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As a rule, Adam doesn’t like dogs.
They smell, they’re loud, they’re unpredictable, and it only takes a few uninterrupted minutes around a dog for him to get overloaded and need to leave. A neighbor brought her husky around to meet Adam when he was younger, tall and pretty with fur that he liked the feel of; just as he was getting comfortable petting her, a car alarm went off outside and startled her. Within only a few seconds Adam was covering his ears and yelling, trying to tune out the gunshot-like banging of husky barks that were only exacerbated by his screaming. The neighbor never brought the dog around again, and Adam soon forgot her once the neighbor moved away altogether.
At 20, Adam’s dad breaks his arm and needs to take time off work. Adam, still in college and in need of some extra cash to keep things afloat at home, ends up in the lobby of their building, reading the bulletin board in hopes of any job postings that don’t require him to take care of children or handle loud machinery like lawnmowers or leaf blowers. He thinks about taking a job spinning a rooms for rent sign in front of the building, but that might require him to talk to people, and Adam isn’t very adept at talking to strangers.
Just as he’s getting ready to go back up to the apartment and get back to studying, a neighbor bumps into him—around his age, he thinks, with dyed red hair and smudgy eye makeup. She apologizes, or at least he thinks she does, as she’s stooped on the ground picking up her instrument case.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” she says more clearly as she stands back up, though her accent is just a tad too thick for Adam to process it without overthinking each syllable. “I’m running late to practice.”
“You weren’t running,” he says back, staring at the collar of her leather jacket.
“I will be soon.” She laughs slightly, smiling lopsidedly before she composes herself again. “Were you looking at the board there?”
She points at it, like there’s any other board she could be talking about in the lobby, and Adam nods quickly.
“Yes, but all the jobs are too loud and too social for me.”
She quirks a pale eyebrow before she stands back on one foot, and Adam can’t tell whether she’s going to laugh or not. Something about her eyeliner makes him not want to look her in the face when she’s looking him in his.
“Would you mind doing a job for me?”
Adam looks down, swallowing hard. He isn’t sure he trusts her, but his dad would certainly be happy to hear Adam found some way to bring a little extra money in. So, he sucks it up, no matter how much his gut tells him it’s a bad idea, and answers her: “I would. What is it?”
She fishes around in her back pocket until she pulls her phone out, facing it towards Adam. He doesn’t look up initially, not until she jiggles it in front of his face and encourages him with a small “look.”
“I need someone to watch him for a few days.”
The “him” in question is a large, sandy dog with a black muzzle and back, long-haired and wild-looking even as he’s sprawled across a couch. Adam has never seen a dog like this before, and he feels a little jolt of fear seeing just how big he is in the photo—how much he looks like a wolf from a fairytale.
“Are you going to leave your phone here?” He asks, and he sees her raise her eyebrow.
“No? Nigel’s a good dog, he likes going for walks but I’ll only be gone for a few days—you don’t need to walk him if you don’t want to. Feed him twice a day and check on him in the afternoon too, he gets lonely.” She puts her phone away and shifts onto her other foot, wincing like she hurt herself. “I didn’t say it earlier: I’m Gabi in 4C. What’s your name?”
She speaks at a mile a minute, and Adam struggles to wrap his head around her words. Does she have two dogs? Has he made up another dog? He decides instead to just say his name and apartment number in an attempt to not overcomplicate things even further. “Adam Raki, 2A.”
Suddenly, Gabi is at the door and calling back to him: “I’ll bring the key tomorrow morning!”
It slams shut behind her, and Adam feels uneasy.
—
Adam decides to go over in the morning, around 8am, and his dad is in tow. He wanted to introduce himself to Gabi and make her aware of Adam’s condition for the sake of transparency, and Adam feels a bit awkward having his dad walk him up to 4C like he’s being punished.
His dad made it clear that Adam shouldn’t have agreed to the job without talking it through with him first, but he wasn’t mad at Adam for taking the opportunity even with his history surrounding dogs. He might not have done it perfectly, but at least his dad wasn’t upset with him for doing exactly what was asked of him: find a job.
Gabi looks surprised when she opens the door, her eyes looking even bigger with the black rings smeared around them. “Hello, Adam. I said I’d bring the key.”
Adam’s dad talks like Adam isn’t there sometimes, and he feels like a transparent wall standing between him and Gabi. At least when she isn’t looking directly at his face he can feel the courage to look at hers—he thinks she’s very pretty, and with a better look at her, he realizes her makeup makes her look like a raccoon. He clenches and unclenches his hands at his sides, holding back the urge to cut into the conversation and tell her about the family that lives in Central Park.
Gabi smiles at Adam a little differently when she turns her attention back to him—to him, it almost reads like pity.
“Come meet Nigel—I already fed him breakfast, you’ll just have to take care of dinner.”
Adam follows her into her apartment, worrying the hem of his shirt as she brings him over to the sofa.
Nigel looks even bigger in real life—he’s sprawled out, making him look at least six feet long, and even with his head turned upside down he still greets Adam with a cold look in his eyes. He backs away, keeping his eyes fixed on the dog, and grips at the hem of his shirt tightly.
“He’s a Carpathian Shepherd,” Gabi says, smiling proudly, “from Romania, just like me.”
“Does he bark?” Adam asks, almost stammering.
Gabi reaches down and scratches his chest, making him wiggle around. Suddenly, he’s a bit less scary.
“Only at intruders.” She extends her smile to Adam and gestures for him to come over and pet Nigel. “Come, I don’t think he’s gotten a good look at you.”
Adam would beg to differ, but he nods, psyches himself up, and steps forward. He immediately regrets his decision when Nigel quickly turns over onto his stomach, sniffing in Adam’s direction. He wants to scream, he’s prepared for Nigel to start growling and barking, but no noise comes out of him. When he doesn’t move or vocalize, Nigel moves closer, his breath snuffling against the back of Adam’s palm, his cold nose making brief contact with his skin before Adam makes a small gagging sound in the back of his throat.
“You have to get used to the nose thing,” Gabi says, speaking from experience, and thankfully she doesn’t look irritated or confused, “he’s very curious.”
Adam stands still, letting Nigel sniff and sniff him before he gets up from the couch, landing with a loud thud onto the floor. Suddenly, he’s circling around Adam, looking up at him with sharp, dark eyes and trying to guide him onto the couch. Gabi is chuckling behind her hand.
“What is he doing?” Adam asks, trying to stand his ground but struggling more than he’d like to admit.
“He thinks you’re a sheep—must be your hair.” She gestures at her own, and Adam furrows his brow. “He’s herding you.”
Adam turns to look at his dad, whose face is red and scrunched oddly. Suddenly, he’s fallen back onto the couch, and Nigel is jumping up beside him, getting too close to his face and sniffing him eagerly.
“I think Nigel’s going to be very happy,” Adam’s dad says to Gabi, who nods once.
“He likes you,” she confirms, but that does nothing to put Adam at ease.
He’s told to stay on the couch with Nigel, who has now decided to lay down with his head propped up in Adam’s lap, while Gabi gathers the last of her things and writes out the full list of care Adam needs to give to Nigel. Adam’s dad watches, leaning against the wall and resting his free arm over his injured one.
“Try petting him,” he encourages, glancing over in Gabi’s direction before asking, “where does he like to be pet?”
Adam stares down at Nigel’s head, and feels deeply unnerved when he finds the dog staring up at him, his tail swishing slowly. He feels like Nigel’s going to attack suddenly—like he’s going to jump on top of Adam and rip him to shreds with his big, sharp dog teeth. It’s not like he can get either hand out to pet him even if he wants to: one hand is buried under Nigel’s chest, feeling each big, heaving breath he takes, and the other is at his side, right next to his muzzle, and Adam doesn’t want to immediately move something in front of his face. He isn’t even sure he’s scared of being ripped up necessarily—he’s just scared of the barking.
“Behind his ears, under his chin, down his back? He likes to be pet everywhere!” Gabi calls back from her bedroom, which Adam was not-so-subtly catching glances into as she shoved clothing into her bag. He feels a resonant pang inside him seeing one of her bras thrown across her unmade bed, and suddenly he can’t help but stare at her boobs as she leans over the bag. They aren’t the biggest he’s ever seen—they’re a bit bigger than his own, currently pressed flat underneath a sports bra—but they’re boobs nonetheless, and Adam can’t help but look.
He turns his gaze away when Gabi comes out of her bedroom, closing the door behind her and scrambling over to her instrument case on the kitchen table. She looks at Adam and Nigel, and she smiles again. Gabi walks over to them and moves to scratch at Nigel’s head, when he suddenly growls at her. Adam tenses underneath Nigel, and she pulls her hand back slowly, laughing.
“So protective already! He won’t want you to leave, Adam.”
He swallows hard, and insists on his dad leaving just after Gabi does.
“It’s good seeing you facing your fears. Want me to bring you lunch later?”
Adam nods, and when his dad leaves the apartment, Adam looks down and finds Nigel still staring at him. The only nice thing Adam can say about the experience so far is that Nigel has yet to bark at anything, even if his head is too heavy and he smells like a wet dog even though he’s dry and he likes Adam a bit too much for his liking.
Nigel liking him too much is probably better than the alternative, though.
—
The first two days go smoothly, and Adam has nothing major to report. Adam takes Nigel on a walk every day after lunch, taking him through Central Park on his third and final day dog-sitting and stopping him just where he’s seen the raccoons. Nigel stands at Adam’s side and seems to listen the entire time, sniffing and smelling around to find the den, and Adam is worried what will happen if Nigel finds it. He puts a little force on his leash and says “no” as sternly as he can, though he repeats it many, many times until Nigel backs off, returning to Adam’s side and looking up at him.
“You can’t herd them or hurt them,” he says to Nigel, “they’re my friends.”
Nigel doesn’t respond, but it’s almost like he acknowledges Adam’s words and accepts them. He then walks ahead, pulling them down the path until they reach a tree that Nigel decides he wants to pee on.
Adam tries to grant him privacy while he does his business, but he gets curious: he’s never seen most of what dogs do, only from afar or on TV, and it’s different to see a dog pee three feet away from him than it is to see it simulated on a show. Adam swears he can smell wet fur, and when Nigel brings his leg down, he tries to subtly search through his thick undercoat for the source of the smell. He’s interrupted, though, when Nigel starts walking once again.
Nigel’s good at walking—he doesn’t pull on the leash, and he never drags Adam down the street, even when he sees a squirrel running up a tree or a smaller dog walking past. He only growls when he sees someone get too close to Adam, and he wonders if Nigel is going to stop doing that anytime soon. It’s a little better than barking, but it makes him nervous all the same.
It also makes Adam nervous when people, girls in particular, start paying attention to him because of Nigel. It all becomes a flurry of “what breed is he?”, “he’s so handsome!”, “what’s his name?”, and Adam gets overloaded only halfway through their walk. He tells the last girl who tries to speak to him that he needs to go, maybe a bit too loudly, and he takes the quickest route back home. He and Nigel end up sitting on the front step of the apartment building just past noon, and Adam tells Nigel, who can’t understand him, all about Soviet space dogs.
“Everyone only ever talks about Laika,” he says, glancing over at the dog sitting at his side, “but there were others who went up into orbit and came back. Veterok and Ugolyok were in orbit for 21 days and they came back and recovered completely. There was even a cat sent up into orbit and she lived—but they euthanized her later to examine her brain.”
While Adam talks to him, Nigel watches the people who pass by, and that is the first thing that Adam decides he really likes about Nigel; that he people-watches, too.
—
After Adam has fed Nigel his dinner and taken him out to go to the bathroom, he notices Nigel snuffling at him as he follows him around the living room. He follows closely behind, and occasionally Adam can feel his nose touching the back of his pants.
So far, Nigel hasn’t been too overly-personal, and Adam was sure that he was going to leave this experience not having a weird encounter with a large, pretty dog that he can’t decide his true opinion on. Every night he locks up Gabi’s apartment and finds himself wet when he gets undressed to take his shower, and he doesn’t want to wonder why that is—why he’s reacting that way when all he’s done is watch a dog all day. Now, it’s impossible to ignore.
“Stay back,” Adam warns, sitting down to try and get his nose away from his butt. He guesses that Nigel didn’t get to greet him in the way dogs are one to do, but he would hope they’re past that now and Nigel doesn’t need to get that up-close and personal with him.
But, even with Adam sitting on the couch, Nigel is still curious—just as Adam has settled down and found a space documentary to watch on Netflix (which Gabi gave him express permission to use), Nigel shoves his nose between Adam’s legs.
“Stop!” Adam shrinks back, wiggling away from Nigel and clamping his legs together.
Unfortunately for him, his body starts responding to the friction he causes, and he can’t decide whether to twist away and make it worse or just stay where he is, even if Nigel can still force his nose in between Adam’s thighs. He’s too scared to shut his legs on Nigel’s muzzle, terrified that he’ll finally lash out at Adam after a full day of being a quiet, composed dog, but he doesn’t like how Nigel’s nosing around is making him feel.
Actually, if Adam is being honest, he really likes how Nigel’s nosing around makes him feel, and that’s why he needs to put a stop to it. Adam knows right from wrong: he got a lecture from his dad when he was looking up videos online without clearing his browser history, and he made special care to tell Adam that the things he’d seen, no matter if he looked them up on his own or not, were wrong, and he should never look at them again. It’s wrong, Adam knows this is wrong, but there’s something about the wrongness that feels good; he wouldn’t have gotten off three times in one sitting if he was watching something simulated, with visibly unrelated actors calling each other “brother,” animated videos with dogs, so on and so forth. He can’t have the real thing, but he does want it, and this might be the closest he ever gets.
Nigel, reacting like he is reading Adam’s every thought, pushes past the barrier of his thighs and nestles his nose in between them. The seam of his jeans rubs against his clitoris, pebbling between his lips and basking in every ounce of friction that is placed upon it. Adam grabs at the arm and back of the couch, letting his legs fall open as Nigel snuffles against the front of his jeans. It feels better than when he touches himself; he knows every move he’s going to make, and with Nigel it’s totally unpredictable, there’s no order or expectation to it whatsoever. He can never recreate this with his own hand, with the galaxy-printed—not of any galaxy he can recognize, however—vibrator that lives in a box underneath his bed that he can’t hide from his dad well enough.
Adam moans shakily, hard, and whimpers as Nigel milks an orgasm out of him with barely any effort. He hasn’t even had the chance to breathe through it before Nigel is licking at the front of his jeans—he must be able to smell how wet he made Adam, and thinks the proper way to make it up to him for ruining his underwear is to make him come again.
He can’t say he disagrees with Nigel, not in this state.
Adam hurriedly unbuttons his pants and shoves them down to his ankles, raising his legs so Nigel can fit his head between his thighs again and get a better angle of his vagina. Nigel’s tongue first finds his clitoris, with more ease than Adam himself had when he was first attempting to masturbate, and for the first time in his life Adam knows what a tongue on his clitoris feels like. It feels strange at first, not quite as good as the seam of his jeans, until Nigel buries his muzzle in deeper and rubs his nose against his throbbing clitoris.
“Good boy,” Adam huffs, his thighs starting to tremble—he’s never done this position for longer than half a second when he’s rocking himself up from his back onto his butt. “You’re a good boy, Nigel.”
Nigel pants against his mound, and suddenly his tongue is probing Adam’s vagina and lapping up his slick. He grabs the backs of his thighs and pulls his legs flush to his body, throwing his head back and moaning as Nigel sticks his tongue inside Adam again. The sound of tongue against vagina doesn’t sound too dissimilar to the one Nigel makes when he’s cleaning himself, his tongue slapping against his mystery genitalia that Adam still wants to know the look of. It’s just residual curiosity from the video he watched so long ago—it was only filmed from one angle, and one that didn’t allow a good look at the dog’s penis as it slammed into the man’s rectum. The dog in that video wasn’t as big as Nigel, and he is desperate to know what his looks like when it is entirely unsheathed.
As Nigel pulls his wide, flat tongue up Adam’s mound, slicking his entire labia with saliva and his own self-made lubricant, he shudders and digs his nails into the upholstery. One hand detaches from the sofa and searches blindly until it finds the soft, warm top of Nigel’s head, and it wanders down until he’s found the spot behind his ear. Adam scratches, moaning and whimpering in between low praises for the dog, and he hears and feels Nigel’s tail swatting against the couch cushion in delight.
It doesn’t take much more licking for Adam to orgasm again, and this time he feels himself spray against Nigel’s snout. He’s watched squirting videos before, he knows how it works, but he’s still shocked by the fact that he’s hydrated enough to squirt for Nigel. He bites his lower lip and whimpers as his thighs shake, his insides swirling and turning fuzzy-warm like they’re sheets pulled straight from the dryer. The feeling only deepens when Nigel licks his snout and cleans Adam’s squirt away—he’s sure no human would ever do that for him, and here, Nigel is obliging and making him feel desirable in a way that he hadn’t before thought possible.
Adam moves, sitting up to pull off his shoes and pants so he can move his legs farther, but before he can present himself to Nigel again, the dog is on top of him and attempting to nudge him off of the couch and onto the floor. He doesn’t want to be on the floor, he knows that any texture digging into his palms will make him feel nauseous and deeply uncomfortable, but he’s soon on his hands and knees, presenting both of his holes to Nigel.
He doesn’t realize until Nigel is hovering over him, mounting him, that he weighs quite a lot. Adam’s chest collapses against the floor with a thud and a groan, and his fingers spread out as Adam feels a warm, wet taper prodding at his slobbery vagina. He’s disappointed that he didn’t get a look before he went on all fours, but he can ignore that desire to know when he feels Nigel’s cock slide into him. It’s a quick slide, it only lasts a second or two before he draws himself out and thrusts in again, and only a few seconds after that he has quickened to a maddening pace.
Each rabbit-like thrust makes Adam gasp, and he’s wincing and whimpering as he reaches in between his thighs to stroke his clitoris numb—he’s rubbing hard and furiously, matching Nigel’s pace that feels both brutal and precise. The sound of his flattened fingertips moving against his labia makes a small sound similar to that of Nigel cleaning himself, and that only serves to make Adam harder.
“Good, good,” he whimpers, his hips unconsciously jerking back and slamming against a firm protrusion at the base of Nigel’s cock.
This, this is something he has only read about. His dad scared him out of researching dog anatomy, dog breeding, but he knows that it’s different from human procreation; he knows that dogs have much different anatomy than humans, and a type of anatomy that absolutely fascinates Adam. He feels a shudder run up and down through his body as he realizes that Nigel is knotting, and soon he’s going to ejaculate inside of Adam.
He remembers the moment in the video where the man grunted and moaned for a prolonged period of time—when the German Shepherd in the video knotted and ejaculated inside him, and the swelling kept the man in place all while the dog rested on top of him, panting and rutting occasionally.
Nigel has been thrusting into him pretty shallowly, but with a strange sense of telepathy, he drives himself deep and hard into Adam, shoving his growing knot inside and making him cry out. Adam has only ever had his fingers and his narrow vibrator inside of him before, and both felt absolutely awful when he attempted any meaningful penetration. This, Nigel’s cock jackhammering itself inside him, isn’t the greatest feeling in the world either, but Adam can’t begin to care because he knows that this is what he’s always wanted.
The long fur on Nigel’s underchest, spraying out from around his groin, brushes and tickles the bare skin of Adam’s thighs and ass. He moves himself back and breathes roughly when he reminds himself that he’s being mounted, he’s being bred like a bitch, and he never thought it would be possible. Adam was convinced he’d never see that video again, the only source of information about just what he wanted, desired more than anything in the world. It feels weird, the act itself, but everything surrounding it is monumental to Adam.
Nigel still humps Adam even as he ejaculates inside of him, and he sees stars and comes himself when his violent rubbing and Nigel’s violent thrusting finally overload him in the best way possible. As Adam breathes through his third orgasm of the night, Nigel lays on top of him, his large paws pinning Adam in place on either side. The extra weight makes him shake, and he worries about his legs buckling underneath him with Nigel still tied—would it rip Adam? Worse, would it hurt Nigel?
That concern is put on hold, though, when he feels Nigel start thrusting inside him again, a jackhammering rabbit pace that almost feels like too much with a knot inside him to boot. Adam cries and wishes that Nigel will stop, but another part of him wants it to keep going; he doesn’t want this feeling to end, he wants Nigel to fill him up again and again until he can’t take it anymore. It only lasts another minute or so until Nigel ejaculates another wave of watery dog come into Adam, and that is when he’s sure that their session is over. Against his better judgment, he holds himself up until Nigel turns and starts pulling away from Adam a few minutes. With enough force, his deflating knot unties from Adam’s vagina and they’re both free. Adam falls to the floor and pants slowly, his ass up in the air like he really has another orgasm in him. Bliss hits him hard, and it fills him with a feeling he struggles to name. It’s somewhere between wrongness and contentedness, tinged with guilt but washed with delight. It’s confusing, it’s dumb, but Adam likes basking in it.
When he turns his head to the side, propping it up on his folded arm, he finds Nigel laying at his side, his dark eyes fixed on him. Adam reaches across the five inch gap and strokes the top of Nigel’s head, repeatedly calling him a good boy until his eyes fall shut.
—
In the morning, Adam is upset to return Nigel to Gabi’s care. He’s sure that Nigel is unhappy about it too, if his numerous attempts to herd Adam back into the apartment, back to the sofa where they made love, are any indication, and he’s crying before Gabi even thanks him, pays him, and closes the door. He can hear Nigel whimpering on the other side as Adam stands there, shaking, before he caves and runs down the stairs, down to his apartment. When he’s back in his room, he has a meltdown that lasts the entire day, but his misery is put on pause when he hears a knock at the door.
His dad calls him over, and when he emerges from his room and pads miserably up to the door he finds Gabi, her makeup less smudged than usual, with Nigel sat obediently at her side. It almost feels like he’s in a dream.
“Nigel and I were talking,” she says, getting a laugh out of Adam’s dad even though she gives Adam himself a quiet, knowing look, “and I think he wants you to visit again. Would you mind coming over when I have rehearsals and concerts?”
Adam’s eyes go wide, and he swallows hard. He looks down at Nigel, who stares wholly at Adam, his dark eyes fixed on his own. It might be the first time he’s never felt scared to maintain eye contact.
“I have rehearsals four times a week and concerts almost as often. Nigel gets lonely when I’m gone, even for a few hours a day. We’d both be happier if you came over and kept him company while I’m working.” Her hand finds the spot behind his ear, and Adam swears he sees him nod as he leans into her scratching fingers. Adam can remember clearly how soft the hair behind his ears is, and then he can remember the feeling of his tongue on his labia, and he blushes so deeply that his face starts to burn.
“Adam really loved taking care of Nigel—he’s rarely been as committed to anything as babysitting your dog,” Adam’s dad says to her, and his eyes move downward when Nigel gives him a slight growl, “I wouldn’t mind him going over and getting some more dog-sitting in. Do you, Adam?”
He looks up, his eyebrows furrowed, and his hands flail a bit at his sides. Adam feels like he shouldn’t be getting this, that he should be found out right now and getting arrested for what he allowed Nigel to do to him, and his heart is rabbiting in his chest like each of Nigel’s thrusts inside him. He feels himself getting wet just remembering the previous night, and Adam struggles to not bring it up.
“Nigel was really good,” he says, and there’s some look on Gabi’s face that passes just as quickly as Adam notices it. “I wouldn’t mind coming over again.”
She smiles, relieved, and strokes her hand down the back of Nigel’s head.
“Perfect. I’ll write down the dates and come give them to you tomorrow?” She directs her question at Adam’s dad, and he nods.
“Sounds great. We really appreciate you letting Adam watch Nigel—I don’t think I’ve ever seen him sadder than he was this morning when he came home. That dog’s really important to him.”
Gabi is staring at Adam, and when he finally decides to look her in the face after a lot of internal psyching, she’s giving him a very knowing look.
“Nigel feels the same way.”
They chat a little longer before she leaves with Nigel in tow, but the entire time Adam tunes them out and stares at Nigel. He’s not brave enough to touch him in front of his dad, in front of Gabi, but his heart races at the thought: can Nigel speak to Gabi?
That only opens up an entirely new range of questions that Adam isn’t sure he can answer with confidence. Nigel is different from every other dog he’s ever seen, the only other one he interacted with—sometimes, Adam thought that he seemed more like a person than a dog. Like he listens, like he understands, like he can comprehend what Adam says and do the exact opposite of what he wants. Maybe it isn’t impossible to think that Nigel isn’t the average dog, and there is some higher form of intelligence going on that is distinctly human.
That’s impossible, that’s illogical; how would a man even be turned into a dog? It’s a silly, childish thought, and Adam feels like he’s overloading himself just considering the idea that Nigel isn’t a mere dog. But, now that he’s considered it, he can’t shake the fact that when Nigel and Gabi leave, Adam can hear a low, accented voice in his head as Nigel turns to look back at him, just before the door closes.
See you later, darling.