Devil or dog?

Sherri-Belle woke with her arms tied over her head. She tried to wriggle free but the ropes were tight and the knot was a good foot above her hands around the stout tree branch. Her feet were on the ground solid enough to hold her up but not enough to actually go anywhere. And there were people.

It was about noon and a good dozen kids had gathered at the pond. Ethan and Chester and Bobby and Anna-Lee and Heidi were all there, kids she'd never spent time with other than at school mostly 'cause they weren't the good ones. What cemented her dislike was that Nathaniel, Reverend Cal's younger, was here too.

"Hey," she called, "let me go!"

Nathaniel lowered his eyes and his voice dripped poison honey. "Now why would we want to do that, Sherri-Belle? Seems to me a vicious dog like you needs to be trained, and that means tying you up."

"I ain't no dog Nathaniel!"

"Then why did you," he asked, tracing his hand over her chest as she tried to back away, "attack my paw?"

"Your paw ripped me and was going to do it again!"

"And yet you jumped on Winchester here fast enough." His hands tickled the sensitive fur of her underarms. Sherri-Belle could smell his lust and triumph. "What I think is that you really do got a demon in you and we gotta get it out by you praying and being sprinkled inside with holy water."

"Get away! I ain't got no demon, just that virus what Bill Dixon said! And you ain't no man of God, Nathaniel! That rotten apple din't fall far from the tree at all."

Mary-Jo Hocker, Anna-Lee's little sister who was in Sherri-Belle's classes at school, stepped forward. "Sounds like we have a conflict between science and religion here. Bob Dixon says Sherri-Lee's sick in the body and should be treated, and Nathaniel Fredericks says she got a demon and has to be... exorcised. I think we need to do more study."

"You shut your lying mouth Mary-Jo. You got no right to-"

"You shut up Nathaniel! Sherri-Belle's right, you ain't a man of God and you ain't God's gift to women neither. I'm sure Anna-Lee and Heidi can both testify to that! For that matter, so can Connie Mutenga."

"I ain't never touched no black-"

"You been in her seat more often than you been in a car seat! But your love for black arse ain't at issue here; the issue is Sherri-Belle. Now you get back and I'll do some tests to see if she's a dog or a devil, in front of all these witnesses."

Sherri-Belle whimpered, "But Mary-Jo I ain't neither, I'm just Sherri-Belle."

Mary-Jo leaned in close and whispered just loud enough for Sherri-Belle's sensitive hearing to pick up. "Sherri-Belle, I still ain't forgiven you for stealing away Peter Cummings and then dumping him and saying you never was interested. But I love dogs more than I ever liked you, so if you want me to help you you'd better be a dog."

Mary-Jo stepped back and addressed the crowd. "Time for the first test. I ain't gonna announce nothing because Sherri-Belle can hear me." She reached down and started vigorously scratching Sherri-Bell just above her left hip. After a couple of moments her leg started twitching of its own accord. She kept it up for a couple of minutes.

"That's definitely a dog thing; ain't nobody ever said no demons twitch when their legs is rubbed."

"That don't prove nothing, Mary-Jo."

"It's only the first test, Nathaniel. The next one's a demon test." She reached into the knot of her blouse and pulled out a warm sweaty gold cross that smelled like cleavage.

Sherri-Belle took a deep breath when the cross was thrust in her face. It smelled like Mary-Jo, and it smelled like heat. She licked the cross to get a better taste.

"Yeah, lovin' the cross is pretty demonic ain't it?"

"You shut your blasphemy, Mary-Jo!"

"I keep forgetting you's stupid, Nathaniel. Demons don't like the cross; understand? Now for the next test I need two things. First, Chester, use that box knife you always carry to cut the tip of my finger so it just bleeds a bit. Second, I want Jarrod to give me one of those things from his back pocket where Sherri-Belle can't see."

"But Mary-Jo..."

"But me no buts, Jarrod. I want one of them now; you ain't gonna shrink away to nothing between now and suppertime."

Mary-Jo completed her tasks and returned to Sherri-Belle. Her right hand was closed and her left hand had several drops of delicious-smelling blood on it. Sherri-Belle sniffed at the left hand first, then immediately started smelling and licking and nuzzling at the right. Her tail swish-swished eagerly.

"Gimme, Mary-Jo! Gimme! I want it so bad!"

"What do you want?"

"I want that pork rind you got in your hand. It smells so good!"

As soon as Mary-Jo's fingers unclenched a bit the pork rind vanished and Sherri-Belle's sensitive tongue tried to lick every trace of the smell off her palm and fingers. She continued to ignore the bloody hand even when Mary-Jo pulled the pork hand away.

"More! I want more! And maybe you'd better get that finger tended to, Mary-Jo. I could lick the blood off, but a bandage would be a mite cleaner."

"Why do you say that, Sherri-Belle? Ain't you a dog?"

"I ain't a dog, I'm a GIRL! I read the Good Book, I go to church, I help out around the farm, and I love my Daddy even though he shot my favourite dog this morning and he was goin' to shoot me! What do I have to do to get you all to treat me like a human being!?"

Chester glowered, "Become one. If you was a human being, you'd be begging us to let you down and offering all kinds of stuff for your freedom. Instead you just hang there and take it. I call you a good girl because you are; the same way a DOG is a good girl when she does what you want."

Sherri-Belle whined, "What do I have to do to get you to let me down?"

"Easy," said Chester, "you have to let every boy that wants to slide up in between those hairy legs of yours, and you have to be a good girl and take it no matter where he wants to put it. And you will enjoy it."

Mary-Jo tuned on Chester. "It ain't gonna happen that way, Chester. You're talking about little miss Good Dog getting fucked by every boy here and that ain't right." She turned to Sherri-Belle and gently stroked the suspended girl's back. "Girls get a chance too."

Sherri-Belle gulped. She could smell Mary-Jo's arousal as the girl started nuzzling her fur.