thoughts of black lab puppies

It was springtime and Littlegircop had boys on the brain. He had a hard time focusing on much else the past few days. Maybe that was because of the general deficit of other important things for him to think about; or the way the warmth of a spring days worked on his primordial self. More likely, it was the lonely feeling Murphy got first thing in the morning when he realized he was waking up alone again. It's the time of year, thought Murphy, to fall in love a dozen times on the walk between the corner coffee place and the office. And while these crushes weren't always happening by the dozen, some blocks they washed over him like ocean waves.

At times these momentary crushes lingered. Yesterday night on his drive home from the Athletic Club Littlegirlcop was picturing his wedding, puppy rearing and retirement years with the clean cut fellow he saw that evening in the sauna. This man was someone murphy had only seen a few times before and he didn't know his name. He really only knew two things about him. He knew he had a good report with Dan and Andy, two of the old-guy regulars. And he knew he had one of those perfectly proportioned bodies that when photographed out of context would seem to belong to a man of slightly above average height who wore a slightly above average size forty four suite.

In the case of this fellow, he was smaller, looking like he might have been caught in a copy machine set on eighty five percent. The image of this man that lodged in Murphy's head, the image that fueled the thoughts of black lab puppies, and fall walks on New England beaches was the image of the man in profile sitting on the bench next to the sauna's window. The profile of the man and the way the evening light diffused through the thick matt of hair of the mans chest spurred images of both passion and domestic bliss.

He must have his faults, thought Murphy, like the guy at work who leaves his empty sugar packets next to the coffee pot in the station house kitchen. The sloppiness was turned into a cowardly act, he thought, by the smallness of the mess and that he only left it when he was alone.