Next of Kin

Chapter Six: 49%

Six, 49%

I finished my hot dog on my way back out of the park. This time I walked past the bike, and up to the neighbor's front door. My interface autodialed inside. The call rang through, but without retrieving a name or a picture, and nobody picked up.

The door slid open, like my grandmother's used to when she left the chain attached. A big hand, with “BIKE” written under the knuckles, pushed through the door. It had long, red manicured fingernails. I saw a woman's face through the crack. “May I help you?”

“I'm an advocate, investigating. I'd like to ask you a few questions, about your neighbor.”

“Oh, sure.” The door opened the rest of the way. “Come on in.”

She was bigger than me, and wearing lots of black leather, and she had short blond hair. Now that she was in full view, my interface made a positive ID, and told me her name was Lisa.

She noticed me staring, and looked down at her clothes. “You'll have to excuse the leather. I was about to go out for a ride- not getting off work at a sex dungeon.”

Despite the denial, I couldn't not imagine her working at a sex dungeon, and from her wicked smile she knew it, too; I wondered if it was intentional.

“Did you know my brother, your neighbor, next door?” I pointed in the direction of his house with my thumb.

“Met him just the once. His dog, big fucker, pit bull, I want to say, rammed his fat head through one of the slats in my fence. I mean, dogs are big, stupid animals, so I wasn't too upset over that. But I had a dog at the time, dainty, fluffy little thing, and she was in the back yard. Trapped with him.

“I go to let her inside after I get home, and she squalls at me from underneath this big dog. She bites him in the leg, and gets away, and he pounces on her again, and I realize he's trying to rape her.

“I grab his collar and try to pull him off, and that's when I see he's named Adolf. So I yell his name, tell him to stop while I'm trying to pull him off. Wouldn't listen- at all. Finally, I just kick him in his throat, high and hard enough he flew back.

“I've been around dogs enough to know that after that he's going to be worse, so I grab him by the throat while he's still down, and hold him. He snaps at me, and kicks. I squeeze his throat, to where he can hardly breathe, and put my other hand in his stomach, you know, telling him I could pull out his guts and his throat, and I'm his alpha bitch. But he doesn't stop, and he's as strong as he is stupid, so he's seconds from breaking loose, and either attacking me or raping my dog.

“That's when I see his big, floppy dog balls bouncing around on his stomach, and I think, yeah, if a dog were a bike, those would be his brakes. Thankfully I'd just got done for a ride, so I had on my heavy-duty shitkickers,” she stomped the ground and lifted the boots she was wearing, to illustrate. “And I stomp him a couple of times. Finally, that puts the fear of God back into him, and he curls up fetal. He was submissive enough after that I led him by the collar back next door.

“Your brother answered the door in underpants and an undershirt. My blood was pretty well up, so I told him if that dog ever got in my yard again, he was only getting the head back, Godfather-style. That was the first and only time I ever saw him. He was high enough I don't know if he'd remember it; hell, he was high enough I thought about kicking his ass, because I was pretty sure he wouldn't have remembered even that- though he sure as hell deserved it.

“And what kind of asshole names his dog Adolf? And no, I do not care if it also means wolf, and dogs are descended from wolves. Having a pit bull that you essentially let be an asshole means you were naming him after Hitler. It's about as clever as having a baby so you can shit your pants in public without people being able to blame the smell on you.”