Dog Seed. Part Five.

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[CW: >!Animal Abuse, Sexual Content!<]

What is God? The question egged on a caustic edge while burning limbs hammered and laid out the interlocking hardwood. I hadn’t stopped since waking up. The living room and hallway were done, now I persisted in cutting fine the pieces required to complete the coat closet and dining room.

There was no point in haggling with what accrued along the feet of a kitchen and downstairs bathroom since a tile stone held its merit within both spaces. I’d become acclimated to the sweat that slickened my form, the paths it cut along my back and hind quarters proving all too well that I was a whore.

Took never left my mind as I worked. Nor did Toby, or my father. I learned to grit my teeth sometime into the third hour and shot sour glances towards the remnants of fast food which sat atop the overfilled trash can. I wanted so badly for that dumb man to have me, yet I pushed him out without so much as a second thought.

He didn’t deserve the baggage that I brought. My family was ruined while his granted him help. Took still lived with both his parents, and I knew their love was persistently reciprocated. My father and brother rarely talked to me. One because I chose my mother over him, the other because I couldn’t recognize his pain.

I never wanted my brother to run away to college. I wanted him to remain the shield that kept me from feeling the full capacity of a strangled union. Did that make me selfish? Well, I was the younger sibling. He should have understood the gravity when he left me for dead.

“Fuck!” I shouted after another board proved to be cut far too small. I was deprived of a steady sleep. I simply couldn’t concentrate. Upon tossing the piece away, I sat down on my butt while tremors took me. I just wanted this grief to stop. I desperately wanted someone to fuck me.

The sun poured in from an open window, bathing the hallway I occupied with the golden hues of a heavier light. Soon the heat would cook me, and I wasn’t ready for the onslaught. The air conditioning was still broken. The windows fought against providing any steady source of airflow. There was not a damn thing in this place that fucking worked!

I threw a razor cutter across the hall, breaking down as the weight of everything became so clear to me as a struggle. What was the point? I couldn’t do this. I’d bared my chipped maw and bitten off so much that I couldn’t chew. Why the hell did I try and drive Took away?

He was cute. He was earnest. He thought I was pretty? How the fuck could he? I adored the way he held me last night. That slab of raw muscle holding me as well as a bag of delectable food. Was that all I needed? Feed me plenty and I’ll gladly spread my legs? I was suffering along the new floorboards. How come nothing made sense in my head?

The summer heat crawled across the canvas, and I was sweating tears and blood. My knuckles were raw, so too were my fingers. I didn’t buy gloves, why was I so stupid? A felt a wet nose press itself against an exposed side. I stared at the floor and remembered all the different ways a kind doctor taught me to breathe.

Leaning into the gesture, I faltered. Toby was dead, right? I landed a heap along my left side. Tears didn’t follow, but the wracking sobs did. I was a wreck and didn’t know how else to handle it. It took a long time before the final floorboard was placed. I refused to admit that there had ever been any issue.

The heat was exhausting. I heard that same truck drive up then park itself outside. I knew what that meant, yet it didn’t stop me from crying. Did I need him? Not in that way, but maybe I did. Someone stood with their head bowed in the kitchen. I didn’t notice them as the front door swung along aching hinges.

“Lori?” Took was cautious. He knew where he had taken a previous misstep, but that was not his cross to bear. He’d enter into a haunted home, two coffees held one in each hand. As soon as he saw me, wretched within the hallway, he was quick to leave such stupor along the finished floor in an effort to come and hold me.

But that was the trap, wasn’t it? I’d feel him pull me close, and in an instant, I was pressing my lips to his own. Chaos, maybe. The two of us would clamor, then our clothes were on the floor. I straddled him inside that narrow hallway. He didn’t put up a fight. But after the two of us were left gasping, his tongue proved more than forthright.

“Are you okay?” He wasn’t asking why I shuddered. He was still inside me, but his heat worked quickly to suffer. “Shut up.” Was all that I offered, pressing a wet cheek to his taut shoulder. The sun cooked us both well within minutes, Took was eager to flee outdoors.

“Come here.” He dragged me out into the backyard and beneath the all-encompassing shade of the dog tree. I felt safety in being this close. Took quite clearly chose to loathe it. Yet the fenceline hid our naked bodies from the prying eyes of nosy neighbors, and soon the taste of shared cigarettes accentuated the bitter bite of iced coffee.

I’d nestle myself along the lap of a sincerely rugged man as he watched me for a long moment. This time between us was erratic. I noticed he found an answer to a previous question before I could find the strength to say it. “You’re not okay.” I nearly laughed in the face of his innocence.

“Does that make you regret touching me?” I was being both terse and facetious. Took coddled me within a pair of strong arms, tied in a knot around my waist. His lips grazed the scar hidden just behind a mess of sweat soaked hair.

“Not at all.” I hated myself for how terribly I’d acted before. “I’m sorry I pushed you out.” Why did I have to say that? “It’s okay.” So forgiving. He swept my concern out from the gaze of his own hindsight. “I know you’re scared.”

Gritting my teeth, I wanted to argue. But the effort never came. “You’re stupid.” I bawled, yet with a stubbly chin placed along the back of my neck, he’d respond. “I know.” This lent us to another moment kept within each other’s company. We weren’t distant, but given the noise, I swear we should’ve been.

“What I said before…” I’d lean back into him, inciting a pause. “You just want to help, I get that. I’m just… not used to it.” This was all I really said. There was no point in dragging out the past, not when it completely surrounded me.

“Well, the offer still stands. If you’d have me.” I already did, but I knew what he meant. Sitting out amidst that slow breeze, wafting cigarette smoke over into the neighbor’s yard, I could almost get used to this peace. But I simply wasn’t capable of pursuing happiness.

I could yearn for it, sure. Short points punctuated the last several years with casual glimpses at what I could have. But to reach out and take such euphoria for myself? I wasn’t worthy. At least, not yet. Fixing the house was fit to be my proving ground. If I couldn’t achieve this for myself, why should I ever be happy?

“Maybe.” I didn’t slam the door this time. Instead, I hoped the sentiment stuck as smoke poured out from trembling lips. I felt Took stiffen underneath me. “But I wouldn’t say no to a more proper date.” The effortless way in which I flummoxed his emotions, that should have been a red flag.

Yet the earnest man simply pulled me deeper into his arms. “It’ll be more than burgers next time.” My heart fluttered as he chuckled. Such a rapturous thing. “I’ll hold you to that.” The playfulness in such a gesture came with another kiss, and we fell into each other for the second time beneath the tall dog tree.

It was nearly evening when Took left. I watched him from the front door. Neighbors kept peeking from open windows and screen doors. There would be no stopping the rumors about us. As soon as his red truck pulled out and traveled down the street, I shifted from the doorframe and back into my home. I wasted a lot of time today but was now much lighter on my feet.

I better surveyed the floor that I laid with every intent to ensure a manic episode didn’t leave a terrible mess. There were only a few issues, nothing major, and I was able to rectify them with little effort. This led me to start feeling something inside my chest. Was it pride? I did this. Baby steps were important, but I was starting to run.

My bad taste in music echoed out from wide open windows late into the night. I turned it down after eleven once a noise ordinance went into full effect. I spent a long time scrubbing the wallpaper from every vertical surface downstairs, revealing eggshell white behind the smoke-stained varnish. After that I soaked all the light fixtures in the bathtub, using this brief moment of clarity to try and match paint colors using a cracked phone screen.

Another list was made to fix more issues. I needed new plates for all the outlets and light switches. I needed to get new trim for where the old had split or went missing. I decided at this point to then sit down and order appliances. A fridge, stove oven, and dishwasher were the first things that I bought, but after agonizing over it for almost another hour, I added the cost of a sectional couch to the several expenses taking more noticeable bites out of my limited inheritance.

Two thirds were nearly gone now. So I started weighing the pros and cons of buying everything else secondhand. I wouldn’t take the risk with a washer and dryer, perhaps a mattress as well, but I determined everything else as not needing to require a similar caution. I could find the rest of a necessary furniture over time at varying thrift stores.

With all that settled, I tried to line up a better itinerary of things needing to be done next. I wanted to finish the downstairs before moving up. But it was then that I started to realize, I’ve been avoiding the kitchen all day.

I didn’t mean to, or at least, I thought so? Last night was still present in my mind. That alarming memory. I couldn’t have been simply talking to myself, had I? There was someone in the kitchen, maybe the garage, I swore this. But then, why did I suddenly recollect an experience I never knew I had in the hallway connecting both?

My dad killed our dog, yes. But I was certain he never struck me. He told me to go away, of course. But I didn’t remember having been so obstinate. I stared into the empty kitchen for a very long time, almost willing the dark figure come out. If it was real, it would prove it, yeah? Nothing happened, and I started to feel stupid.

Everyone else chose to think this place was haunted, but I chose to believe that I was merely fracturing under strain. Ghosts don’t exist. The dead couldn’t come back to life. If they could, why wasn’t Toby still here? Why can’t I talk to my mother?

I wasn’t paying attention, perhaps that had been the cause. Something moved behind the left wall of kitchen cabinets, nearest to the pantry meant to store food. My eyes would immediately focus on the mass. It seemed to be peeking out at me, one long limb reaching out in my direction.

But the pressure of encroaching footsteps catered to the call of old floorboards, and this quickly caused the phantom to flee. As it did so, I felt like it pulled something up and out of my head. I was eight years old again, standing outside the kitchen archway while my mother tended to dinner.

“Go get your brother.” She’d shoo me, before taking a wooden ladle to a pot as it bubbled atop the old gas stove. For some reason, I didn’t want to move. “He’s playing outside in the garage with daddy right now, I don’t think they want me to join them.”

My concern wasn’t enough to pull momma away from what she was doing. “Good, then you can tell them both that it’s dinnertime.” A loud bang caught us both off guard. A second later, the garage door crashed open. “Honey?” My momma called. I was staring at my father as he stood there in the hallway.