changed Rubio’s diapers and set him on a towel in the middle of the living room floor, near, but not too near, the space heater. She had given him a little ball with a bell inside it, and sometimes his kicking and arm-waving moved it and it jingled. Often she just sat and watched him, and she was sure from her observations that he enjoyed the sound of the bell. She also cut out colored shapes from construction paper, pierced them with strings, and dangled them above him; his eyes tracked, and his arms reached. He made little noises.
That day she had gone to a thrift store on her way home from work and found Rubio a Fisher-Price toy, a white plastic wheel, with picture buttons that when punched made the noises of barnyard animals. She wasn’t sure if it was age appropriate, but she thought he might like noises other than the television and her radio. Besides, she enjoyed finding things to share with him. She sat down beside his towel and held the toy up where he could see and hear it. She punched one of the buttons. A dog barked three times and a thread of music played.
“Uh uh!” said Rubio, waving his arms.
Smiling, Claire tried another button, and produced a horse’s whinny.
“Uh! Uh!” He was extremely agitated. She set the toy down, frowning, and watched him.
“Uh! Arrr!” He thrashed with more vigor than she had seen him display before. He rolled back and forth. He grunted and whined; then he howled, so loudly she had to wrap him up in the towel to smother the sound. She hugged him to her, pressing his face against her shirt, listening for any clamor from the walls, floor, or ceiling. All her neighbors were very quiet, too. If any of them had heard, she couldn’t tell.
Rubio squirmed in her arms, making high-pitched squeals like the cries of monkeys in jungle films. Maybe there was really something wrong with him; maybe he’d eaten something wrong or something had struck him. Maybe she would have to spirit him to an emergency room somehow. She held him away from her and stared into his face…
…and found a dark-haired, whiskered snout poking out at her with a little wet black nose on it.
She cried aloud and dropped the bundle.
For a moment the towel-shrouded form jerked about on the floor, and then a fat-bellied, fur-covered form tumbled out and danced about, growling and nipping at her, bouncing away, swarming closer, uttering small yips, finally coming up and licking her nerveless hand.
She wanted to scream. She wanted very much to scream. But some part of her brain said that would bring people, and she couldn’t have people coming into her apartment. She just couldn’t; not after living with her husband. She had promised herself she would never let anyone into her private space again.
And here was this—this animal, inside her apartment.
“Rubio, Rubio,” she whispered, feeling a dark despair. She knew that this puppy had eaten her child, though she wasn’t sure exactly how.
“Rrrff!” yipped the dog. It scrambled against her side, straining up toward her face, its small claws digging into the meat of her thighs.
She thrust it away from her and leaped to her feet, then ran to her bedroom and slammed the door in its face. She stood by the door, hugging her elbows, her shoulders hunched. She shivered, listening to its little scraping sounds as it dug at the door, snuffled along the crack, yipped and whuffed excitedly. She could hear its panting breaths. But it couldn’t get in. It was far too small to reach the doorknob. She turned the key in the lock.
After a few minutes it began to whine.
“Shh!” she hissed.
It lapsed into silence. A little more time passed, and then she heard its toenails clicking as it ran across the hardwood floor. A grunt or two. More silence. Some small whimpers that sounded like Rubio had. Then nothing.
If it made too much noise and someone came to investigate, she realized, they would take the dog away. Yes. That was it. They would take the dog away. It would be all right.
She wrapped herself up in a quilt and spent the night going in and out of thin, terror-racked sleep.
When dawn finally stained the curtains, she sat up and dismantled three wire hangers and twisted them into a triple strand for a weapon. She knew how a single strand felt over her back and figured three would be much worse. Then she unlocked the door and peered around its edge.
Rubio lay naked, sleeping on the bunched-up towel, his cheeks salt-stained from tears, his lips cracked. He’d messed himself, and he looked thin and somehow twisted.
Claire dropped the hangers and went to him, lifted him, and took him to the changing table she’d set up in the bathroom, where she cleaned him and diapered him and powdered him. He woke as soon as she touched him, but didn’t make any sounds, except, at last, an “uh uh” of contentment when she wrapped him up in a baby blanket and held him against her breast.
She called in sick and spent most of the day sleeping with him beside her on the bed.
In the evening she sat on her couch with Rubio snuggled in her lap and looked at one of the few of her husband’s diaries she had left. She had been reading them in small doses and then tearing them to pieces.
* * * *
She is a slut and a sloven. She wasn’t so when I married her; she used to be a paragon of cleanliness and organization; but certain remarks from me and actions on my part have gradually chipped away at her belief in herself until she sinks under the weight of my regard. I shall push her further down for a little longer before I experiment on altering her behavior back toward the societal norm.
She is so precious, so perfect in her suggestibility. It was the work of but a week to train her to drop into a trance state at a word from me, and from there a short step to my systematic erosion of her personality core. I am so glad I found her when I did. Her life could have been completely wasted if I hadn’t discovered her clerking in that stupid little shop and seduced her away from it.
I wonder what I should turn her into next. It might be amusing if she was afraid of some simple everyday thing. Salt, for instance; or water—no, that would interfere too much with the housework. Perhaps later, when I have more free time.
Dogs.
Perfect.
* * * *
Rubio was whining in her lap, squirming. She set down the diary, stared toward the door without seeing it. She had hated dogs all her life.
She blinked. A thought, hovering…she held her breath, trying to coax it closer by stillness.
A small golden cocker spaniel named Bootsy.
Pressing her face into the curly fur and snuffing up a noseful of Dog. How Mother scolded when Bootsy drank from the toilet. The warm wet feel of a slobbery tongue on her cheek, her nose. Knocking her forehead against Bootsy’s domed skull; luxuriating in the softness of the fur of Bootsy’s ears; delighting in the wag of the little stump tail.
Rubio yipped and thrashed. Claire blinked back into the present and looked down just in time to see hair sprouting all over her baby, his limbs and torso shifting and his face pushing and pinching into something else. Fear shot through her, paralyzing her.
Rubio howled, then pressed his snout against her stomach, mufffling his own noise. Claire watched in surprise as her hand lifted and
