The Dogsitter

“So you’re the dogsitter.”  

The voice is deep, authoritative, rumbling. The screen door slams shut, hinges squealing. The back of my neck vibrates like a tuning fork. I’m underneath the kitchen sink, sweat dripping into my eyes. I arrived in Hamtramck, this sub-city of Detroit, after midnight, stumbled straight into bed, and woke at dawn to take the dog for a walk and unpack the U-Haul. I need more sleep; I need a real meal, not just a stale bagel and a bowl of matcha, in order to be in my right mind. No wonder I’m having outsized reactions to a simple human voice, undeniably commanding as it is. 

I scoot backward on all fours and carefully extract my bandana-covered head before standing up. I’m disgusting: my shirt is sticking to me and I’m speckled with muck from my futile attempts to fix the leaking faucet. I wince when I realize how my new neighbor just saw me: ass pushed high in the air, waving to and fro as I prodded at mysterious pipes that I know nothing about. My jean cutoffs were chosen for coolness, not decency, on this humid summer day, and my tits are free-ranging it underneath my threadbare UNLV t-shirt. 

Yet I see heat flare in my neighbor’s eyes as he surveys me with a politely neutral expression. I stop myself from yanking down the frayed hems of my cutoffs. 

“That’s me,” I say, my own voice gravelly from lack of sleep. “You must be Alex.” I point to myself. “Grace Kang.”  

We smile at each other, a little shyly.

I point at the black-and-white pitbull who is in my care for the next month, but Roxy is too busy nuzzling Alex’s calves to notice my disapproval. “Some fucking guard dog you make.” 

Alex laughs. I look up—way, way up—to meet his eyes. When my friend Cheryl mentioned that her next-door neighbor, Alex the psych nurse, could occasionally help out with Roxy, I had assumed—I hate my ingrained sexism—that of course Alex stood for Alexandra, and from there my imagination had pictured a cheerful and bubbly divorcee in her mid-to late thirties, good with children and animals, not a cool-eyed bruiser several inches taller than me who is, to put it bluntly, prison jacked. I eyeball his wide shoulders and muscled arms and wonder when he finds time to work out—from what Cheryl said, Alex works long and irregular shifts. 

“Don’t blame her,” he says. He rubs the back of his head—his hair is cut in a modified high-and-tight, the sides shaved, the top left a little longer—and then squats to scratch Roxy behind the ears. His hands are big, their touch confident. Her eyes glaze at his touch, and she drools on his feet. “This girl knows me.” 

I belatedly remember my manners. “Can I get you something? Water? A beer? Cheryl mentioned you’d stop by.” 

He steps farther into the kitchen and I can see him better now: unusual eyes, gray, but so light as to seem colorless; olive skin that looks almost golden in the early evening light; glossy hair that is the rich, bright brown of chestnuts; a calm but alert presence. Around my age—mid-to-late thirties. I’m good at guessing ages, as good at it as white people are bad at guessing mine. Alex’s features are blunt and uncompromising—a long, full-lipped slash of a mouth, wide cheekbones, a strong nose that’s been broken at least once. Plus a facial expression that’s impersonal, bordering on mean. As can happen with hyper-masculine men, his eyelashes are so lush they’d make a drag queen jealous. He’s a good nurse, I can tell. Just being around him must make the patients feel calm, although my jackhammering pulse tells a different story. I must’ve imagined the hot-eyed glance I thought I saw earlier. 

“Pilsner okay?” I take out two bottles, although mine is mostly for show. I have almost zero alcohol tolerance, but it tends to put people on edge if the hostess isn’t drinking. And if Alex is going to occasionally check in on the dogs for me and maybe fix Cheryl’s leaky faucet, I want to put him at ease. “Sure,” he says. “You want me to fix that leak?” 

Surprising myself, I flirt a little. A low, urgent tug in my belly is making me flutter my eyelashes, tilt my head. “Yes, please,” I say, smiling so deeply that my dimples appear. I drop my gaze, then peer up at him. “How many times have you done this for Cheryl?” 

Alex looks me right in the eyes. “As often as she needs.” 

That low tug in my belly turns into a hard, aching knot. The blood beats in my neck, my palms, the soles of my feet, heavy as a bassline in a grinding dance anthem. I’m the first to look away. 

I feel useless just sitting at the kitchen table and watching as Alex repairs the sink, so I offer to get us dinner. I run into the bedroom and change into a bra and clean shirt before I leave. Alex says he’ll let Roxy out while I’m gone. I’m back in forty minutes and by that point he’s not only fixed the leak, but taken out the garbage and is oiling the screen door’s squeaky hinges. 

“You’re handy,” I say approvingly as I set the table and put the takeout and a pitcher of ice water on the kitchen table. Roxy trots over to sniff me and beg for food, but I scratch the scruff of her neck before I lead her to her crate in the living room. She goes willingly and gets in her bed, circling three times before she lies down in happy exhaustion.

I return to the kitchen and make a desultory attempt to look for drinking glasses, but I keep opening and reopening the same cabinets only to reveal more chipped plates and bric-a-brac. It’s hard for me to think and I can’t tell if it’s my sleeplessness or Alex’s presence that is making me so nervous. 

Alex has finished his beer and mine. I hand him a third one, which he takes with a nod of thanks. He glances at my left hand as he pulls out a chair for me, then takes his own seat. “Your husband not handy?”  

My short-shorts and bralessness had not been enough to embarrass me,  but a loaded question and a brief look can make me turn red. I briefly, foolishly, place my right hand over my left. “It’s fake,” I confess, grinning. I find almost everything funny these days, myself most of all. 

Alex’s eyebrows lift. 

“Did Cheryl tell you how we became friends?” I ask.

Alex shakes his head. “She just said you’re here for a month while she and the wife are in Chicago. And that you’re from California.” We both turn and look at the photo of Cheryl and Deborah pinned on the fridge. It’s from the Hotter Than July festival last year; Cheryl is in her box braids and a kaftan, her bourbon-colored eyes alive with laughter, her dark bronze skin lit by the sun. Deborah, her hair short and natural, wears a dress in the colors of the Jamaican flag, and kisses Cheryl on the cheek. They are both so happy and in love that sometimes I stand in front of them and bask in their feelings, like a cat in the sun. 

“She took a writing course at Michigan State this past year.” I clear my throat. “I was on a fellowship and part of the deal was that I teach classes to earn my keep—” 

Realization dawns in Alex’s eyes and he almost, but not quite, grins. “And that keeps the horny undergrads at bay,” he says, nodding at my ring finger.

I fiddle with the plain silver band and the cubic zirconia solitaire stacked above it. “Not just them. Professors are randy as fuck, it turns out. And I just wanted…to be above the fray, I guess. So—” I hold up my left hand, wiggle my fingers. 

“Do you take ‘em off if you want to get laid?” Alex asks. His tone is bland but the look on his face is not. I find myself taking quick, darting looks at him, only meeting his eyes for milliseconds at a time. Each moment our glances catch makes me flush, as if I have taken a sip of a too-strong high-proof liquor.

He reaches out and delicately, thoughtfully places his thumb and forefinger around the ring set, rotating it around my finger. I can feel the rough edges of his calluses against the tender skin. I turn bright red, almost as if I have taken a shot of whiskey. “Where does Cheryl keep the drinking glasses,” I mumble, rising to my feet and abruptly turning away.  

“Cabinets above the toaster oven,” Alex says, and I can hear the grin in his voice. 

You got this, I pep-talk myself, wishing I wasn’t so discombobulated by him. I have survived so much; I pride myself on being able to handle almost anything, but throw an attractive man into the mix and suddenly I’m an awkward, inarticulate adolescent again. 

The cabinets Alex pointed out are very tall. I step onto a small wooden stool and open their doors as I discreetly take some deep, calming breaths. They don’t work. My mind is blank and I can’t remember what I was doing—oh right. I rise on tiptoe and push my hand deeper among Cheryl’s motley collection of housewares to try and find plain drinking glasses. I can feel Alex’s gaze on me, roaming up my legs, finally settling on my ass, the cutoffs riding farther up as I bend forward. I hear the scrape of chair legs across Cheryl’s kitchen floor. 

“Oh,” I say, bumping my head on the cabinet shelf. Alex is behind me. I can sense him breathing, hear my own breath as it stutters unevenly in my chest. Hyper aware of my own movements, I lift my head; my hands scuttle over the shelves, awkward and crablike, as I pretend to keep looking for glasses. I am suddenly self-conscious about my backside, again. I ran track and field in high school, trained for Olympic trials in college—briefly and unsuccessfully. My booty and thighs have retained muscle and size, which make me alternatively proud and bashful.

Right now, I wonder if I’m not so much hiding my face as presenting myself, like an animal in heat.

Alex moves toward me. I can feel the glide of his breath on the back of my neck; his body heat turning me sticky and soft. He gets closer and time slows down: I feel luxurious, my muscles substantial, my skin sleek and glossy like a seal’s. The anticipation between us feels sharp and sweet as the bite of teeth into a fleshy, ripe fruit. I have been accused, in the past, of jumping feet first into situations that would be better off left alone, so right now—I wait. I wait to see what he does. 

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