Stud Rites

and you are no longer welcome at this show. And you know what I am talking about, because I warned you once before. I am referring to the poor filthy bitch I saw you with this morning, and what I am doing is, I am dashing any hopes you may have of getting her into a bathtub in this hotel and giving her the good scrubbing she needs before she’s fit to be taken out into the light of day, never mind into the ring! Don’t do it! And one more word to the wise, Timmy, and this is a very quiet word, and it is based on extensive conversations that I have had with certain members of the wedding party that is struggling just like me to make things work in spite of everything, and that one word is puppies, and the one thing I have to say to you on that subject is, not on show grounds!” With that admonition, Freida and her deputies wheeled around and marched into the hall.
    His face red, Timmy Oliver turned to me, only, I think, because I happened to be right there. I’d overheard the confrontation because I’d been playing mugwump between the end of the breed club’s booth and the outdoors. I hadn’t been lurking around in search of a fellow victim of public accusation; I’d just been coveting the old sign.
    ”Jesus,” Tim said. ”Jesus, this is a shock. You know, I was one of the last friends James had.”
    ”I didn’t know he was a friend of yours.” In the background, I could hear Betty Burley’s voice, as animated and opinionated as usual. ”I sort of had the impression that, uh, he’d been out of dogs for such a long time...”
    Tim’s face was flushed an increasingly unhealthy color. ”Yeah, well, James didn’t like the direction the breed was going in.”
    ”A lot of people don’t,” I said. Name any breed of dog, and there’ll be a lot of people who don’t like the direction it’s going in.
    ”Yeah, well, James really didn’t like it, and shit, here I am with this bitch that he was goddamn crazy about, and... Shit!” Oliver gave the pavement a hard kick. As his knee bent, the cuff of his trousers rose a little, revealing a sock that had slid down around his ankle. He delivered a second fierce kick to the asphalt. ”Z-Rocks was a goddamn sure thing.”
    ”At a dog show,” I said, ”there is no such animal.”
     

 
     
    THE GLOSSY BROCHURES spread out at the Reproductive Technologies, Inc., booth had a paradoxically ill-bred habit of posing intimate questions:
     
IS YOUR STUD OVERBOOKED?
WORRIED ABOUT POOR-QUALITY EJACULATE?
MANUAL STIMULATION? OR AN ESTRUS TEASER BITCH?
     
    Compromised libido, membrane fragility, intrauterine deposition, vaginal smears, ancillary aids —kinky, that one?—and an orgasmic-sounding phenomenon called the L-H surge: It all felt alarmingly human, WITH R.T.I., WHEN  SHE’S READY, HIS COUNT IS ALWAYS UP! Good God! The trauma of freezing! And chilled semen? Couldn’t it at least be warmed to room temperature? But Reproductive Technologies, Inc., was for dogs, not people. No matter what the query or the problem, the answer was always the same: R.T.I., where, as a red-and-gold satin banner proclaimed, FOOLING MOTHER NATURE IS OUR ONLY BUSINESS!
    And a lucrative one it apparently was. Here were no hand-scrawled signs taped to the concrete wall, no homemade posters, no paper tablecloths, no piles of bargain-photocopied handouts, none of the hallmarks of the amateur vendors whose promotional efforts announce, if read between the lines: We’re new at this! Here, fabric screens in royal blue formed the backdrop for a little stage richly set with props: chairs with upholstered seats; a portable computer; giant blown-up photos of handsome men and beautiful women in white coats—scientists, yes, concerned scientists; even larger pictures of litter after big litter of thriving purebred puppies; a long, cloth-covered table offering shiny booklets and discreetly boxed kits containing... No, don’t ask.
    Standing behind the table was my ex-lover Finn Adams, who clutched in his hands a pair of sanitary panties for bitches in season. The fabric was pink-and-white polka dot. The edging was lace. I hadn’t seen Finn since the summer before I left for college. He’d been a tall, lean kid with sun-bleached curls and an impressive tan. My first impression now was that something dreadful had happened to him. Then I decided what: time.
    Finn knew me right away. Fiddling with the Velcro on the doggy lingerie, he said, ”Holly Winter.”
    ”Finn, for God’s sake,” I