Carlotta Graham
A wild yearning
CHAPTER ONE
In the beginning, there was no thought of the Levitt's German shepherd Rex in Jan's pretty blonde head as she went grumpily about her early morning housework. She was by far too preoccupied with other things – in particular with the peculiar frustration she was continually feeling with being married.
Not that she hadn't frequently noticed the sleek dog that lived next door. Indeed, she had often puzzled over Rex's peculiar attraction when he was tied up at the local supermarket, for it always seemed as if every housewife in the neighborhood paused in her shopping duties to give him a friendly pat and whisper some friendly words to the long-tongued dog, which was usually sitting obediently on his haunches as he waited for his mistress to finish her shopping.
"Hello, Rex, how's that nice doggy today?" they would ask. Or, "My, that's a sweet little dog, aren't you?" And this puzzled Jan from time to time. After all, it was true that Rex had a sleek, shining coat and that he was the epitome of form in what one thought of as the German shepherd physique, but after all there were usually a half dozen pedigreed dogs parked outside the supermarket, all of them equally handsome in their own way. Yet there was not a one among them that seemed to inspire the response Rex did. He was truly unique in that respect. Women couldn't seem to pass him up.
Yet so far as Jan could tell, there was not anything especially unique about the dog. True, he had a handsome, intelligent face – very masculine, too, of course – but that was scarcely enough to justify such unusual attentions as he invariably commanded.
So this was just a part of Jan's ordinary curiosity with respect to the Levitt's dog. But another part of it was Marge Levitt's seeming preoccupation and possessiveness with respect to Rex. Jan had frequently noticed Marge's usually cheerful face changing rapidly to a sullen scowl if she came out of the supermarket and found someone talking to or petting Rex. Occasionally she tried to remember if this similar change of personality took place when Marge encountered a man being friendly to the handsome German shepherd. But this line of thought was usually futile, as Jan could not recall any such instance. It was almost always some housewife who could be seen being friendly to the sturdy, sleek dog.
Not that she pondered this overmuch. It was simply something she occasionally gave a modicum of thought.
Marge's possessiveness also seemed to continue at home, for she kept the dog chained securely and confined to the Levitt grounds. It was never allowed to roam free like other dogs in the neighborhood, and occasionally even Steve remarked that such a house dog should be more savage, instead of so friendly as Rex obviously was. Jan didn't know much about dogs, but she knew enough to know that this observation of Steve's was fundamentally correct. Logically speaking, a house German shepherd like Rex should be more vicious. But it was obvious that the dog's nature was sunny and affectionate.
Not that one ever got much chance to find out. Marge didn't even like to bring Rex next door when she stopped by for coffee on the odd morning. At least not since that morning when the dog had nuzzled Jan's leg in an over friendly fashion.
Marge had an unusual excuse to justify her possessiveness, though, and she self-consciously brought this up on every possible occasion. To Jan it seemed like a bad case of 'protesting over much', but Marge's justification usually went roughly as follows: namely, that ever since Rex had sired the Boardman pups down the road by that German shepherd she-bitch Carla, the Levitts didn't want to take any chance of having any lawsuits due to Rex's cavorting.
Which seemed reasonable on the face of it – but then on the other hand Jan had never heard of anyone being sued for letting their dog out and having it sire unintentionally some other dog. That was, after all, the way of the world, wasn't it? You couldn't legislate animal biology very well.