The hot water sent up pungent steam; I’d poured in way too much chlorine before leaving for Sausalito, and it was now like boiling myself in disinfectant. It felt good; I let the jets pound on my back. Tess trotted up, dropped the yellow ball-flap at the jacuzzi’s lip—No, honey, not now, I said — and then shoved it into the bubbling water; it swirled around then flapped closed, trapping in the water’s weight, and sank slowly to the bottom. I ignored it, but Tess went wild, whining desperately to have it back. I had to dive under to retrieve it, the heat and the chlorine searing my eyes, then tossed it back to her with a firm admonition—That’s it, Tess, no more Ball, not now—but she did it again, then again, in that relentless, needy Ball! Ball! Ball! way, just when I needed something, to relax—Stop it, just stop it! I snapped — then again, just to get me, I knew it, until finally I came up with it, burning, just in time to hear a phone ring’s trill. Or, I thought, listening for it. The jets were loud and I wasn’t sure I heard a ring, but then I was sure I did, but then Tess barked at me, crying for the ball I still held, and so then I wasn’t sure. But then there was nothing. She began to whine and whine—All right, you want it, you want the fucking ball? — and I threw it as far as I could over the backyard fence, probably into a neighbor’s yard or garage space. Go get it, go! She whimpered pitifully, and I hated her, suddenly, wanted to punish her for all the obsessive, manipulative Ball bullshit, her pathetic, obvious need for love that I’d always given in to and had made me such an idiot, had cost me so much. I shoved her hard away from the edge of the jacuzzi, ready to snap her spine, ready to make it all stop. She just looked at me, bewildered and wounded, and meekly rolled over on her back on the jacuzzi-splashed concrete, her crooked little paws raised in supplication.
The only message on the machine was the old one from Dayna. I hurriedly got dressed, got Tess back in the car — she crept into the backseat this time, burrowed herself down behind my seat like she’d done a horrible, inexcusable thing — and drove over to Dayna’s. Eric’s car was parked in front of his place, but if he saw me, hey, I was just there to see my friend Dayna. But she had someone over, a guy, some short, rabbity fellow biologist from the lab, who smiled and poured me a glass of wine but kept gazing at her with a moony, indulgent expression. She didn’t even marvel at Tess, just let her jump up once or twice, then told her nicely to get down. I waited an hour to ask her if she’d seen or talked to Eric recently, and she mentioned something about their going to the grocery store together a few times, a jog in the park. He’d taken a weekend trip to La Jolla with some buddies, but that was a few weeks ago; he’d told her the trip was great, they’d all gotten laid. And she’d seen him a few times since with some really cute girl, coming or going from his building. She looked at me, smugly, I thought, maybe sort of challengingly. As if I’d tell her anything. As if I’d tell her I pictured him fucking some moist-skinned twenty-two-year-old, spreading her legs and eating her on the velour playpen couch or the kitchen table, telling her Fuck me, his look saying Suck me, I’m hard, and It’s specifically, singularly, because of you, and how it made me want to drive nails into both of them, all of them. It was pretty late, and obvious Dayna and her biologist wanted to be alone, so I picked up Tess and we left. I was glad Dayna had found someone, but it seemed just a little sad to me, pathetic, that she’d grabbed at the first guy not smashed flat by the plunging, falling safe of her need.
OUTSIDE TESS STARTED pulling on her leash. As if to get away from me. I apologized, I bent over and tried to rub her tummy, It was my fault, I told her, I was the one who took away your ball, I’m sorry, I just lost it for a minute, but she wouldn’t even look at me. Even if she did, I suddenly knew I’d see hate in her little blue eyes, betrayal, distrust, disgust, and that made me want to bawl, crumple up, just die. Pound her into loving me again. She seemed to want to cross the street, or I thought she did, so I let out the leash a few feet and let her go. She trotted directly across to where the streetlight was in front of Eric’s apartment house, the one that always shone through the tree branches into his bedroom window. She sniffed around the grass, squatted and peed, but then still tugged me, really, she did, across the patch of landscaping, toward the dark window at the side of the building. And I looked through the window, knowing what I was going to see, the heat and the wet, the feral rocking, a thing to draw blood, flaming and lethal as love. But all I could see, I thought, was a still, dull gleam of torso, and then a curve, maybe, of breast, a rumple of long dark hair, a girl sleeping curled up inside his arms, the quilted bedspread half thrown over both of them, all of it, both of them, still. I looked over at Tess; she gazed at me with innocence, the light from the streetlamp making a nimbus of her fine apricot fur.
SHE WOULD HAVE been seven on her next birthday, and that’s starting to get old, sort of, for a dog. She would have gotten arthritis, or canine diabetes, and I couldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t be able to bear seeing her in any pain, or seeing her hurt, and I bet Dayna would be just too busy with her drooly boyfriend when the time came to help. I got a fire going in the fireplace, and I brought her onto my lap and held her for a while. I felt the tiny staple-stitches inside her belly where she’d been fxd, and admired her trim, unused vulva that always kept her sort of a puppy, and inhaled her furry, spongy tartar smell. I rubbed her tummy until she relaxed and went limp and trusting the way she used to, with me, her little almond-shaped eyes closing in warm, sleepy peace, and I knew she loved me again and she knew how much I loved her. She let her head drop back, and the soft, clumped curls along her throat weren’t any problem at all, because I’d been very, very careful to sharpen the blade.
I’d bought a new ball to put in with her, but afterward I realized the rubber wouldn’t burn, it would just melt to a smoky, periwinkle-blue lump in the fireplace. And the aroma of her was so good, like rich, roasting, crackling kernels of popcorn. So I just buried the ball in the backyard. Sometimes now I awake alone in the middle of the night, thinking I hear its thump-roll, or feel her shove it under my thigh: You want to play with my ball? Here, look, here’s a ball! You want to play? Please, please! Please, please, love me love me love me. Sometimes I hear her nail-scrambles on the floor.
I just wish I’d tasted her before she burned all away. I’m sure she would have tasted so sweet. Like apricots.