The walk back to Tom’s house felt like it took forever, but it only took a few minutes. Freddy agonized about the predicament he got himself in to, as Buddy reluctantly walked with Tom on his leash. When they finally arrived at the house, Buddy looked up to observe it.
“This house kind of looks like the one Michael grew up in” Freddy thought to himself, as Buddy walked up the steps of the porch. “It’s not his because his mother still lives in their old house, but it sure looks similar.”
Once Tom managed to unlock the front door, he motioned to Buddy.
“Come on in, boy. Time to go inside. We can go for another walk later.”
Begrudgingly, Buddy slowly trotted inside and took in the scene around him. Tom’s house was barren, with minimal decorations or things to make it look like a home. Instead, a sofa could be seen centered in the living room, but not much else was around. Tom closed the door and locked it behind him. Standing in the door way, Buddy stood still and refused to move any further. Noticing this, Tom tugged on Buddy's leash and motioned him inside.
“Come in, boy. Make yourself at home again.”
Buddy hesitantly trotted into the living room and stood in a corner, before Tom yanked on his leash again.
“I don’t want you running off again, so I have devised a strategy for keeping you here in the house.”
Tom went to a closet door, opened it and pulled out a long rod that he attached to the sofa. When he finished setting it up, he grabbed Buddy’s leash and tied it around the rod. When Buddy tried to yank himself free, he found that he was stuck.
“Hopefully, this will keep you from running off again.”
Buddy whimpered, as Tom went into the kitchen to retrieve his communication device.
“I’m going to make some calls, boy. You be good, ok?”
Buddy whimpered again, as Tom made an attempt to reach Jerry, one of his only friends. After a number of rings, Jerry picked up on the other end of the line.
“Ugh, hello Tom” Jerry said, with an annoyed tone in his voice.
“Hey Jerry” Tom replied more enthusiastically. “Great to hear from you. How are you doing today?”
“I’m alright, Tom. You sound like you’re in a better mood today than usual. What’s going on there?”
“Good news, Jerry. I found my dog Buddy!”
“Oh wow, I thought for sure that dog would never be seen again.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, I thought for sure that dog was trying to abandon you and run away from your house.”
“I don’t see why he would. He was such a good dog and I was such a good owner.”
“Think about it, Tom. In large dosages, you can be absolutely unbearable. I mean, your family has nothing to do with you anymore and you don’t really have that many friends. Is it really that hard to believe that your dog would run off on you?”
“Hey Jerry! Shut the fuck up!”
“I’m just saying, Tom.”
“Well don’t.”
Tom walked into the kitchen to continue his conversation with Jerry. Feeling that it was going nowhere fast, Buddy tried to break free of the rod that kept him tied up. Despite multiple attempts, he found that he couldn’t budge the knot undone.
“Crap” Freddy thought to himself. “I’m stuck here. I can’t wander off to find a place to pleasure myself. No wonder Buddy might have run away. This man is absolutely suffocating.”
Seeing if it was even possible to pleasure himself, Buddy looked down at his groin. Though his dog penis seemed normal, he couldn’t get his red rocket to come out of its sheath.
“My red rocket must be too nervous to make an appearance right now.”
Reaching down with his snout to give it a few licks, the attempt at pleasuring it confirmed his suspicion.
“I guess I’ll have to wait until later on to try again in a more secluded spot. I don’t know if Michael can wait that long, but I don’t have another choice. I just wish I had access to a communication device. Maybe I could text him and tell him what’s going on.”
Freddy’s thoughts were interrupted by Tom’s speaking voice increasing in volume.
“Hey listen, Jerry!” Tom said louder than he had been speaking previously. “I found something on my walk before I found Buddy again. I wanted to run it by you in case it had any sort of value.”
“Ok…” Jerry replied cautiously.
Buddy craned his head, but could not see what Tom was pulling out of his pocket.
“As I was on my walk today” Tom continued “I found this ring.”
“Ring?” Freddy thought to himself, as Buddy’s ears perked up.
“Ring?” Jerry asked. “Some lady must have dropped it. You should try to see who it might belong to.”
“Yeah” Tom replied. “I was thinking about that, but I had never seen anything like it before. I doubt it could be anyone’s wedding ring, unless they have some really freaky sense of taste. It has a bug on it….”
“That’s probably the Ruggeri ring” Freddy thought to himself. “But how did Tom manage to get his hands on it? And who would have left it out on the sidewalk like that?”
As Tom walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room, he made his way up the staircase to head into his bedroom. He was dangling the ring in one hand, with the communication device in the other.
“And it has the strangest inscription on the back of it” Tom pressed on. “L'uomo al cane, leggi l'iscrizione, camminare su quattro zampe.”
While Tom entered his bedroom, Buddy began to feel strange. Looking down at his paws, he could see his fur receding and his hands reforming once more.
“Oh shit!” Freddy thought to himself, as he watched his body become human again. “I can’t be turning back now. This is the worst possible moment.”
Buddy felt his fur rapidly recede into his skin. His hands and arms were human once more and his chest returned to a more human proportion. His fur receded from his face, as his muzzle pushed back into his mouth and his ears shrunk back down. His tail receded, as his knees popped forward and his hind legs turned back into his lightly hairy human legs again.
In an instant, Freddy was sprawled naked on Tom’s living room floor. The only evidence of his previous doggy state was the collar attached around his neck, choking him out of air.
“I have to get this thing off” Freddy frantically thought to himself, as he undid the collar with his now human hands. “And then I have to get out of here right now. I can’t let Tom see me like this.”
After managing to undo the collar, Freddy carefully stood up and looked up the staircase.
“He’s not coming down yet. I have to try to get out of here quietly before he’s finished with his conversation.”
Looking to the kitchen, Freddy could see that there was no back door for him to sneak out of.
“It doesn’t matter. If his back gate was locked, then it’d be even harder to escape from his house. I have to get to the front door and get out of here before he comes back down again.”
Quietly tiptoeing across Tom’s living room floor, Freddy made his way to the front door and carefully began to unlock it. As he managed to undo all the locks, Freddy slowly turned to the doorknob, before he heard Tom’s bedroom door open.
“Shit!” Freddy thought to himself, as he quickly and carelessly swung the door open and slammed it shut behind him.
“What’s going on down there?” Tom nervously asked aloud, as he ran out of his bedroom and down the stairs.
When Tom looked at the rod attached to his sofa, he could see that Buddy’s collar was undone. Looking to his front door, he could tell that someone had unlocked the locks.
“Son of a bitch!” Tom yelled, as he ran to his front door. “Someone stole my dog!”
Tom opened his front door, but saw no one around the block when he quickly surveyed the neighborhood.
“Buddy!” Tom yelled out onto the street. “Come back, boy! Buddy!!!!!”
A block down from Tom’s house, Freddy ran quickly with a speed that was not human like. For a while after he had transformed into Fido years ago, he managed to retain an almost inhuman running speed. It helped him win his track and field tournaments for the rest of his senior year of high school and into his first year in college. After that, however, his speed decreased back to a normal human one. Although he was still a competitive runner in very good shape, his previous super speed was a thing of the past.
It seemed, in this moment of fear, that Freddy’s previous running ability was beginning to return to him.
“I haven’t run like this in forever” Freddy thought to himself, as he panted and frantically tried to make his way back home.
A block away from his house, Freddy spotted the bushes that Michael had pointed out earlier and jumped into them. Peering down the block, he spotted the news crew angrily yelling at Michael.
“We can’t wait here anymore!” the reporter yelled at Michael. “We’ve been here for almost two hours now and we have other stories to cover! This was a big waste of time and—“
“I’m sure Freddy will be ready soon” Michael replied insistently. “Just give him a few more minutes.”
“We’ve given him a few hours now” the camera man replied. “That’s more than enough time.”
Wanting to keep the news crew from leaving, Freddy carefully tried to get Michael’s attention. Waving his hands, Freddy hoped that Michael would see him from the distance. Fortunately for him, his attempts at drawing attention from his husband worked.
Michael spotted a naked Freddy waving his arms at him from the bush down the street. Smiling, he called for Evan to come out from inside of the house. When Evan made an annoyed appearance at the front door, Michael pointed to side of the house.
“Show the news crew the issue we have with the neighbor’s overgrown vines into our yard” Michael said to Evan. “We’ve always wanted that taken care of. Maybe the news crew can report on that.”
“Oh for christ's sake” the reporter said with an exasperated tone.
“Just look at this for one second and then you can go” Evan said, as he walked the news crew over to the vined area by the side of his parent’s home.
When the news crew were safely out of view, Freddy sprinted across the block, hoping not to be spotted by their neighbors, and aggressively embraced Michael.
“Where were you?” Michael asked, as Freddy gave him a peck on the lips.
“I’ll tell you more about that later” Freddy replied with a ragged breath. “Let’s go inside so I can get changed. I have some clues about why I turned into a dog again.”
Michael sighed, as he walked Freddy into the front of the house so he could change into more presentable clothes. At the same time, the news crew stormed out from the side of the house and began to make their way to the news van parked outside of Freddy and Michael’s house.
“Unbelievable!” the reporter said, as she stormed out with the rest of the crew. “This is the most unprofessional campaign I have ever dealt with in my entire career. There’s no way this man has a chance in hell of winning in this town if he’s going to be over two hours late like this.”
“Just give us one more minute!” Evan insisted, before being pushed off by the camera man. “I’m sure Freddy will be out soon.”
“We don’t need to hear any more of your stupid school reports, kid” the camera man replied angrily.
“Just hold up one more second!”
Just as Evan said this, loud foot steps could be heard coming down the stairs. Running out the front door, Freddy whistled to the news crew.
“Hey guys!” Freddy yelled, as they turned their attention to him, looking sharp and nicely dressed. “I’m ready now! Sorry! I had…uh…a bad case of diarrhea and I haven’t been feeling so good this morning.”
“Maybe we should reschedule then” the sound operator replied.
“No! I’m fine now. Come on back inside. Let’s get this show on the road.”
The reporter paused for a moment, before she backed her way out of the van and headed back into the house.
“Word of advice” the reporter sternly said to Freddy, as she approached him. “If you expect to have any chance of success in electoral politics, you can’t keep people waiting like this. You are not the center of the universe.”
“Absolutely” Freddy replied confidently, despite feeling nervous, while watching the reporter re-enter his house. “It won’t happen again in the future. Now come on, guys. Let’s go inside and talk.”
The news crew unloaded their gear from the truck and went back inside of the house to set up again. As the camera man entered the house once more, he took a big whiff with his nose.
“Ick” the camera man said with a disgusted tone in his voice. “It smells like…dog in here.”
“Huh” Freddy replied, sounding dumbfounded. “I don’t know why that is.”
Ignoring the smell, the camera man went back inside of the house and set up with the rest of the crew to conduct the interview. When they were done, Freddy and the reporter began their conversation. As Freddy told his story to a visibly irritated news reporter, Michael sat off camera and watched the interview take place. Although Freddy seemed to be doing a good job being his usual charismatic self and putting a show on for the camera, Michael couldn’t help but worry about Freddy dogging out just a few hours earlier.
“I wish he’d drop out of the race now” Michael thought to himself, as he continued watching the interview take place, which Freddy handled deftly. “Because if we can’t figure out why Freddy turned into a dog again soon, we’ll have bigger problems to deal with then the shitty police department in our town.”
Later in the day….