He wasn't sure if old McMurty was real. Perhaps he was vitalized metaphor for his fleshy passion, the brightly carnal spring of his desire shaped afresh for bizarre purpose; the form assumed a deceased hound. He'd called him old McMurty... and the name fit as well as any other.

That milky eyed gaze, one ear cocked the other flopping pathetically; had a stranger sight graced a boy's breakfast table? Truth be told, it wasn't the first time a decaying hound had materialized for the seeming intent of enhancing and shaping the kid's libidinous drives. But old McMurty was somehow different- deader, brighter, all too disturbingly present.

The voice that issued forth from that rotten throat was at odds with the shabby form that produced it. Barry White on a 10 woman day wasn't that evocative. That voice was a sculptor's hand...the kid's mind a sandstone block encasing a core of nascent erotic frenzy....the words the hammer and chisel crafting a blissful release.

The kid had never experienced erotic love...wasn't even sure exactly what it was. But the dog knew. Old McMurty had been there from the beginning. Always the guide...always knowing the path to the rare and ecstatic. Flesh and pleasure was his purpose.

...While the weird kid absently ate his toast; eyes shining, hands twitching.....old McMurty's golden voice wove the tales.