“The cats are free to roam the house when we have company since they will scratch the shit out of anyone who even tries to bother them. But I like to keep the dogs and the exotics tucked away.”
“Well, aren’t you a cute guy,” she said, cooing at my macaw.
“Fuck you, Benny,” he croaked in his scratchy voice at her.
“Who is Benny?” she asked as her gaze immediately slipped to me, shaking her head.
“I didn’t teach him that.”
“Likely story, right, dude?” she asked, offering the back of her hand to the bird, smartly not trusting that he wouldn’t try to take off one of her fingers. He was picky about his people, but seemed to prefer most women to men.
“I bet Benny deserved that fuck you if you heard it often enough to learn it, right? I think Bennys are notoriously untrustworthy. Like Carls. And Kyles. I’ve known a few sketchy Walters too. I mean it might be a less exhaustive list to name guys who are trustworthy, am I right?” she asked, getting him to duck his head as an invite to pet him.
“Oh, and who are you, sweetie pie?” she asked of one of my dogs who saw her and immediately turned upside down on the bed to beg for belly rubs. “One, two, three…” she counted, looking around the room.
“Six. Six dogs. Five cats. The Blue and Gold macaw. And there is a tortoise in the bathroom.”
“A tortoise? Is he huge? You never get to see huge ones.”
“He’s getting there,” I told her as I went into my dresser to grab a t-shirt. “I’m putting the prospects on the job soon of creating him an area out to the side yard where he can do some burrowing. Right now, he just kinda walks around out there. But it would be nice to get him something more natural for him.”
“I get that. The whole reason I am at my house right now is because it has a big enough yard for my dogs. And to foster. They have enough room to run around. They have a kiddie pool. I even gave them a little corner of the yard where I created a sort of sandbox for them. Only it isn’t sand. It’s dirt. And they can dig to their hearts’ content.”
“Sounds like paradise for them.”
“They seem to like it. My dream is to one day get a bigger house with more land, so I can foster more. Maybe even start my own rescue or something.”
“That’s a great goal. What?” I asked when she started laughing, then wincing as the movement made her ribs hurt.
“This shirt,” she said, turning it to face me.
And there it was.
My female praying mantis shirt. And she was holding the decapitated body of a male.
With the words “Thanks for the good time” next to her.
“Want a different one?”
“Are you kidding? I need to know where you got this, so I can get myself one,” she said, dropping it down on the bed, then reaching for the hem of her shirt, completely unconcerned with me seeing her in her bra.
And, I mean, this was Florida.
Many women walked around in nothing but bathing suits all the time. A bra was no different. And yet… it always seemed different to me.
And Lark, well, she was one of those women.
The ones who had all that fancy shit under their normal clothes. Even their ‘spring dogs out of a fight ring’ clothes.
The bra itself was nude with a thin black lace over it that gave a peek-a-boo effect.
The two times I’d seen the woman, she’d been all decked out in black that wasn’t exactly form-fitting, so I hadn’t been able to see just how curvy she was. But the woman had a great fucking rack, a slight inward turn toward her waist, and then a generous flare to her hips.
My old man—the pig he often was—used to say that very thin women looked better in clothes, and curvy women looked better without them.
Personally, I had no body type preference.
But I had not a single doubt that Lark’s curvier body would look fucking amazing naked.