Privilege

Chapter One

Misty

The five & dime had closed hours ago. It was dark, and the only lights seemed yellow and distant. A limousine swept to a stop alongside the dark store, the trunk sprung open, and a well-dressed man stepped from the expensive vehicle. Muttering, “Fuckin’ dog costs me thousands and ends up breeding worthless mutts!” He stepped to the trunk and hefted a weighty sack over his shoulder. As he reached the filthy side of the dumpster, he swung the heavy bag, slamming it against the steel. There was a yelp, followed by a few whimpers. There was simple silence after the fifth slam, blood showing through the hessian of the sacking. He threw the bag into the dumpster, without looking back and sighed. “Ah well… the insurance will pay for a stolen bitch,” he said quietly to himself as he climbed into the car and stepped on the gas. The rear lights disappeared as the car turned and headed back towards the freeway.

Today, Misty had had the early shift – yeah, it was a shitty job – no, not career, a job. It paid the bills and left her time to study. While she fumbled in her purse, putting away her car keys as she turned the corner, walking past the dumpster towards the back door, a soft mewing caught her attention. “Oh, a kitten,” she thought to herself as she grabbed a handy milk crate and stepped onto it to get high enough to peer into the dumpster. A bloody sack lay on the dirty floor of the otherwise empty dumpster. The trash company had replaced their full unit with an empty one after she had cleaned up after yesterday’s late shift. A single little head poked from the open end of the sack. It wasn’t a kitten! Misty scrambled into the dumpster. The sack was bloody, and her heart was in her mouth as she pulled the mewing puppy from the bag. She steeled herself and looked inside it. The inside of the bag as a bloody mess! What looked like a Shepard or Husky lay with her three puppies – all of them dead! Their bones appeared to be brutally shattered. It made her heart stop! She picked up the sole survivor, “Oh god, baby, what happened to your mommy and siblings?” she asked.

Misty held the tiny puppy in her hand. Turning him over, she noticed his tiny penis. Her heart overflowing with some complex emotions, she lifted him to her lips, kissing his muzzle softly without saying a word. Carefully, tenderly, she held him as she clambered out of the filthy dumpster. “You’ll never be in a dumpster again, puppy,” she promised. “Misty will care for you from now on.”

The early shift was the quietest, a few truckers and dayshift workers would step into the store for a pack of smokes, coffee, or try flirting with the short pretty copper haired store clerk. Misty had plenty of time to nurse her puppy. She knew he was helpless; blind, toothless, and unaware of the meaning of vibrations we think of as sounds. The only things he needed were warmth and milk. She had cleaned the blood off him with a hand towel and tepid water, and he was small enough to fit him comfortably in the front ‘kangaroo’ pockets of her hoodie without anyone, even the store owner, being aware of the little life she had begun nurturing.

She found a half-sized baby’s bottle in the store’s ‘Lost & Found’ bin. Quite possibly it had fallen from a stroller or carrier and been forgotten about. She cleaned the bottle and teat with boiling water, and after that, checked on Google to determine what newborn puppies need to survive. She estimated her puppy was only about a day or two old. She read, “Puppies given regular cow’s milk from the grocery’s dairy section will sometimes develop sinus problems, diarrhea, or tummy aches. A safer alternative is full fat evaporated cow’s milk in a can.” For the third time that day, luck was on the puppy’s side. Misty worked in a store with a good supply of evaporated milk. She rang the can of evaporated milk through the till and pointed out the receipt to the store owner who was glued to his phone in his backroom office.

When she had a few moments, she warmed the bottle with water from the hot faucet and the puppy latched onto the teat and began to suckle eagerly. Misty gently put the drinking puppy back into the front pockets of her hoodie. She could feel the little dog as it suckled and after a while noticed there was no movement. Concerned, she moved quickly to the bathroom. Her puppy was fast asleep. Contented, with a round belly. She almost cried with relief.

The eight hours of her shift seem to go faster with that little puppy in her pockets. Especially when she reached in on occasion to stroke his soft puppy fur and reassure herself that he was still alive. He was warm and squiggly in her hands, when not sound asleep.

She was resolute. She had found him, and she was keeping him. As the day progressed, she wondered what to call him. When no one was looking she’d slip him from her ‘kangaroo’ pocket of her hoodie, just to marvel at him. This helpless puppy had survived, while his mother and siblings had been brutally murdered and then thrown away. She remembered reading A. A. Milne’s ‘Winnie the Pooh’ and watching Disney’s cartoons about him in her childhood. She thought about Kanga and baby Roo, in his mother’s pouch. Roo, her new puppy, was officially christened with a tiny bottle of unsweetened evaporated full cream milk and Misty’s own resolution.

Roo spent the first week of his existence in the front pocket of his mother’s sweater. Evaporated lifesaving milk soon gave way to puppy’s milk, ordered online, and the puppy began to thrive. A visit to a vet confirmed that he was in great shape for an orphan and with love and care he would make a great progress and develop normally into a healthy dog.

Chapter Two

Roo & Misty

Roo opened his eyes. Even in the safety of his ‘pouch’ at first the light was blinding. He had spent the first two and a half weeks of his life being carried, or basking in the warmth and safety of his mother’s front pocket, or in her hands or between the softness of her breasts. Her soft skin gave him the warmth his puppy needs craved. She was never away from him, and she did more than give him warmth and security, although he had spent ninety percent of the time asleep. Her gentle fingers also rubbed him in a way that helped him pee and poop, necessary to helping him develop these skills. He’d felt the vibrations of his mother’s body when she walked, talked or moved. His untrained senses picked up the rhythm of her heart, so soothing! He was comfortable and warm and, although he didn’t understand it, loved. After blinking and shuddering, he discovered he could now see. Hours later, the protective wax fell and melted from his ears. From the safety of his pocket, he poked his head out into the light. Yes! He could see his mother, hear her belly rumble, the sound of her voice. He was pulled gently from the warmth and held in the safety of her hands, he was lifted to her mouth and given the softest kiss.

After his eyes opened and he could hear, he rapidly developed. He didn’t want to be in his pocket all the time! He began to walk and talk. His mews became little barks, grunts and growls as his teeth developed into sharp white needles. His nose breathed in every conceivable scent and stored them in a compartment of his fast-developing brain. At first, he stumbled, but he was soon a rambunctious bundle of white and black puppy fluff. As he got bigger, his puppy fluff slowly gave way to soft slightly curly fur which was mostly pure white. However, his tail was jet black as were his four ‘socks’. His face had black eyebrows and markings along his cheeks reminiscent of North American Huskies. His eyes were a startling, almost human, light blue.

His body certainly wasn’t Husky – his legs were shorter, sturdier and his paws smaller, certainly not the wide fat padded paws that huskies are famous for. When Misty took him to visit a Husky his age called Vincent, Roo was slightly shorter and smaller in comparison. Roo also had a much broader chest and slimmed down to narrow hips, and his ears were long and flapped as he gamboled and ran around his mother’s small apartment.

By eight weeks, except for a thin strap around his neck, he was totally independent. He ate his kibble from his own dish. His water bowl was filled with cool water and he no longer went to work with Misty. He had free reign of her apartment when she was away. Finding an old patch of floor where his sense of smell told him someone had pee’d, he began to imprint his own scent there by peeing over the spot.

When Misty came home and saw his ‘puddle, Roo learned a valuable lesson about such behavior! Remaining observant, over the next few weeks he discovered his mother was different to him. After all, she walked on her back legs and was strong enough to lift him one handed. She had hair on her head and used a thing to scrape the hair from the rest of her skin. As humans go, she was of the short variety. Like all humans she wore coverings over much her skin. These ‘clothes’ consisted normally of blouses and short skirts that covered her from above her breasts to a few inches above her knees. But unlike other women she’d introduced him to, often she wore nothing under the blouse or skirt. Her feet were normally shod in fancy shoes. More about her shoes later.

By three months, he’d come to understand that he loved this human unconditionally. She was his whole world. Lessons like not peeing on the apartment floor or rugs or chewing her shoes haunted the recesses of his doggy brain. These shoes were strange colored leather things! Some had platforms and spiky heels. She had a closet full of them, and apparently, she loved every pair. When Misty was away, Roo guarded those shoes, growling and barking furiously at anyone dumb enough to venture too close to the door and Misty’s precious shoe collection.

By the time Roo was two human years old, Misty had graduated from University and landed a clerical position at a local bank and earned enough to comfortably afford her small apartment. Roo had matured and was fully grown. He had attributes of a both a Malamute and a Terrier. He seemed to somehow have all their good traits and none of the fickle traits attributed to either breed. Slightly shorter than a Malamute, he had the soft semi curly fur of an Airedale. He was intelligent and steadfast. His sense of smell had developed, and he knew the scent of everybody within half a mile of their apartment.