“Eliza, darling, do be a dear and pick up Princess Prissy from the groomers on your way over here, won’t you?”
The voice of my Great Aunt Maizy set my teeth on edge, as usual. Aunt Maizy was an eccentric old woman who lived by herself in a mini mansion on the edge of the most expensive golf course in town, right by the Fairlanes Country Club. She had lived there for as long as I could remember because apparently my Great Uncle Harold used to like to play golf. However, he had died of a stroke many years ago, leaving my Aunt to devote all her time and money to her pets—the most spoiled of which was the aforementioned “Princess Prissy.”
Princess Prissy was a purebred Pomeranian who was cute as a button and mean as a snake. She was horrible to everyone but my Great Aunt and the tiny, vicious dog just barely tolerated her. I hated dealing with the little yapper—she’d bitten me more times than I could count. Unfortunately, catering to the spoiled pooch was part of my job.
Now, lest you think I was nothing but a companion for my Great Aunt like Jo was for Aunt March in Little Women, I also had a real job—well, sort of.
See, I have a Masters degree in Library Science but lately the powers that be had decided to cut our funding—a lot. That meant the library I worked at opened later and closed earlier and there were less hours to go around for all the librarians working there. Which sucked—hard. Because I was barely making ends meet before the cutbacks.
Then my landlord informed me that my rent was going up five hundred dollars a month and I was nearly tearing my hair out with worry. What was I going to do? I did not want to move back in with my Mom or sleep on my sister’s couch. My fiancé was out of the question—Don liked his “personal space”—which was probably one reason he still hadn’t set a date with me, even though we’d been engaged for five years already. Besides, his apartment is a pigsty.
It was at this moment of extreme financial desperation when my mom tactfully informed me that Great Aunt Maizy needed “a little help around the house” and was willing to pay for it.
“Why shouldn’t you help her instead of some person she doesn’t even know?” my mom said. “After all, blood is thicker than water. Think of how grateful she’ll be—she’ll probably put you in her will! You know your Great Uncle left her scads of money!”
Well, my Great Uncle Harold might have left Aunt Maizy a rich woman but as far as I could see, she was spending her fortune as fast as could on truly ridiculous things. Like the crazy wardrobes she kept for her little dogs. I happened to know that the spoiled Pomeranian I was picking up from the groomers had more clothes than I did. She was wearing something new just about every time I saw her and most of her outfits were cuter than mine, too—I mean we’re talking serious doggy haute couture!
Not that I’m some kind of fashion maven—at that point I was lucky to be shopping at Wal-Mart. It seemed like the price of everything had gone through the roof and I was barely scraping by as it was. So I couldn’t exactly afford to say “no” when my Great Aunt asked me to pick up Prissy, even though it wasn’t technically part of my job.
“Of course I’ll get her,” I said into my phone with forced cheerfulness. “But I thought Tuesday was her day at the groomers?” Which was usually good for me, since I only worked for my Aunt on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and tried to get as many hours as possible at the Library all the other days of the week.
“Oh, but today is her big day! Don’t you remember?” Aunt Maizy trilled in my ear. “Today is the day my darling Prissy ties the knot with Mr. Piddlesworth! A match made in Heaven.”
Oh my God… I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. It was a good thing I was on the phone instead of speaking face-to-face with my Aunt so she couldn’t see me.
“That’s right—I totally forgot,” I said. “Today is the day of her, uh, wedding.”
“That’s right! It’s the big day!” Aunt Maizy said again. “And after they’re properly married, Prissy and Mr. Piddlesworth are going to try and have a litter. Won’t that be nice? They both have such excellent bloodlines, you know. Their puppies will be just exquisite.”
“I’m sure they will,” I said, stifling a sigh.
“You know, my friends have been asking me if I was going to breed Princess Prissy for ages now,” my Aunt continued. “Breed her—as if she was a common mutt! I always told them, ‘No indeed! My Prissy shall not have carnal knowledge of any male dog until she is properly wed!’ And then they wanted to know if I would sell her puppies—can you imagine? ‘Of course I’m not going to sell them!’ I said. Why, I shall keep every one of my little darling’s children—no mother should be parted from her child!”
“No, of course not,” I dutifully agreed, though privately I was thinking that her entire house was going to be overrun in very short order. The idea of so many miniature Princess Prissys running around and probably peeing and pooping all over the antique Persian rugs and shiny marble floors was not appealing. Because guess who was going to have to clean it all up? Not to mention that the idea of getting two of her dogs hitched just so they could have a litter was ridiculous!
Now, lest you think I’m being mean about a poor old slightly eccentric woman who just wanted to have a little fun with her doggos, let me tell you that this dog wedding was running somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty grand. That’s right—you heard me. Fifty thousand dollars for a wedding between two dogs.
The dress that Prissy was wearing contributed a lot to that exorbitant price tag—it was a Vera Wang. I mean, I didn’t even know Vera Wang made wedding dresses for dogs, but apparently she had made this one and it had cost a literal fortune.
It was a fluffy confection with a beaded bodice and collar and a long white train with a hole cut in it for the spoiled little dog’s fluffy tail to stick through. There was also a tiara and little white satin slippers to go with it. It was utterly ridiculous and expensive enough that I could have paid the rent on my crappy apartment for a whole year if I had what it cost.
Mr. Piddlesworth’s tux hadn’t been quite as expensive, but it was still more than you’d pay for a human tux by far. (It also had a little black top hat that I had to admit was cute—though it was hard to make him keep it on.)
When you added in the flowers, the lighting, the refreshments for the dogs— which were being catered by the Pampered Pooch Café—as well as the refreshments for the human guests, which were being catered by someplace else, it all added up to a crazy amount. I knew because I helped my Aunt “keep her finances in order” so I had seen all the receipts.
So yeah—I wasn’t holding my breath that my Great Aunt would put me in her will and leave me independently wealthy. What with the designer doggy wardrobe and the canine nuptials I would be helping with, she was burning through her income as fast as possible. And me? Well, I was just trying to make ends meet until I could find another full-time job at a library with more stable hours. And in the meantime, I was going to get Princess Prissy from the groomers for her “big day.”
Thinking that this was going to be interesting to say the least, I drove my ancient Honda Civic over to The Pawfectionist—Prissy’s groomer.
The Pawfectionist—“small dogs our specialty”—was a free-standing building with a candy pink awning out front. The awning had pictures of cute little dogs in tiny tubs taking bubble baths and wearing shower caps and basically looking perfectly adorable. A sign in the window read, “By appointment only—no walk-ins please.”
It was the kind of place that charges you two hundred dollars to wash your dog and trim its toenails—a fee that Aunt Maizy happily paid because she said they did “such a good job on my babies” as she called her dogs. Most of them went there weekly and she had about seven of them, so you can bet the grooming fees added up.
But I wasn’t the one footing the bill—I was just there to get the dog. It wasn’t lost on me that my Great Aunt’s Pomeranian was getting married when I myself was unable to get my fiancé to set a date. Don always put me off, saying that he was too busy or too tired to talk about “logistics” of our own big day whenever I asked, so for the past year, I had mostly stopped asking.
This hadn’t stopped my mom from asking me about when I was going to get married, however. She wanted to see me all “settled and happy,” like my older sister, Taylor.
I love my older sister, but she’s kind of perfect, which makes it really hard to live up to the example she’s setting. She’s the CEO of her own company which makes energy drinks for women. Because, as Taylor says, “it’s such a male dominated market that we need a female-based product to even the balance.”
Her company is called “Kombucha Zoom!!!” and their marketing is all about empowerment and female success and self-actualization. I’ve tasted the energy drinks and they’re not half bad, if you don’t mind a medicinal aftertaste, which I guess the target demographic doesn’t, since they’re selling like crazy. Taylor was even approached by the Head of Acquisitions from Pepsi, who might want to buy the brand and take it national.
In addition to that, my big sister has an adoring husband named James who’s “in finance” as he says, and two perfect twin boys named Ansell and Ashton, which seems kind of mean since hanging monikers like that on kids is just asking to get them bullied. At least in my opinion.
So yeah—my big sis is doing okay for herself and I’m sure my mom would have liked to see me doing as well as she was. But since I lacked Taylor’s entrepreneurial spirit, (and also her five-foot nine willowy frame and long blonde hair,) it wasn’t going to happen.
While Taylor was a natural leader, I was always the quiet, chubby kid who would rather sit in a corner and read a book. I made excellent grades in anything English or language arts related and barely scraped by in any kind of math. So starting my own business was out of the question.
Which was probably why I was single and scooping doggy poo as my side gig instead of happily married to a gorgeous husband with two perfect children while single-handedly running my own company. Sorry, Mom.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that my life at that moment was not going as planned. Not that I planned to be abducted by aliens. But I digress—back to Prissy, the Pomeranian bride-to-be.
I pushed open the door of The Pawfectionist, which smelled like a mixture of wet dog and fancy floral spray, and gritted my teeth against the Yip-yip-yip! of their front doorbell. Instead of a regular bell to let them know when clients arrived, they had some kind of programmable thing. So of course the owner thought it would be cute to make the bell sound a tiny dog barking and the shrill sound always set my teeth on edge.
Now, lest you yourself are a dog owner and you’re starting to hate me, let me tell you—I don’t have anything against dogs in general—it was just Princess Prissy that got on my nerves. And I really wouldn’t have minded her so much if she hadn’t bitten me so often.
Most dogs are okay, though I will admit to being more of a cat person. I was, in fact, half-owner of an outdoor cat named Mr. Kittles—the other half-owner being my elderly neighbor, Mrs. Simpkins.
We took it in turn to feed Mr. Kittles who was an orange striped tomcat with a rusty purr and a friendly disposition. He was missing one eye and part of an ear which made him look kind of like a feline pirate, but he was quick to come running when he heard the sound of a can of soft cat food being opened and he always twined lovingly around my legs. Also, he never tried to bite.
Despite the yip-yip-yip of the door alarm, there was no one up front in the fancy pet salon. I spent a moment looking over their “list of services” which was displayed in fancy lettering on a chalkboard at the front—much like a menu at an exclusive bistro.
Shampoo, condition, blow-out--$120
Pawdicure--$75
Simple Trim--$75
Full Shave--$100
The whole shebang!—Shampoo, condition, blow-out,
simple trim and pawdicure--$250
I frowned a little as I read it—apparently the Pawfectionist’s prices had gone up. Not that it would stop Great Aunt Maizy from using them—she claimed they were the best groomers in town and the only ones who could handle her babies properly.
The front desk was empty and there were no other customers in sight at the moment. Just as I was beginning to wonder if I should call for an attendant, a harried-looking woman in a white smock with brown stains on it rushed up.
“Hi there, I’m here for Princess Prissy?” I said politely. “I’m picking her up for my Great Aunt Maizy. It’s her, er, ‘special day.’ The dog’s—not my Aunt’s,” I added, feeling awkward.
“Oh! Oh, of course!” the woman exclaimed but there was a slightly wild look in her eyes.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, frowning. Princess Prissy was Aunt Maizy’s favorite dog—if something had happened to her, there would be Hell to pay.
The woman shook her head quickly.
“No! I mean, well… No,” she concluded, biting her lip, and not looking confident at all.
“What’s wrong?” I could tell that she was lying. Something was definitely up.
“Well, it’s just that we think maybe Princess Prissy might have eaten something that wasn’t good for her little tummy,” the groomer said in a rush. “I mean, she’s such a delicate little thing. We don’t think she’s in any danger but she has had several, er, accidents while we were trying to groom her.”
“Accidents? As in…?”
“Loose stools.” The groomer leaned over and nearly whispered, as though this was a confidential matter and she was afraid someone else might overhear us. Then she straightened up and smiled breezily. “But you know, she seems fine now. So maybe she’s gotten it all out of her system. In fact, I’m just sure she has!”
I looked at her uncertainly.
“Um…okay. So is she ready to go?”
“Yes! We’ve just finished the third shampoo and blow out and her nails are perfect,” the groomer said, nodding eagerly. “I painted them ‘Petal Pink,’ just as your Aunt requested.”
“Wait—the third shampoo and blow-out?” I frowned at her.
“Oh, well…I’m afraid that’s when Princess Prissy had her accidents—just as we were finishing her up she, er, made a mess on the grooming table. Twice.” She gave me an apologetic look. “I’m afraid we’ll have to charge Prissy’s mom for that—your Aunt, I mean—a bit extra for that. So the price will be a little higher that usual.”
Mentally, I rolled my eyes. If I had half the money my Great Aunt spent on dog grooming I could freaking solve world hunger. Or at least afford to pay off my student loans. I thought about arguing—after all, should they really charge so much more? Dogs taking a dump on the table must be par for the course at a grooming establishment, right?
But I wasn’t footing the bill—Aunt Maizy was—and I knew she wouldn’t want me to fight with her favorite groomers. So I just nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me get her and get out of here. You can put it on my Great Aunt’s bill as usual.”
“I’ll go get her,” the groomer said, smiling even more brightly—an expression that looked forced. And then she scampered to the back of the salon.
“Yip-yip-yip! Yip-yip-yip! Grrrrrrrrr!”
I could hear Princess Prissy coming long before I saw her. Thankfully, the groomer had already put her into her carrier so I didn’t have to deal with that. Prissy hated her carrier with a passion and I always ended up with bites and scratches when I had to put her in it myself.
“Well, here she is!” The groomer gave me another nervous smile. “And please tell Miss Maizy that we hope she enjoys her big day!”
“I will,” I said, smiling back as I took the handle of the carrier from her.
I brought the carrier out to my car and then looked inside to see if I could tell if something was wrong with Prissy. But it was impossible to tell—she only bared her teeth and growled at me, which was her usual greeting for everyone but my Aunt.
“Well, okay—nice to see you, too,” I told her as I put her carefully in the passenger floorboard. She was so light I didn’t want to put her on the seat—if I stopped suddenly she would have gone flying!
My answer was more yipping and growling so I shrugged and drove back to Great Aunt Maizy’s house.
My Aunt’s house was at the far end of her neighborhood and was located past a set of tall wrought iron gates and down a long, curving drive. I pressed the code to get in and waited while the gates swung open with Prissy growling all the way.
When I finally got to the end of the drive, I found that the whole place was in a state of barely-controlled chaos. Doggy caterers from The Pampered Pooch were running back and forth, there were bunches of gold and silver balloons tied all over, and a valet attendant was parking cars for the guests—which consisted of other wealthy dog owners and their dogs.
I saw several of them walking on the lush green lawn already, the dogs making each other’s acquaintance by sniffing butts while the owners—who were actually dressed in long, fancy gowns and tuxes like you would wear for a formal human wedding—were nodding and smiling and making small talk.
I navigated through to the curving driveway that led to the back of the house and brought Princess Prissy in that way. It was better to try and keep her calm—she was a high-strung dog and was prone to puking if she got too excited.
Great Aunt Maizy met me at the back door as though she’d been waiting for me. She was a tall, statuesque woman with iron-gray hair done up in an elaborate coif at the top of her head. At the moment, she was dressed like an extra from Titanic in a cream lace and silk dress and a long rope of real pearls dangling almost to her waist. Actually, this wasn’t far off from her usual style of dress—she had an entire vintage wardrobe which she loved showing off.
“Oh Eliza!” she exclaimed, emphasizing the middle part of my name as she always did when she got upset or excited. “There you are at last! Whatever took you so long?”
I wanted to point out that if she’d use a dog groomer closer to the house instead of one that was way across town, it would be a faster trip. But there was no point in arguing with Aunt Maizy about anything because she was one of those people who was always right—even when they’re wrong. So I just shrugged and said,
“Sorry—there was traffic.”
She fluttered her hands some more—she was wearing white satin gloves with pearl buttons that went all the way up to her elbows—and gave an exasperated sigh.
“Very well—there’s still time if we hurry, I think. We must get Princess Prissy into her wedding dress! Oh, and Mr. Piddlesworth must get into his tux as well.”
“Oh—of course,” I said, without enthusiasm. Mr. Piddlesworth wasn’t too bad and would generally keep his clothes on. Well, except for the top hat, as I said earlier. But Princess Prissy hated wearing clothes—she always snapped and snarled when I was putting them on her.
To be honest, I kind of agreed with the little Pomeranian on that point. I mean, clothes on a pet just look silly, right? I had no idea how soon I would come to change my mind about that, but at the moment I was blissfully ignorant of my eventual fate. So I simply nodded and carried Prissy—still in her carrier—into the dressing room.
The dressing room was a walk-in closet bigger than my whole bedroom. It had rows and rows of doggy outfits hanging from itty-bitty hangers and wall to ceiling mirrors so the dogs could admire their reflections once they were dressed.
I knew this room well—part of my duties was helping my Great Aunt get her “babies” dressed on the days I worked for her. Aunt Maizy didn’t just dress her dogs for special occasions like Halloween and Christmas—she wanted them looking “perfectly presentable” as she put it, every single day. Have I mentioned she had seven “babies?” Well, she did. And let me tell you, that’s a lot of squirming, wiggling dogs to get in and out of designer outfits on a daily basis.
Lying out on the overstuffed velvet ottoman in the center of the room were two little outfits—a miniature tux and top hat and the gorgeous Vera Wang doggy wedding dress with a little crystal tiara and white satin shoes.
I sighed inwardly when I saw the dress because it reminded me a little of the one I had hanging in my own closet back at my apartment. I didn’t buy it for myself and it was nowhere near as nice as the Vera Wang, (though at least it didn’t have a hole cut in it for a tail,) but it was still a reminder.
My Mom had bought me the dress the year before, back when she was hinting that she wanted to see Don and I get married. The thing was, she bought it three sizes too small—“To give you incentive to lose weight for the big day!” as she so brightly put it. She’s as willowy as my big sister, Taylor, and it always bothered her that I had curves. Or a “weight problem” as she tactfully called it—always in a half-whisper, as though she was saying something deeply embarrassing.
Needless to say, the too-small wedding dress didn’t do anything except make me even more ambivalent about marriage than I had been before. I liked Don—who was a short, skinny hardware designer—well enough, but I sort of felt like he had proposed to me because he thought we’d been dating so long that he had to pop the question. And to be honest, I had accepted for the same reason.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love him. Or, well, at least like him a lot—he was easy to be around. It was just that having sex with him didn’t really do anything for me. But that wasn’t Don’s fault—no man had ever turned me on. And no woman, either. (I tried in college—nothing.)
I had come to the conclusion that I was probably asexual which was okay—it didn’t really bother me. Though I also didn’t understand why people were so crazy for sex all the time. I would rather read a book.
But back to the wedding dress—I could see right away it was going to be difficult getting Prissy into it without damaging the delicate lace and silk. She was already fighting mad from being at the groomers and being forced into her carrier—being shoved into a designer wedding gown wasn’t going to improve her mood any.
“Let’s get Mr. Piddlesworth into his outfit first,” I said, deciding to save the worst for last.
“Oh—good idea!” My Aunt ran to fetch him. In a moment, she came back holding the wiggling ball of fur in her arms.
Mr. Piddlesworth was a Fox Face Pomeranian which meant that, with his reddish coat and his sharp, pointed little face, he really did look like a miniature fluffy fox. He wiggled and squirmed, trying hard to lick my face while I got him into his teeny tux. As predicted, he wouldn’t wear the top hat, though he would have been happy to chew on it. At last I gave up and left it on the velvet covered ottoman, deciding it could go on at the last minute, right before the ceremony.
Then it was time for what I had been dreading—getting Princess Prissy into her wedding gown.
Prissy was what’s known as a Baby Doll Pom and she was pure white except for her big dark eyes and her little black nose. She would have been adorable if she wasn’t so vicious.
She came out of the carrier growling and snapping and tried to bite me immediately.
“Whoa, there!” I exclaimed, holding her by the middle so she couldn’t get me, though she was twisting her head around and trying her best to bite. “Aunt Maizy, maybe we should give her some time to cool down,” I said, looking up at my Great Aunt who was standing there watching me wrestle her dogs into their formal clothes without lifting a finger to help.
“But we can’t wait! The ceremony is about to begin!” my Aunt exclaimed breathlessly. “We must get Princess Prissy into her gown and tiara—we simply must!”
Meaning I must, since she clearly wasn’t going to help.
Grimly, I set about the task of shoving the angry little ball of fur into the delicate lace dress without ripping the fabric or getting bitten. Let me tell you—it was not easy.
Prissy was growling and barking and wiggling like crazy and Great Aunt Maizy was standing over me, looking on anxiously.
“Do be careful, Eliza!” she exclaimed, fluttering her gloved hands around like agitated doves. “That gown cost ten times your salary! I would hate to have to deduct the price of it from your paycheck!”
I restrained myself from glaring up at her.
“I’m doing my best,” I said shortly. “I—ouch! She bit me!”
“Oh—are you bleeding?” Great Aunt Maizy exclaimed, a worried look on her face.
I looked at my finger.
“No—she didn’t break the skin.”
“Oh, good!” My Aunt breathed a sigh of relief. “I was afraid you’d get blood on the gown.”
“Gee, thanks,” I muttered, going back to the struggle of getting Princess Prissy into her dress. “It’s not like it hurts me to get bitten or anything.”
“You have to forgive Princess Prissy—she’s just so anxious for her big day! You can’t blame her for being a bit high-spirited!” Aunt Maizy exclaimed, defending her dog.
I certainly could blame her, but I didn’t say it out loud. I just kept working grimly and eventually I got the little dog into her expensive gown. I even got the tiara on her head, but there was no way she was wearing the little white satin shoes. She ran away and pulled them off with her teeth as soon as I put them on. Then I had to catch her and put them on again—with the same result.
About the fourth time we had repeated this process, Great Aunt Maizy finally blew out her breath impatiently.
“Honestly, Eliza, can’t you do anything correctly?” she demanded, glaring down at me.
I looked up at her, trying to control my irritation.
“I’m putting the shoes on her,” I pointed out. “I just can’t stop her from taking them off. Unless you want her to wear some kind of muzzle?”
“Muzzle her on her big day? Heaven forbid!” Great Aunt Maizy put a gloved hand to her heaving bosom as though I had suggested something sacrilegious.
“She might bite someone in the mood she’s in,” I pointed out, as I grimly struggled to get the shoes back on Prissy again. “What if she nips the minister?” (Who was a person, by the way, not a dog—though he was going to have his pet Bulldog, Rufus, with him while he preformed the ceremony.)
“Princess Prissy would never do such a thing! She has perfect manners!” my Aunt exclaimed, as her “perfect princess” pulled the tiny satin shoes of her paws for the fifth time. “Oh, just leave them off!” she added, a look of disgust coming over her face as she looked down her Aquiline nose at me. “No one can tell she’s barefoot with the dress on, anyway!”
Feeling relieved, I sat Prissy down and watched her tear around the room with the long gown trailing behind her. Her little white tail was sticking out of it and waving like a flag through the hole in the dress that had been put there for that purpose. The hole was kind of big, I saw—it sagged down in the back, showing her fluffy behind.
I really hoped Great Aunt Maizy didn’t notice this detail and demand that I pull out a needle and thread and play seamstress—I didn’t know the first thing about sewing.
Mr. Piddlesworth certainly noticed it. He came sniffing eagerly at Princess Prissy’s behind, making short, excited barks.
“Now, Mr. Piddlesworth!” Great Aunt Maizy exclaimed, frowning. “No naughty humpies until after you two are married!” She sighed pensively. “I hope I did the right thing, scheduling the ceremony during Princess Prissy’s heat. But you know, I wanted them to have a proper honeymoon!”
“Hmmm,” I said neutrally—which was something I said a lot in response to my Great Aunt’s more eccentric remarks.
“Maybe we should sew that up so he can’t get to her little hoo-hah—” she said, still looking at the tail hole in the dress. “I mean, it would be dreadful if the two of them were to consummate the marriage before Minister Toby pronounces them man and wife!”
I was about to explain about my non-existent sewing skills when luckily, just at that moment, we heard the strains of Pachelbel’s Cannon beginning. It was being played by the expensive string quartet my Aunt had arranged for the ceremony—clearly it was about to start, so there was no time for anything else.
“Oh! They’re starting!” Aunt Maizy exclaimed. “We must get the little darlings in place!”
This was my cue to tuck one dog under each arm and head for the door with my Aunt following and complaining under her breath that I should have dressed “more appropriately.”
I said nothing about this—I didn’t care if I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt while everyone else was in formal wear. I wasn’t part of this ridiculous wedding—I was just the behind the scenes help. Besides, who’s going to be looking at the plain curvy girl with her hair in a messy ponytail when there’s a purebred Baby Doll Pomeranian dressed in a Vera Wang wedding dress to see?
I had no idea that someone was watching me at that very moment—or that my time left on Earth was rapidly counting down to the last few minutes. I just followed my Great Aunt to the “Blue Room” where the ceremony was being held.
The guests were already seated in two sections of chairs with a long white satin runner between them. I counted at least twenty of them and they all had their dogs on their laps or sitting in chairs beside them on cushions.
Aunt Maizy only liked little dogs and there were plenty of those, but just about every breed was also accounted for in the room. I saw an Afghan, a Belgian Malinois, a Tibetan Mastiff, a Samoyed, and even a Pharaoh Hound which probably cost a crazy amount. (Working for my Aunt, I had really gotten to know the different dog breeds.)
In front of the guests chairs were five little cushions arranged in a row—two on one side and three on the other. This is where the rest of my Aunt’s dogs were sitting. All of them were Pomeranians, because that was her “preferred breed,” except for Mousier Chien, her single French Bulldog.
All the dogs had been given a treat bone to gnaw on to keep them busy—they had been handing them out as favors at the door. So aside from a few scattered barks here and there, it was reasonably quiet and you could hear the string quartet in the corner quite well.
Standing at the front of the room was Minister Toby—a retired Methodist pastor who shared Aunt Maizy’s love for dogs. Sitting at his feet was his American Bulldog, Rufus, who was acting as Mr. Piddlesworth’s best man. I noticed that Rufus had on a little black vest and a bowtie, which he had already drooled all over as he messily chewed his bone.
There were two little white satin cushions in front of the minister and Rufus and this is where I deposited Mr. Piddlesworth and Princess Prissy, hoping they would stay still. I plopped the top hat on Mr. Piddlesworth’s little head, crossed my fingers, and stepped back to the far side of the Blue Room, trying to blend into the deep blue walls with their gilded wainscoting.
For a few minutes, everything seemed to be working beautifully. Aunt Maizy came and stood beside her dogs and the music faded so we could all hear the minister somberly intone,
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God to join these two canines in holy matrimony. Who gives these dogs to be married?”
“I do!” Aunt Maizy said eagerly. Then she stooped down to give both the “bride” and “groom” a quick pat and went back to sit in the chair that had been reserved for her.
In retrospect, that was a mistake. Maybe if she would have stood right there through the ceremony, she could have stopped what happened next. Of course, I’ll never know that for sure, just as I didn’t know that I was about to be abducted—some things are just mysteries.
Anyway, the minister had barely begun saying,
“Do you, Mister Piddlesworth take Princess Prissy to be your lawfully wedded wife? To have and to hold—” when Mr. Piddlesworth lost interest in the treat bone that had been left on his satin pillow to keep him busy and started sniffing Prissy’s ass again.
“Mr. Piddlesworth, no!” Aunt Maizy hissed at him. “No naughty humpies—no!”
But there was no stopping what happened next. Mr. Piddlesworth decided that getting some tail was more interesting than getting married and mounted Prissy right there at the altar.
“No! Oh my God!” Aunt Maizy gasped. “Mrs. Piddlesworth…Prissy…stop that—stop! You two aren’t even married yet!”
She rushed up and managed to separate the two dogs somehow, but at that point it seemed that Prissy’s scent was getting around the room. As soon as she was free of Mr. Piddlesworth, Rufus, the Minister’s American Bulldog decided to get in on the action.
This made Aunt Maizy nearly apoplectic.
“Princess Prissy!” she screamed at her dog, her face going nearly purple. “You are acting like a whore! Control yourself!”
Naturally, Princess Prissy did no such thing. While the minister was trying to pull his dog off her, she appeared to be having more fun than she ever had in her life—probably because Aunt Maizy had never gotten her bred before, I speculated.
At this point, my Great Aunt started shouting my name.
“Eliza, where are you? Come help me at once!” she screamed.
I ran forward to the front of the room but there was really nothing I could do. It appeared that Rufus and Princess Prissy had “tied” together and there was no getting them apart. So for the next five minutes everyone in the room just sat there watching the huge Bulldog and the tiny, dainty Pomeranian going to town in agonizing silence.
“The puppies! What will the puppies look like?” Aunt Maizy sobbed.
“I’m so sorry!” Minister Toby was trying to apologize, but when he put a hand on her arm, she shook him off angrily.
“Your brute of a dog is attacking my Prissy!” she hissed at him. “I don’t know how I ever thought you were a good man!”
“Well, he’s just doing what comes, er, naturally,” the befuddled pastor protested.
“It’s not right!” Aunt Maizy exclaimed. “And now Prissy’s puppies will be ruined—just ruined! Who’s going to want a Bulleranian? Or a Pom-Bull? They’ll be hideous!”
Finally, the two dogs separated but it was unclear if we were going to go on with the ceremony or not. After all, the bride had just cheated on her husband with the best man in front of the whole wedding party. What else could possibly go wrong?
I got my answer just a moment later when Prissy lifted her tail and made the most amazing mess of doggy diarrhea I had ever seen. And let me tell you, since coming to work for my Great Aunt, I had seen a lot.
Too late, I remembered the groomer at Pawfectionist saying she thought maybe Prissy had eaten something that upset her stomach.
Oh no—maybe I should have said something! I thought.
But really, I doubted my Aunt would have called off the wedding even if I had passed this information on to her. She’d been planning it for months and everyone on the guest list had already RSVPed. She wouldn’t have wanted to reschedule Princess Prissy’s “big day” for a bit of tummy trouble.
Well—maybe it was more than “a bit.” You wouldn’t believe such a little dog could make such a big mess, but Prissy certainly did. The poop went all over the back of her expensive gown—some rolling down the train and some falling through the tail hole to the expensive antique Persian carpet below.
“Oh, no!” Aunt Maizy wailed, when she saw that Prissy was doing. “Princess Prissy, how could you? First naughty humpies before you’re even married and now this! And on your big day, too!”
But my crying Aunt couldn’t stop Prissy. I tried to catch the little dog—though I really didn’t want to—but she dodged away from me, trailing the long white dress and spreading the mess all over the carpet. Have you seen that YouTube video where the dog poops on the carpet and then the Rumba vacuum cleaner drives over it and smears it everywhere? Yeah—it was like that but worse.
The whole room was in an uproar at this point—people were getting up from their places and holding their noses, their dogs were barking and the male ones were anxious to get to Princess Prissy, so many of the owners were yanking on their leashes. The little dogs were all yipping like crazy and the big ones were baying and howling. You would have thought ten thousand UPS drivers had all showed up at the front door at the same time!
Still, I tried to catch Princess Prissy. She was scampering around and around the room, spreading her shameful misdeed all over the carpet as she dragged the expensive—and by this time thoroughly be-shitted Vera Wang wedding dress—behind her.
Finally someone stamped down on the train of the dress, bringing her up short with a slightly strangled “Yip!” At that moment, I was able to grab her—though you’d better believe I held her at arm’s length and was careful not to touch the disgusting dress.
“I’ve got her!” I called to my Great Aunt, who was sobbing hysterically by now. “I’ll just take her to the restroom to clean her up!”
I don’t know if Great Aunt Maizy heard me or not. But I carried Prissy out of the Blue Room, down the hall, and into one of the many guest bathrooms in my Aunt’s mini mansion.
Luckily, there was a bathtub in the one I chose. Closing the door behind me, I put Prissy in the tub, which thankfully had very high sides so she couldn’t jump out.
I was just wondering how to get the dress off her without getting dog crap all over myself, when I heard the strangest noise right behind me—it sounded like someone was playing a fanfare on the trumpet.
I frowned—what the hell? Was there a musician somewhere around here? But hadn’t Great Aunt Maizy hired a string quartet? That wouldn’t include a trumpet player—would it?
Turning, I saw a very surprising sight—something weird was going on with the mirror mounted over the bathroom sink.
Forgetting about the stinky, yapping dog in the tub for a moment, I took a step towards it, frowning at what I saw. It was like a swirling kaleidoscope of colors, whirling around and around hypnotically. And then the trumpet fanfare played again.
“What the Hell?” I muttered as Prissy yapped behind me. Had my Aunt had some weird computer screen installed in the mirror for some reason? It sounded like something she would do—she spent money like it was water.
And then the swirling disappeared and a face was looking back at me—which is generally what you expect when you look in the mirror. Only you expect to see your own face—and this was someone completely different.
The person I was looking at was male—that much was certain. But he wasn’t human—not at all.
He had gray skin like marble with a slight purple under-tint to it and thick black hair that was cut short except for the sideburns, which came down in two sharp points on either side of his face. He had high cheekbones, a knife blade of a nose, and a thin but sensual mouth.
He also had horns—curling ram’s horns that were rooted on either side of his broad forehead. But not even the horns could distract me from his eyes—they were black. Not just the pupils or the irises—I mean all of them—the entire eye socket was just filled with endless midnight.
The sight nearly scared me to death. Besides being a voracious reader, I’m also a big fan of horror movies. And I had seen enough of those to know that when you encounter a being that has pure black eyes like that, they are absolutely evil through and through. Usually they’re either a demon or possessed by a demon—either way it’s not a good scenario for the hapless person who happens to run into them.
Only I never expected that hapless person to be me.
For a moment I just stared at this strange and frightening face and then it—or he—spoke.
“Yes,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice. “She’ll do nicely.”
Was it my imagination or did he have a British accent? Was he a demon from the UK? Or some other monster who just happened to sound extremely civilized—like he might offer you a cup of tea before he gutted you?
A new voice cut into my wild speculation—a high, piping voice like a character in a kid’s film.
“An excellent choice, Overlord! A very fine specimen of a La-ti-zal!”
Wrong genre! I thought numbly. This is horror—definitely not family-friendly!
“I shall take her—she will make an excellent pet,” the male with the midnight black eyes rumbled.
“Acknowledged, Your Eminence. Beginning Transfer Sequence,” the second, higher voice remarked.
And then the whirling colors returned, bringing with them a howling wind that seemed to suck at me like a giant industrial strength vacuum cleaner.
I found my voice at last.
“Hey, wait—no!” I gasped, trying to pull back.
But it was too late—I was being sucked into the swirling vortex in the mirror and I wasn’t nearly strong enough to stop myself.
My last memory was of hearing Princess Prissy yapping in the tub and thinking that Great Aunt Maizy was going to have a hell of a time getting the dog shit out of that expensive Vera Wang gown…
And then I was sucked into the mirror, away from Earth and out of my old life forever.