped the photographer a twenty for a print of her portrait. I later ended up framing it for my wall. It hung there not quite a week before the house burned down.

I kick my way around the piles of dust, stubbing my toe occasionally on bricks, the remains of my end table, a bookshelf. It’s maddening. It’s all I can do to resist diving into the soot on my hands and knees, scrabbling around for the strongbox. I’ve already torn up my hands pretty badly sifting through the rubble, and the cuts on my palms look black and clotted under all the ash.

Somewhere nearby, a dog barks. I straighten up, even though I know it isn’t one of hers. For one thing, they always bark together. For another, I know where she is. I could find her anywhere in the world. They say a dog can recognize his master footsteps, and can smell his master’s scent on a pebble handled for a matter of seconds. Those abilities aren’t due to heightened sense. Not entirely, anyway.

A lot can happen in a week. I had a friend who got engaged on Sunday and got married the following Saturday. And it wasn’t like they eloped, either. They had a real wedding ¾ church, cake, priest, the whole bit. And then I had another friend who was diagnosed with a “harmless heart irregularity” on Tuesday and was dead by Friday. Not so harmless. Nothing to be done, though, yeah?

So I’ve already stated how my week began. Sunday morning, I met her and her dogs, Monday the photographer dropped by the store and handed me a print of the picture he took. I bought a nice-looking frame after work and hung it up in my hallway that night.

Monday night was colder still than the weekend had been. I don’t turn on the heat unless I’m turning blue (consequences of being flat broke), but it was on that night. My folks left me the house and managed to die young, so I’ve never needed to pay rent or anything, but the place is drafty as hell and I’m a lousy handyman. That night, I was sitting in my living room, flipping between a crappy horror movie on the Sci-Fi channel and an even crappier debate on CNN. I was wrapped up in a threadbare sleeping bag, too cold to get up and make something hot to drink. I looked out the window and noticed that it was snowing lightly, and thought again that this weather was perfect for huskies.

That led me to think about her, of course. I see dozens of attractive women a day, in the store, out and about, even on TV. I don’t think about them later. I go drinking with my friends, and we might ogle occasionally, but it doesn’t stick with me. The only time a woman’s face stays with me is if I talk with her, learn her name, and really get to know her. A few inane facts don’t do it.

Usually, anyway. That Monday night, though, I had to turn off the TV because I couldn’t concentrate and it was bugging me. I finally got up and stood in front of the photo for half an hour. Three of the dogs were staring out at the camera, the other three looking at her. I marveled again at how perfect they all looked; the dogs in a circle around her as though protecting her. That was probably what they were doing, I thought, trained to defend her in a pinch. Huskies, I remembered, weren’t bred for fanatic loyalty but more for intelligence. After all, the guy on the sled can’t tell if the ice is thin, and he doesn’t want some animal too stupid to stop if it feels things getting dangerous. Huskies won’t run across thin ice. Horses will. Humans too, probably, if somebody told them to.

I thought about all that, gazing at the picture. Suddenly I got to feeling lonely. I remember I wandered to my phone and flipped through my address book, trying to figure out who I wanted to talk with. It wasn’t late; maybe somebody would meet me for a drink, I thought. I passed over everybody’s name, thinking, “He’s not home, I don’t want to talk with him, he’s probably out with his wife,” and so on. I was flipping through a second time when the phone rang. Before I picked up, I knew it was her. That, I think, was the first time I could feel her presence. As queer as that sounds, I knew where she was and that she wanted to speak with me.

I picked up the phone. The first words I said were: “I’ve been waiting for you to call all night.” Had I? I couldn’t quite recall.

“I know,” she said. Pause. I heard snuffling in the background, probably one of her dogs. “Come over.” And she hung up.

I got in my car and started driving north. I drove around the lake, into the upscale suburban hell most folks call “Laketown”. I turned right into a development called Chestnut Grove, and heading around the block. I had never been to this neighborhood before. The last time I was in Laketown was when I was dating a college girl who thought I’d be a fun way to annoy her parents, and that was four years ago. If someone had asked me the next day how to get to her house, I’d have drawn a blank. But that night, I knew.

I pulled up in front of a brown house with off-white trim. An SUV sat in the driveway. I didn’t see one light on in the whole place, but I knew she was there. I walked up to the door and opened it. I didn’t need to knock because I had already been invited.

The instant I walked in the dogs surrounded me. Still no light. I could see down a hallway into what I assumed was the kitchen and the white shapes coming at me from all sides before I closed the door and it all went to shadows and panting. I felt the dogs against my legs, one of them behind me, and then I heard a whistle.

It wasn’t from any human mouth. The whistle was so shrill I could barely hear it. It was like a television on mute, not even loud enough to count as noise, but unmistakably present. The dogs backed off and I took a step forward. I felt her in front of me. I have no idea how — I couldn’t see or hear.

“Rick.” It was an acknowledgement of my presence. It wasn’t a welcome or an admonition, just a simply nod to the fact that I was there.

“Yes,” I heard myself say. I felt her hands slip under my shirt. I tensed. Her hands were freezing cold, and didn’t seem to warm any as she touched me. She took off my shirt.

“Undress,” she said. I did. I still couldn’t see. I stood there, shivering. There was no heat in the house. She pulled me close and I felt that she was naked as well. Her body was as cold as her hands, as though she’d been rolling in snow. She took my hand and led me down a flight of stairs. I heard the dogs on the steps behind me, toenails clicking, panting. We walked through a doorway — I have no idea how I knew that, as it was pitch dark — and into a room with soft carpet.

She pushed on my shoulders, and I dropped to the floor. She knelt next to me. I heard the soft whisper of the dogs making a circle around us.

“Warm me,” she said, and pushed me down on my back.

The ashes of my house are still warm in parts. The temperature’s dropping again; freezing rain predicted for tomorrow. I plan to be long gone before the weather worsens. I just need to find that damned strongbox.

She was always cold. That night she told me to warm her, I tried my best. But it didn’t seem to help. I made love to her, and never felt her body warm to me. In person, she gave off no more warmth ¾ no more life ¾ than her photograph did.

While we were making love (the phrase doesn’t fit, but it’ll do) the dogs surrounded us. I didn’t notice them during the act, but afterwards, as we lay together on that cool, soft carpet and I marveled at how even her breathing was, and how cold her skin, I heard them. Breathing softly, yawning, shifting ¾ making no secret of their presence, anyway. I felt surrounded and paranoid, and it didn’t help any that she wasn’t saying anything. I began to fidget ¾ I had to piss, for one thing, and I wasn’t sure if I could find my way to the stairs. Finally, I touched her shoulder and asked, “What’s your name?”

She sat up, and brushed my hand away. “Shut up.”

The voice was as cold as her skin. I thought of getting up and pawing my way to the door, and as if in response to that thought, one of the dogs growled. So I only said, “Yes”, in a voice so quiet I didn’t know it was mine.

“Do you have to be at work tomorrow?” So cold, that voice. I felt like crying, begging for just a little warmth, and I felt no shame for it. But I held it in and answered that I did have to work.

“All right,” she sighed. “Sleep here. Get up and go to work whenever you need to. I’ll call you if I need you again.” And with that, she stood up and walked out.

It seems absurd. It did then. It still does, if I stop and think about it. That’s the trick, of course. You need to learn not to think. Mistress tells you to stay, you stay. She says go to work, you go to work. Mistress asks for warmth, you warm her. For all the good it does.

I think once that night, I woke up, naked and shivering on the floor, and I might have cried out. I didn’t know where I was, only that I was alone and afraid. When I felt the dogs closing in around me, I felt even worse. Then, one by one, they lay down beside me. One of them licked my face ¾ once, not the frantic licking a dog gives its master ¾ and then flopped down next to me. The pack of them ¾ us ¾ slept there, keeping each other warm, until I woke up again, knowing somehow that it was after nine o’clock and I had to go to work.

That day at work was the worst day of my life. All day, I felt like the lovesick high school boy whose girlfriend passes him a note saying “We have to talk.” I felt as though I was waiting for judgment, as though my loyalty was being tested. And as if that weren’t enough, every dog that saw me that day barked its fool head off. The boss eventually told me to go count stock in the back room because the noise was upsetting people.

When I got off work, one of my co-workers asked me if I’d like to get a beer. I had no reason to decline. He was a nice enough guy, and a decent pool player, and hanging out and talking shit might have snapped me out of the panicky mood I was in. I turned him down. I told him I had plans that night, but I’d take a rain check. As he drove off, I watched him go and silently thanked him for paying attention to me. I’d never felt flattered by an invitation to get a beer before, but that day it seemed like any human contact would be a miracle.

I skipped dinner. I didn’t even change out of my work clothes. I just paced around my house until the phone rang. When it did, I nearly broke my neck diving for it.

“Rick,” she said. I was so overjoyed to hear her voice I nearly wept. She paused for me to catch my breath, and then continued. “I’m glad you’re home. Stay there.” And she hung up.

I retreat out of the ashes and try to breathe. The soot’s up my nose so far I’m spitting black goo, and I’m afraid some fireman or looter might have grabbed the box. I’d be solidly screwed then. Everything is in that box.

I walk back into the mess, breathing as lightly as possible. I pass a melted hunk of plastic that was probably my CD tower. I almost laugh, but stop myself. No need to agitate the ashes any more than necessary.

When she told me to stay, everything I’d been feeling all day melted away. I felt like I’d passed the test, like my loyalty had been judged and accepted. The first hour of waiting was easy, I just sat on the couch and stared, happy in the knowledge that she trusted me.

The next two days were hell.

Every clock in my house stopped working. I couldn’t leave ¾ every time I got near the door I heard her voice in head, that cold, sharp voice telling me to stay. It wasn’t a request or a favor, it was an admonishment…even a command. I couldn’t leave without leaving her, and I couldn’t live with that.

I had no concept of time other than sunrise or sunset. I watched some TV, but it didn’t seem to make any sense somehow. I ate whatever was handy ¾ cereal, leftovers, anything that didn’t require preparation. All the easy food was gone by morning, and I went hungry for the next two days. I didn’t even think about work until my boss called me, and then I told her I couldn’t make it. When I couldn’t give her a good reason, she fired me. I didn’t care.

The weather got even colder. It snowed on the second night, and I wished I could be out in it with the huskies, romping, playing, wrestling with the pack. But I couldn’t leave.

When she finally arrived, it was just after sunrise on Friday morning. When the SUV pulled into the driveway, I was curled up on the kitchen floor with a space heater near my head. I stood up so fast that my sore muscles gave out and I fell over onto the floor. She got out of the car and opened the back door, and I was overjoyed to see that she had brought the pack with her. They stuck close to her heels until she reached the door, then she nodded to them, and they charged out into the drifts to play.

She opened the door and helped me to my feet. She stared at my face for a few moments, as though searching for something. I stood there with my hands at my sides, feeling like I should salute or grovel or something. Finally, her face lit up and she nodded. She put her hand on the side of my face and I felt her cold fingers drag along my three-day beard. “Rick,” she said, “did they fire you?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I tried to clear my throat and found I couldn’t.

“Are you hungry?”

I nodded. Speaking seemed wrong, somehow. She dropped a backpack that she had slung around her shoulder on the kitchen table, and opened it to reveal three Tupperware containers. She opened the largest and I smelled copper and cinnamon. The Tupperware contained what looked like pot roast covered in a thick, red sauce, but it smelled better. The aroma had an appeal I could never remember food having before, but it might have been because I hadn’t eaten in forty-eight hours. She set the container on the table and motioned for me to sit. The other two containers lay untouched.

“Do you trust in me, Rick?” she asked as I sat down. This time I found the strength to speak.

“Yes.”

Her eyes grew sharp, even though her face wore the same cold smile. “Yes, what?”

I stared at her, trying to figure out what she wanted. The dogs began scratching at the door, and I started. The aroma from the meat — that’s what it was, a big hunk of barely cooked (if not raw) meat — was making my head pound. It was making my mouth water. I looked at her eyes, and she glanced down at the bloody feast in front of me, and I knew I couldn’t eat without her say-so, no matter how ravenous I felt. And then I knew what she wanted.

“Yes, Mistress,” I whispered, and she smiled with as much warmth as I’d ever see from her.

“Good boy,” she said softly, and nodded towards the food. I picked up the meat and started gnawing at it.

During the time I had been waiting for her, I experienced what you might call moments of clarity. I knew, on some level, how absurd it was for me to be waiting for her, losing my job, starving, torturing myself for her. There were times each day — each hour — that I considered leaving and forgetting all about her. I know now that I would have done exactly that if I had left. But I’m stuck. I passed her tests, all but the last one. And as soon as I find that box, I’ll have passed that one, too.

That morning in the kitchen, she ate as well. She poured the contents of one of the other Tupperware boxes onto a plate, and the contents of the other into a beer glass. The stuff on the plate was white and thick, and had a strange, sweet smell I couldn’t place. The liquid she drank smelled like honey or flowers, I wasn’t sure which. I wasn’t really paying too much attention — I was busy feasting. When the meat was gone and my bowl licked clean, she stood up and offered me her hand. She led me to the bathroom, and put me in front of the mirror. There wasn’t enough light to see my reflection well, but I could see something staining my face. No surprise, I’d eaten messily.

“Now,” she said, “I need you to look at yourself.” She didn’t say any more, but I knew this was another test. She had seen my loyalty, now she had to see my courage. She turned on the light, and I nearly screamed.

I was looking at my own face. My face was covered in blood. Whatever that meat had come from, it was soaking in a pool of its own juices, which I’d managed to smear over my face and neck while eating. My shirt was also splattered with gore, and my teeth were stained brown. I could see a tiny chunk of fat between my incisors.

I looked like a cannibal. I looked like a madman. My facial hair was growing out stiff and wiry, and much blonder than usual. I didn’t recognize myself, and yet there was no mistake that I had become the thing in the mirror. But really, the blood wasn’t the reason I nearly lost it.

My eyes are — were — brown. But now, the left one had turned blue.

I didn’t scream. God, but I wanted to. They say that addicts will make any kind of excuse before admitting they have a problem. They never have to face their vice quite so vividly, I guess. I knew I had a problem. Anyway, I thought of it as a problem then. I was changing. My body was changing right in front of me. I’d lost my job and apparently my mind, and she was just standing beside me in the bathroom, cool as ever, waiting for me to break.

I’d love to be able to say that I just didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. The truth is, though, if she’d wanted me to scream, I’d have screamed to beat the band. She wanted me to be strong, so strong I was.

I turned to face her and the expression on her face was…indulgent. She knew a question was coming and she was prepared to answer it. So I asked.

“What is happening to me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Mistress,” I added.

“You know very well what is happening to you, Rick.”

“But —“

“Shut up.” She took a step back and leaned against the wall. “What do you want?”

“I…am not sure, Mistress.” I sat down on the toilet. I wanted her to touch me, but I wasn’t sure how to say that.

“You call me your Mistress, you eat the food I provide. You warm me when I need warmth, and you do not cry out even when you are ready to wet yourself.” She smirked at me. “What more do you need?”

“Nothing,” I said, and then I broke. I fell onto the floor, crying my eyes out. I’d never wept so hard in my life, not when my parents died, not after any breakup, never. I just finally realized that all I wanted was to belong, body and soul, to this woman, and I knew exactly how stupid I was for wanting that. I was nothing but a lap dog, and all I wanted was to be used like one. It would be one thing to realize that you’re not the lead dog, I guess, but for the dog to realize that pulling the sled is the best he can hope for is something else.

She waited patiently for me to finish crying. She knelt down next to me and took my face in her hands. “What now?” I asked her.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small wooden coin. On one side was a carving of a woman’s face, on the other a Greek letter. Never having been a frat boy, I had no idea which one. “Guard this,” she said. “When you see me again, I’ll want it back. It had better not have a scratch on it.” And then she got up and left. I heard the dogs bark as they climbed into her SUV, and then they were gone.

She didn’t tell me to stay that time, so I didn’t. I washed my face, dressed in warm clothes, and left the house. I didn’t bother to drive. I waded through the snow, kicked over some snowmen, pissed against a fence. The world seemed so quiet, and yet I thought I could hear traffic three streets away. I walked by the pet supplies place, and passed one of my former co-workers in the parking lot. He didn’t recognize me, just stared at me like I was a freak. I am, I guess. I am a freak.

I bought the strongbox that day. When I got home, I put the coin and the picture of her and her dogs in it and shoved it next to my toolbox in my coat closet. Then I left again.

I walked all the way to Laketown. It was growing dark when I left, and by the time I finished the eight-mile hike through the snow, I should have been frozen stiff. I felt pretty good, considering. Winded and cold, yeah, but otherwise fine. I didn’t knock on her door. I didn’t care if I was invited. I needed answers, and I was starting to feel like myself again.

She was sitting in her living room, lights on this time. She was leaning on the wall — no furniture in the room at all — and her dogs jumped to their feet as I walked in. They snarled and I snarled right back. Two of them backed down, but the other three advanced, teeth bared, ready to fight. She stopped them with a gentle whistle, and stopped me with a look.

“What’s happening to me?” I asked. The snarl hadn’t left my voice.

“What are you doing here?” She looked bored. “I don’t need you right now.”

“I don’t care,” I spat. “I don’t care. I want to know what’s happening. What have you done to me?”

She stood up, and I felt two inches tall. “I haven’t done anything to you, you pitiful freak.” She walked towards me and I felt like running. I straightened up and held her gaze. “You made these choices. You know that. You could have left at any moment and never seen me again.” I must have reacted to that, because her face changed. She knew she had the upper hand. “But you didn’t want to do that. You wanted to be mine.” She wasn’t more than a few inches away from me. We were almost touching. “You can be with me, you know. You’re so close. But you must learn, Rick.” She stepped away and leaned against the wall, and I took a good look at her.

I said before that I’d always remember her in her jeans and sweater. I’d only ever seen her in that outfit, at the pet store, and then naked the night I’d warmed her. I couldn’t for the life of me recall what she’d been wearing at my house that morning. But now, I took a good look.

She was still blond, still beautiful in her way. Her skin was still pale and her manner still cold. She wore a blue silk robe, and the belt was slipping open with her every movement. She didn’t seem to care, and anyway, I had already figured that modesty wasn’t one of her strong points. She raised her hands slightly, and the five dogs sat in front of her. I realized just what it was that was different then.

When I’d met her at the store, she had been out in public and bound by the fact that people could see her. So she’d had her headband and her money, and her story about raising the dogs and working for a trainer in California. But every time since then that I’d seen her, it had been on her terms. And now, she was at home, with her guardians ready, and she was not taking any shit. She didn’t have the world’s eyes on her here, and she could do whatever she wanted. I felt a surge of the same hopelessness and humility I’d felt while bawling on my bathroom floor earlier and I shrank back. The dogs sensed my weakness and stood, growling. She shushed them and raised her eyes to mine. “See, Rick? You know me now?”

I made my choice right then. I could have run out the door and never looked back, been my own man, and lived forever with only the photo and my strangely altered eyes as prove that any of this had happened. But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to protect and worship and love her the way the pack did. I can’t explain how it is that a man wants to lose his free will. It’s a choice to be loyal and devoted, really — married men and even soldiers make similar choices. Mine was just a lot more extreme.

I dropped to my knees and showed her my throat. The dogs rushed forward, but didn’t bite. The licked me and wrestled with me, and I felt like I had come home, and now everything would be fine, because I could protect my Mistress with my six brothers.

But only five dogs surrounded me.

I sat up, and counted them. Five. Where was the sixth? I looked up at my Mistress, quizzically, and she smiled at me with such cruelty that I actually whimpered.

“It’s not over yet, Rick,” she said. “Where’s the coin?”

I got up and ran. I didn’t stop running until I reached the burning wreck that was my house. I saw someone slinking away through the neighbor’s yard, but I didn’t question it. I knew who started the fire, just as I knew that when I saw the Mistress again, the sixth dog would have returned, having taken on his true ¾ or at least preferred ¾ shape once more. The Mistress wants warmth, you warm her. If she is threatened, you protect her. If she wants a house burned, you burn it.

I answered the police’s questions the best I could, but I made damn sure the fireman knew that I was worried about the strongbox. Supposedly it could sit in a fire for ninety minutes without damaging the contents, so I wasn’t so worried about the coin burning, but I was afraid someone might lift it.

I’ve been looking for it ever since. It’s been maybe six hours, but like I said, my sense of time’s been off lately.

I haven’t had a lot of luck. I’ve kicked my way through the ashes so many times that my boots are full of soot. My hands are a bloody mess, and I don’t want to know what my face looks like. Finally, out of sheer frustration, I sit down and start pawing around, sniffing lightly.

I don’t smell the box. I smell the toolbox that was next to it. I smell oil and the crisp smell of burnt metal. I race for the spot where the scent seems to originate, and dig like mad. I must have missed this before because a big chunk of wood fell on it, but now I know, and I lift the wood off. There’s the box. I don’t have the key — must have fallen out of my pocket — but I don’t care. I smash the box against the curb until it flies open, and the coin rolls onto the sidewalk. The picture flutters away in the breeze, but I really don’t care about that. After all, I’m about to join the pack.

I start running back towards her house, when I see the headlights coming towards me. The SUV stops, and as she gets out, I know it’s her by the sound of her footsteps. I run up to her, panting, energetic, ready to give my life for her love. She opens the side door of the vehicle and points to each of the dogs in turn. “Jason, Michael, Don, Alan, Sam, and Theo. They know you already.” She holds out her hand and I give her the coin. “Good. Get in. If you’re sure.” And I know that this is the last chance I’ll have to be my own man. Actually, except for little errands occasionally (I can smell gasoline on Alan’s paws), I may never again be a man at all.

I turn around and looked around at the world. I don’t see a damned thing I’ll miss. I do notice, however, before I climb into the car, before the dogs tear at my clothes and I begin to change, that she has a vanity plate. It reads “MSTRS CRC”. I puzzle over that for a minute before I get “Mistress Circe” out of it.

When I had a man’s mind, it might have meant something to me. I’m untroubled by that now. The Mistress does not need us to solve puzzles. The Mistress wants only loyalty, courage, cleverness, and strength.

And sometimes warmth, of course.

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