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Chapter Three

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It wasn't until I left the hospital lobby that I realized how much time must have passed. It was no longer the dead of winter as when I had gone under surgery, instead it was now spring in full swing. I was instantly bombarded by the sweet scent of the many flowers in the hospital parking lot, and it seemed to me that the air itself was a fragrant breeze of sweetness. It was enough to make me dizzy.

I stopped for a moment, and Alex looked down at me, concerned. I had apparently staggered some, as she felt prompted to stroke the fur on the back of my neck, and ask if I was alright. "Yeah," I replied simply, "It's just so nice."

She seemed puzzled, somehow unknowing of what I meant. She apparently didn't smell the flowery scent, or at least didn't feel compelled to take note of it. I felt slightly disappointed by it, but I tried not to take it personally. After all, I had a nose that had twice the volume of a bottle of soda. As we started walking to her car, which was formerly mine, a distinct and disturbing thought entered my mind.

'I feel sorry for people not being able to smell this.'

At first I didn't think much of it, until I realized I was implying that I was no longer a person. I perished the thought from my mind immediately.

As we walked, or rather, as Alex walked and I padded to the car, we noticed there were no people in the parking lot. Plenty of cars, but no people, which was odd to say the least. I was relieved however, that there would be no one to gawk at the huge dog walking without a leash beside the petite brunette.

I couldn't tell what Alex was thinking, but I would've given my left testicle to know. Well, perhaps that wouldn't be much of a sacrifice, I thought, since, at the time, I wasn't planning on using either testicle. I still wasn't used to this idea of being a dog, and I wasn't particularly comfortable with confronting such intimate issues so early.

Alex went to open the back door for me, but hesitated. She moved her hand toward the front door's handle, then back to the back door, but finally found it in her heart to let me sit in front.

I got in and tried to make myself comfortable in the seat. It wasn't easy, trying to cram all four paws onto that seat without my front half sliding down off the seat. The other issue was my claws, which seemed all to eager to rend the upholstery off the foam cushion.

Alex got in the drivers side, and looked at me with an expression on her face that was unclear to me. I couldn't tell if it was the happy, fulfilled, proud look of having a long-lost friend back, or the sad, wistful gaze of someone who got a less-than-satisfactory result to a long trial. The possibility of her disappointment frightened me, and the thick silence made my stomach sink. This feeling was almost worse than the fits of depression that assaulted me at night on the hospital bed in the human body that I had left behind.

She turned her gaze away and started the car. It came to life without protest. At least she'd taken care of it.

"So Alex..." I began. It was still strange to talk. It was even stranger that I was talking out my collar with my muzzle closed. She looked at me again, and I thought I could see her nerves fray. I suddenly felt nervous again. I couldn't take it, I had to lighten the mood.

"When to I get to drive again?" I asked, trying to smile. It must have either worked, or looked ridiculous, because she smiled, then giggled a bit, but I could tell she almost shed a tear. Whether it was a happy or sad tear, I'll never know.

"Either when they make a law allowing dogs to drive," she said, smiling, "Or when you hit sixteen."

"Sixteen is awfully old for a dog, Alex," I reminded her softly, in my electronic voice. She did that strange sad giggle again. This must have been like gallows humor to her. Our eyes locked for a split second as she looked through the back window, and began to back out of her spot, and started down the road to her house.

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I noticed that Alex had taken a detour from the road home. At least, I thought it was a detour, but I hadn't been out in so long that I honestly had no idea where we were going until we got there. Alex pulled into the supermarket parking lot, which was also surprisingly empty. It must've been a weekday, and everyone else must've been at work.

"Wait here, Travis, I have to pick up some dog food." Alex said as she turned off the ignition, and lifted the handbrake.

I was puzzled by this. "I didn't know you had a dog," was all I could think of to say.

Alex looked at me, stunned. "I- I mean... I just got one today..."

"That's... Why? I mean, I don't have anything against dogs, but I don't want you hassling-"

"Travis, stop acting like you ended up with the dog's brain, too. The dog food's for you, silly."

I paused, and looked at her, really hurt. That did genuinely hurt me, the way she said it so lightly. I turned my head and looked down at my paws. I guessed she was right, I should've guessed it.

She frowned, and frantically tried to apologize. "Oh god, sorry, Travis. I didn't mean to-- I mean, we've both been under a lot of stress, and--"

"No," I cut her off, "I was just starting to feel a little too comfortable."

"I'm really sorry, Travis."

"It's alright."

"Travis..." she said, almost pleadingly. I looked back up at her, and she leaned over, pressing her hand behind my head, and held her face just inched from the end of my muzzle. I felt her breath on my nose, and I felt my heart skip a beat, and I smelled the coffee she had that morning.

"Alex..." was all that I could reply. I just looked her in the eyes, this bittersweet tension choking both of us up. She leaned forward, her eyes closed, as she pursed her lips ever so slightly.

I closed my eyes, and tried to return the kiss by slowly and gently leaning forward. Her lips met the end of my muzzle, missing my lips. I was embarrassed, and I felt my cheeks heat up in a blush, and my fur didn't help the matter. I didn't know, in that lingering moment, whether or not to try and move, to reconnect with her lips, to feel the softness of her flesh that I hadn't felt since before I had underwent the operation.

But it was too late for that, as the lingering moment passed, and Alex pulled away from me, her cheeks as red as mine probably were under my fur. But it wasn't the innocent blush of love, or the flushing face of a smitten lover, but the face of one who, deeply embarrassed by the preceding event, wished to hide herself and erase that moment from their entire lives.

I wanted to say something, but I couldn't bring myself to confront her at the time. It was too much to ask of her, I felt, and I did not truly know if I yet deserved her affection.

"Travis, I need you to stay here," she said quietly, hesitating for a moment before she added, "They don't allow dogs in the store."

I looked up at Alex, and the words slipped from me, "I'm not a dog..."

Alex looked me up and down, confused at why I'd say that, when it was so obviously untrue. I knew what she was going to say next.

"But you are a dog," came her reply, exactly as I imagined it, the sad, concerned look on her face betraying her meaning to it. She opened her mouth as if to speak, as if to qualify her statement, or mend it, or maybe even take it back, and that image lingered before me until she just sighed, and stepped out of the car. She rolled down the window a bit for me, so I wouldn't suffocate in her hotbox of an automobile. I watched her walk away sadly, as she hung her head in defeat. I watched until a large SUV pulled into the parking space next to me, and blocked my view of her.

I moved back into the passenger seat as the mother driving the SUV disembarked, and moved around to the back passenger side, retrieving her toddler from her carseat. The small child looked around with her hungry, knowledge-seeking, bright blue eyes, until they met mine. She took a moment to stop chewing her index finger to point it at me.

I tried to sink to the floorboard, to hide, predicting what was coming.

"Mommy, look, doggy!" She said with all the enthusiasm of an extremely young age. I cringed down, clenching my eyes shut. Such innocent words were like a knife to my heart.

"Oh, what a pretty doggy!" The mother replied, peering in the window. "She's so pretty, and big. She must be the same kind of doggy Uncle Jake has!"

I instinctually stuffed my tail inbetween my legs. It didn't comfort me any more than I thought it would. In fact, it kind of made things worse.

"Uncle Jake's doggy?" The little girl asked. Thankfully, the mother began to walk away as she continued to talk to her young child.

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I laid my upper body upon the seat, my head resting upon my paws. I was as crammed into the footwell as I could be comfortably, my rump pressed against the carpeted firewall. I waited for Alex to return, the words of both Alex and that child ringing in my ears. All I could hear was Alex telling me, "But you are a dog," over and over again, followed by the child saying "Mommy, look, doggy!". It tore me up more than it should have, and if felt like an eternity I sat there, defeated, depressed, facing my new existence as a dog. After a while, the fact that the well-intentioned mother erroneously referred to me as a 'she' also began to sting, but it was nowhere near as bad as a child calling me 'doggy'. Even though I reasoned with myself about it, how she was inexperienced, and how the mother was inexperienced, with this new frontier of technology, it still nipped at my heels.

Eventually, I heard a cart approaching. But I was too depressed to look up. The hatchback of the SUV opened up. It was the mother and her toddler again. I tried to steel myself for another demeaning gawking. I knew I was overreacting, but after what had happened with Alex, I yearned for someone to acknowledge me as human. I started to almost prefer being in Rehabilitation to this, even though there I had no personal anything, I began to feel it was better than being seen as a common dog out here. Especially by Alex, the one girl who stood by me as long as she did.

I wondered what was taking so long, but I figured that Alex was probably grabbing other things for the house. It wouldn't be efficient just go and grab dog food for her boyfriend, he wasn't worth all the trouble alone.

The mother brought the toddler around, and I smelled a strange scent, best described as a scent between that of chicken bullion and Fig Newtons. I looked up, to see the toddler girl, being held by her mother, pressing a small bone-shaped biscuit through the opening in the window.

"I love doggies," she said with a smile full of sunshine, "You're a good doggy, so here." She dropped the treat on the seat, and waved to me. I tried to wave back, my efforts disassociated with their outcome.

I didn't know whether or not the little girls smile made (me feel better, or worse.) anything better, or worse.

The van pulled away soon, and some time afterwards, Alex came back, pushing a cart laden with groceries. What stuck out most to me was the huge bag of Pedigree on the bottom of the cart, its garden-green paper contrasting terribly with the white plastic bags in the top. I pressed up against the glass to see her, and she looked up at me. Her eyes were red as if she'd been crying the whole time.

She didn't speak to me as she loaded the groceries into the trunk, the cascade of noise and paper crackling indicating that she put the dog food in first. There was no denying that Alex was a strong, common-sense woman, who did things the most efficient way she could. I felt bad that I couldn't help her, like I often had before.

She was warm when she was done, her whole face red to match her eyes. Even though it was a cool spring, that didn't mean someone couldn't work up a sweat by moving heavy bags. She came around to the driver's-side door, and I backed off to give her the room to sit down. She looked, first, and paused, then slowly picked up the dog biscuit that was sitting on her seat.

"What's this?" She asked. I feared that I heard some kind of hesitation in her voice, a little spite, a lot of unsureness.

"It's a biscuit," I replied. I was scared to try and explain anything too fast, I needed to gauge her mood.

"Why didn't you eat it?" By asking that, she asked the question I most feared she would ask. I could have reacted angrily, or offended, but I just blushed under my fur and looked down at my paws.

"I... I'm not a dog." I said, indignantly. I felt a little surprised that my collar could so well express my emotion. Or at least, it seemed like it could, in combination with my body language.

Alex picked up the treat and put it in an empty cup holder. I looked at it, now a little curious as to how it tasted. It looked like it would taste like cornbread, but it smelled different. I couldn't place my finger on it from my distance, and I felt the urge to lean forward and sniff it.

That sudden oncoming of the urge frightened me, and I pressed against the passenger-side door. Alex looked at me, puzzled, but shrugged. She turned over the car, pulled out of the parking lot, and drove me to her home.

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Alex's house was very modern and clean, her small patch of front yard neatly manicured, her walls white with smooth stucco. The house's roof sloped away from a central peak that rested over her front door, which was inset between the garage and the large living room window. Above the door was a large, circular window, the only round thing on the austerely industrial house. She pulled into her driveway, opened her minimalistic garage, and expertly parked inside.

Her garage was neat and clean, the work table installed on the wall devoid of any signs of work. There was just room for her car in the small room.

Alex cut the ignition, and popped the trunk from inside her car. Again, I began to feel bad for not being able to help her carry anything. I waited patiently until she opened my door, and allowed me to jump out onto the smooth concrete floor, my claws clacking as I did. It was strange now. She had lived here for awhile, but it was all so new and foreign at the same time. The smell of Pine Sol and the fumes from the car intermingled, along with Alex's modest perfume, to entertain my nose, as the yellow light from the old bulb in the center of the ceiling cast an off-white color onto the walls. I looked up at Alex, who had moved to the open trunk of her car to retrieve a few bags before going in.

With three full bags of groceries in one hand, she unlocked the inner door to her living room, and held it open for me with her free hand. I padded in, my eyes met by the stark white walls and her plush magenta carpet. On the far wall was a red brick fireplace, which complimented the dark red living room set she had, but contrasted aesthetically with her walls. Behind me, I could smell, was the kitchen, kept clean with industrial-strength ammonia, flooded with the caustic scent of Draino. I could smell a kind of fruity scent overlayed with chemicals wafting in from the frontroom.

I moved further into the frontroom to relax, but didn't dare sit on her couch. Everything was so clean, it made me worry about how she was going to take to having me around as a dog. I had owned a dog before, which was now strange to think about, and I remembered that, while the companionship was worth it, it was not a glamorous, clean thing. Basic necessities were important, and needed to be taken care of, and I was unsure how experienced Alex was with that. But I figured I wasn't giving Alex as much credit as she deserved.

I just sat back on my haunches, awkwardly watching Alex move back and forth, moving large amounts of groceries. The whole time I wished I could help, but I figured that she was doing well by herself. With no thumbs and such a limited range of motion, I knew that I could only get in the way. There wasn't much I could do, and I began to feel like she didn't appreciate me walking. It was probably my own suspicion, but I just smiled that awkward doggy smile at her, prompting her to smile back, before I padded into the front room.

The fireplace and the large TV on the back wall both duelled for the position of dominant feature of the room, with a couch facing the TV, and a loveseat looking across a glass table toward the fireplace. The aforementioned television- A large, black flatscreen- was mounted on the wall over another glass table, inside of which was a collection of DVDs. The clean, hot smell of carpet and fabric freshener greeted me, and nearly drowned out the synthetic, plastic smell of the movies and the soft, sweet smell of unlit scented candles around the central table. I strolled over to take a look at said movies, but nothing really caught my eye at the time. It was a pretty normal collection, mostly filled with tragedies like Titanic, and love movies like, well, probably what most of them were.

I just laid down on the floor, near a couch. The day was still young at this time, but I felt positively exhausted, and I was sure that Alex did, too.

Eventually Alex came in from the kitchen, having put all the food away. She looked down at me and seemed like she almost started, but was able to catch herself. I just looked back up at her.

She laid down on the couch facing the TV, the foot of which I was seated at, and turned on the beast. It must've had surround sound, or my hearing must've grown exponentially, for me to hear it the way it did when it turned on. She changed the channel until she reached a movie channel, one that was playing something she liked.

I laid there. I didn't really want to watch the movie, there was nothing else to do. I wasn't particularly hungry, and I wasn't too sleepy, and I had seen this movie multiple times before.

Eventually, though, when I was almost drop-dead bored, I felt her hand trail down, and stroke through the thick fur on my back. It felt really good... She kept it up, and the relaxing, loving, intimate feeling almost lulled me to sleep, until finally, at the three-quarters point of the movie, she patted my shoulder.

"Travis..." She said softly. I turned my head and looked up at her.

"Travis, can you... Can you, er, come up here? I've missed you. I'm sorry about earlier..."

I was surprised a little, but she was there, enough room in front of her, on the couch, to lay there if she held me. I obliged, standing up on my four legs, awkwardly clambering up on the couch, laying myself down and letting my paws dangle off the edge.

She wrapped her soft arms around my chest and hugged my back to her. She laid her head on my neck and stroked the fur on my chest awkwardly. She was trying to get used to my new body, seeing how it felt, testing her own comfort zone to see if she could deal with the change. She didn't cry; I couldn't even smell a single tear, or feel one. She just hugged to me until the movie was over.

I began to get very drowsy, but stayed awake for her. Eventually, I looked behind me, and saw her eyes closed, her face nuzzled into my scruff, her arms tight around my chest, the soft scent of her perfume in my nose, the gentle hum of the faraway ceiling fan being made like a lullaby to me.

Even in this comfortable place, I was unsure of the days ahead of me. It seemed like everything would be better than expected, though.

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