Maggie shivers, and every breath shows as a tiny cloud of luminous vapor in the pre-dawn gloom. She’s excited; I can tell because her chest is rising like a bellows. I’d forgotten how wonderfully she fills out a tight sweater. Not that she’s ever been what one might describe as buxom, but she’s always been sweetly round. The years have added some heft—all good. She shivers again; I can imagine her nipples tightening in the chill.
“It’s going to happen isn’t it?” Her eyes are liquid brown, pleading.
“Yes … I mean … it should. They’re just waiting for the warrant.”
She hugs herself against the cold. I wish in that instant that she’d hug me. Yes, I think to myself, this has to happen; it better happen.
And so we wait with maybe a hundred other people along a lonely road, a caravan of vehicles stopped on the shoulder. I think about the route that took us here; why it’s so important for Maggie and me.
She had always been the radical, the justice-seeker. So confrontational; it’s a wonder she got through her twenties without getting her head split open. The night we met I had yanked her into the foyer of my dorm as the police tactical force, nightsticks swinging, cleared the quadrangle after the SDS orchestrated a riot at a peace rally.
It doesn’t seem that long ago; then, sometimes it does. The Vietnam War—it might as well had been the Civil War. Ancient history—that’s what our kids called it whenever we brought it up. There have been plenty of wars since then. Maybe that’s what got Maggie down.
But Maggie wouldn’t relent; she couldn’t not turn down a request to get on the front line of any cause. I always held back; I’d go with her, but my heart was never in it. I was a vet when we met, making use of the GI Bill. It’s amazing we fell in love—well, it was amazing she fell in love with me; I couldn’t help falling in love with her.
We married young, in the seventies. We had kids; they grew up and headed out the door. I was looking forward to a comfortable life as a pair of empty-nesters. But, since the kids left, Maggie had become remote. I suppose you could say the same for her libido. Maybe she’d been indifferent even before the kids moved out. It was just, when there was only me and her, I really began to notice the dearth of passion—the lack of sex. If we did it at all it was perfunctory. Then she’d roll away without a word, turn her back toward me, as if she was glad to get it done with.
I tried. Set up the weekend getaways, romantic venues—all a waste.
Then one night she shook me awake.
“I don’t think I love you anymore,” she said.
“Huh?” I replied, groggy and wool-headed.
“I mean … I don’t feel anything … It’s not just you. I don’t have any purpose. John, we don’t matter.”
“Christ!” I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “That’s a hell of a thing to hit me with in the middle of the night.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and turned her back toward me again. “I’m so damned comfortable. I’m not making a difference. I just don’t feel anything.”
I laid awake the rest of the night thinking what went wrong. I recalled our tumultuous courtship, punctuated by one demonstration after another, close calls with stick-swinging cops. Later, Maggie would screw me like a demon. It made her crazy—it made her horny. And later I’d hobble around, aching from a muscle that I’d pulled fucking her in positions no human being has any business attempting or was designed to accomplish. But it was all so good.
I resolved to find a way to stoke the embers that once burned in Maggie’s soul. She was a good person who desperately needed to do good, right wrongs, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
And that’s how we found ourselves on this road, in the chill air, the first light of dawn breaking through the tree tops. Would it work? It had to work.
We saw the flashing blue lights crest a hill then disappear, then emerge again in the distance where the road rose. The state police cruiser barreled past us then pulled up next to the sheriff’s car about fifty yards ahead of us. We watched the sheriff take the document from the trooper’s hand then he called us all to gather round.
“Okay, folks, I want to thank you all, and all the organizations for turning out on this chilly morning to help us out. But, I want to emphasize that this is a law enforcement operation, so I’m gonna need to deputize you all. Raise your right hands please, and repeat after me.”
You could sense the excitement run through the crowd as the sheriff administered the oath.
I nudged Maggie’s arm. “Hey, does this mean we’re cops?”
“Oh, my God … does it?”
“Pig!”
She laughed. “Oh no, it can’t be!”
I hadn’t seen her laugh like that in a long time. I wanted to kiss her so much.
“Okay folks,” the sheriff bellowed, “You’re now a duly authorized posse.”
“A posse … cool!” someone shouted behind us, a few others cheered. It was unreal.
“We don’t have badges for you, but we do have some neat jackets that’ll help us distinguish you good guys from the bad guys.”
The deputies began to hand out the blue jackets with POSSE in big yellow letters across the back. When the sheriff was satisfied we had all put them on, he said, “Okay, folks, things could get a tad hairy. My deputies and I are going to go in quiet, then we’re going to make a hell of a racket that’ll hopefully rattle the people we’re going after, disorient them. They’re felons, after all. Not nice people. Once we’re satisfied we have the situation under control, we’ll give the word for you to come in, and you’re gonna come in fast. We can’t waste a minute. I know this guy, he’s threatened to get rid of the evidence if we come after him; I don’t suppose I need to explain what that would mean.”
Now I sensed a surge of anger and indignation rise in the crowd—the posse.
“Okay, everybody, saddle up! Let’s do some good!”
We piled into our vans. Ours was piloted by a deputy who didn’t look much older than our youngest girl … a little wisp of the thing. Pretty. She looked kind of sexy too, with that semiautomatic strapped to her hip.
“Buckle up, folks. I’m Deputy Dawg … It’s my real name so no snickers, please. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you just called me Emily … okay?”
“Hey, Emily,” we replied.
Her face turned serious. “Okay, here we go.”
We pulled onto the road, the lead vehicle in the caravan of vans. We stayed about a hundred yards behind the last of the deputies’ cruisers.
“It’s going to happen,” Maggie said, her voice a whisper hoarse with excitement. “We’re really going to do this.”
Her chest was heaving, her lips puffy, wet and kissable. She was so sexy, I had to force myself to pay attention to our situation. We were doing something dangerous—again. And it felt great.
Ahead the cruisers turned onto a dark dirt road. We maintained our distance, then we turned onto the same road. Sunlight was just beginning to peek through the woods, but without the tail lights of the cars ahead of us, I don’t think we could have navigated the road. We bounced over rough ground as we proceeded, then we came to a sudden halt. We knew we were close to our quarry by the appalling smell that wafted through the woods when the breeze picked up. We held our noses.
Emily turned around. “Okay, folks, we wait here until we get the word to come in.”
We waited in silence for what seemed hours but could only have been a few minutes. I could count Maggie’s breaths, they were so loud; I think I could hear her heart beating.
Then, like a convocation of banshees had just convened, a wail a sirens rose in the distance and a riot of red and blue lights flashed in the gloom.
Emily’s radio crackled with the voices of deputies repeating, “Clear—clear.”
Then a blast, and two gunshots in reply.
“God, that sounded like a shotgun,” a man shouted at the back of the van.
Emily’s radio was crackling again. She lifted the mic to her mouth. “Everyone okay?”
A voice crackled back. “Suspect’s white trash idiot son came out with a shotgun and fell off the porch. It went off. A coupla boys returned fire. No one’s hurt. Stand by.”
Maggie leaned toward me. “Oh, God, are they still going to let us in?”
Emily turned. “Let’s wait a bit ma’am. They’ll tell us when it’s safe.”
Maggie held my hand and squeezed. “They have to let us in; I have to help.”
Then the radio crackled again. “All suspects accounted for, it’s a go.”
Emily turned around, her face set in a frown, then she flashed the brightest grin.
“Hang on, everyone, here we go!”
The cheer inside our van was deafening. Emily fired up her blue strobes and cut loose with the siren, as the van lurched then barreled toward the lights flashing ahead of us.
“Cool!” someone shouted. “F’n Starsky and Hutch, man!”
They’re all as old as us, I thought, and nearly laughed out loud.
Emily brought the van to a grinding halt. “Everyone out!”
We tumbled out like melons from a crate. A man and a woman gathered us around them. The woman had a stethoscope hanging from her neck. Her crisp white short-sleeved shirt was emblazoned with a patch: HSUS.
The man wore a blue jacket like us, but instead of POSSE the letters ASPCA blazed across his shoulders.
“Okay,” the man said. “Some of these poor guys have been held in crates and boxes for months, some for their whole lives. They ain’t used to people being nice to them. Approach them slow, talk softly, calm them down before you pick them up or leash them. They’ll be scared; they’ll tremble a lot, but just hold them like you’d hold one of your kids and they’ll settle down. They sense real soon you aren’t going to hurt them.”
“Then bring them over to the aid station we’ve set up,” the woman added. “We need to triage and evaluate and get the ones who seriously need medical attention out of here and back to the shelter. Okay, let’s do it.”
And so we worked all day until nightfall, gathering up hundreds of dogs, mostly puppies, but several females that had been kept in a constant state of pregnancy for who knows how long.
The place crawled with maggots and flies, swill and debris. Feces were everywhere; you couldn’t avoid it. Great mounds of it dotted the property. The animals were frightened, reluctant to let us take them.
But Maggie seemed to strike an instant understanding with the dogs, as she coaxed them to come to her. She’d swaddle one in a blanket and hold him like a baby before turning him over to the veterinarians.
The deputies began to seek out Maggie when they came across a particularly reluctant or frightened animal.
Finally, as twilight spread across the sky, Maggie was called to a cage where a female lay indifferently in a feces-spattered cage. All attempts to approach her were met with a sullen growl. A deputy asked Maggie to try to coax her out of her pen. Instead, Maggie went into the pen with her and sat beside her, in all that filth.
Gently she stroked her matted fur and whispered to her.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. You’ll be taken care of now. C’mon, it’s a new life for you … a nicer one.”
Tears streamed over Maggie’s cheeks; truth is, we were all crying, even the deputies, especially when the pooch raised her big weary head and laid it on Maggie’s thigh. After a while she led her out of the pen and over to the aid station.
We had rescued more than two hundred dogs from this hell. It took and entire day and a piece of the night.
Later, as we walked through the property, Maggie saw a curious piece of furniture, low on the ground with hooks and other hardware bolted onto it. We stared at it a bit before Emily stepped around us.
“It’s a mating table.”
“Huh?”
“A female is pretty much secured to it so she can’t reject a male. They leave them like that for hours while males are brought in to … you know.”
There was a commotion behind as the sheriff appeared with a man dressed in bib overalls with no shirt. The man was shouting and cursing.
“Ya got no right to interfere in my business; I got a right to make a livin'”
“We found more than two hundred dogs,” the sheriff barked back. “That’s more than two hundred counts of animal cruelty, and guess what, Amos, they ain’t misdemeanors anymore; they’re felonies. You ain’t getting away with no damn fine this time. You and your kin are all doing time for this.”
The man, Amos, then let his eyes slide toward Maggie. He looked at her, then the mating table and sneered.
“Damned fucking communist do-gooder. How’d you like to get down on that bitch table; bet you’d like old Amos to do you like the bitch you are … put his big ole greasy up your fat pussy.”
The sheriff raised an eyebrow and turned his back. It was all the green light I needed.
Amos stumbled a bit after my fist smashed into his wire-brush whiskered cheek. While he was still disoriented I gave him a shove toward a pile of shit. He landed head-first.
Desperately he struggled to get back on his feet, slipping and sliding in the feces.
At last he steadied himself and glared at the sheriff.
“You see that!”
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Bastards! I’ll sue; I’ll sue yas all!”
The sheriff pinched his nose and leaned as close to Amos as he could stand. “Well, right now you have the right to remain silent, understand … shithead!”
Amos was cuffed and led away. The sheriff winked at me. “Thanks, sir, and ma’am. Couldn’t have done it without you. You made a real difference.”
I turned toward Maggie who looked at me with eyes as wide as dinner plates.
“John?”
“Yeah?”
“You … you …”
“What?”
“I’ve never known you to be … violent.”
“Did you like it?”
“Oh, Christ. I’m covered in shit and my panties are soaking.”
I had to get her home … or a bed … right away.
* * * * *
We were exhausted. We stopped at the shelter to check on the female Maggie had liberated. The doctor said time would tell whether she would pull through, but they’d give her a fighting chance … something she never had at the puppy mill.
We showered there and were given some scrubs to wear. Our clothes were a total loss; we tossed them in the biohazard bin.
Maggie and I didn’t speak in the car, but there was a current of energy running between us I hadn’t felt in a long time.
“We’re never going to make it home,” I said. “I’ll pass out behind the wheel.”
“I’ll never make it home either,” Maggie said. Then she tugged the top of her scrubs off and raised her arms over her head letting the breeze from the open window splash over her naked breasts.
“Jesus, Maggie!”
“I … can’t … wait …” she whimpered.
Ahead I saw the neon welcome beckon us toward the motel. It was a throwback to the golden age of motoring with a big round swimming pool enclosed by a chain link fence in front. I had just stopped when Maggie bolted from the car, hopped the fence and slipped her bottoms off. Entirely naked she plunged into the pool.
I followed, stripped and jumped right in after her.
We splashed and wrestled and slipped in and out of each other’s grasp, laughing, giggling. We didn’t notice the manager until he shouted toward us. He didn’t seem to believe a couple our age were frolicking in his pool.
“Hey, you two, how about you get a room?”
“You got one?” I laughed.
“That’s what we’re in business for. Now get out of there and meet me in the office before someone’s kids see you.”
It wasn’t much of a room. A bed and a TV that showed dirty movies if we plugged enough quarters into it. But we didn’t need it.
Once inside Maggie instantly got naked again. She climbed onto the bed on her knees and looked over her shoulder at me.
“That man … that dirty disgusting man … the filthy things he said to me.”
“Yeah, he was pretty … disgusting.”
She leaned onto her forearms and raised her ass. The hairs crowning her pussy were beaded with moisture … maybe from the pool, maybe from …
Then she growled, “Oh, John … take me like the bitch I am.”
“Keee … rist!”
I plunged into her slick channel and pumped like a fiend, each penetration announced by a loud wet squish.”
“Fuck me … fuck me like … the bitch … I … I … ohhhhh!”
I slapped her ass. “You nasty little pup!”
God, we were silly, crazy … gone completely insane with lust. It was great; it was fun; it was like being a couple of kids again.
A roiling at the base of my cock began to build. I kept repeating, like a mantra, like a prayer, “Let her come first, let her come first …”
Maggie was wild, howling. Then it all came back to me in a rush, how the whole dorm used to break out in riotous laughter when we screwed.
Howling Maggie they called her; how could I have forgotten that?
Then she shuddered, something I hadn’t made her do in a long time, and her howl became a whimper until her orgasm dissipated.
I filled my bride’s cunt with a rush of fluids and slipped out of her, spent … gloriously and totally spent.
I fell beside her, and we kissed and kissed.
“I love you, Maggie.”
“Shhh, I love you too. I love you so much.”
* * * * *
A couple of weeks later we visited the shelter to check in on Gracie, for that was the name they gave the forlorn female Maggie had rescued.
She had recovered; and she remembered Maggie, judging by the enthusiastic way she licked her face. We adopted her that same day.
© 2009 Robert Buckley. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.