Dr. Brinkley seemed to freeze. Even the hands on the clock on the wall ceased to move.
With Jared on tenterhooks as he almost dared not to breathe as he waited for his dad decision on whether he kept or lost his balls, the last thing the transmogrified teenager wanted to endure was another visit from Wepwawet, the Egyptian deity rapidly becoming Jared's personal bête noire.
All the same, the being returned with a dry cackle and a miasma that clung to him like dehydrated lime slices in a suspension of aspic.
"What's the hubbub, bub?" Wepwawet inquired, drawing himself up in a vertical manner meant to be as imposing as possible to the submissive and subservient sheepdog still very much an overactive participant in Jared's crowded mental faculties.
Jared transmitted a slew of desperate thoughts at him only to collide against the psychic shield each member of the echelon of Egyptian deities learned to use at birth to defend themselves from the onslaught of their equals and near equals. Nevertheless, Wepwawet felt the assault in a way that left a dull psychic bruising.
Rubbing his dark temples, the god tut-tutted the panicky canine. "Considering so many of your problems can be directly traced to your overactive sex drive, is this really such a bad possibility?" Wepwawet inquired.
Jared didn't recognize the rhetorical nature of the inquiry, intended more to taunt than debate. "Yes, it is!" Jared cringed and whimpered even at the thought as the suspended moment stretched on.
"Well, let's see what your illustrious progenitor decides, shall we?" Wepwawet snapped his fingers and the flow of time commenced again.
Jared heard his father's voice on the other end of the line via Dr. Brinkley's phone. "I'm afraid she'd have my balls if I don't get this taken care of this time," Mr. Webster said. "You'd better proceed, doc."
"No!" Jared howled. "Dad, no!"
Wepwawet laughed for a very long time, and then chuckled a bit more.
"Can't you just, I don't know, blink me the hell out of here?" Jared asked.
"Do I look like a television sitcom genie?"
Jared whimpered. The sound caught in his throat and caused another peal of laughter from Wepwawet.
"It does put a crimp on future negotiations," the deity explained. "I would feel obligated to return the sheepdog to an intact body. If that's no longer possible, I'm afraid it's caveat emptor."
"What's that mean?" Jared barked sharply.
"Do I look like a dictionary?"
The vet, who had busied himself at a work counter, turned back to Jared with a gleaming hypodermic.
"Just going to put you out for a short while, boy," the vet obligingly informed.
"Better out than down, I suppose," Wepwatet said. "I suppose you are in good hands."
Jared growled in disagreement, but a slight pinprick soon made the teenager-turned-sheepdog incredibly drowsy very quickly.
"You bast..." Jared started to scream at the departing deity before he lost the battle for consciousness and slumped into a great shaggy heap.