IPB-171 The Doggie Doctor by Elizabeth Watson


Chapter 1


Mimi Spender was born and raised with animals. The family cat was born 
on her birthday--October 13--and her father kept two pure-bred, hot-
blooded Irish Setters for duck hunting season. On page five of the 
family album a newspaper clipping, headed: "Dog Saves Woman from 
Burning House" sported a photograph of Mimi's grandmother with her arm 
around her pet German shepherd. Not to mention the notorious woman, 
Aunt Celia, who raised and trained racing horses.

With a family tree that was partial to animals, nobody raised an 
eyebrow when Mimi, against anti-feminine odds, made up her mind to 
become a veterinarian.

At the age of nineteen she entered the University of California at 
Davis in the school of Veterinary Science, an unexpectedly unique field 
for a girl of Mimi's equally unique physical stature.

A tall, chestnut haired girl with locks that had never been clipped, 
Mimi Spender was a traffic-stopper. Lanky and limber, her body moved in 
rhythm to the sway and jounce of her thick, waist-length hair that in 
the sunlight shimmered with red highlights. A modest smile and apple 
cheeks accented a perky up-turned nose and freckles that disappeared 
with her golden summer tan. Shy and unassuming by nature, her eyes, the 
color of swimming pools, twinkled with a suspicion-raising nonchalance.

Her agility was near to animalistic. Mimi could ride and train horses 
as well as any six-shooting, gun-toting Zane Grey character. Maybe it 
was this potentially ego-deflating quality of hers that put men off. 
Men (... or boys, really) seemed to be afraid of her. A girl in 
veterinary school? Had to be something weird about her!

But that was not to say that Mimi didn't need sex as much as any 
healthy female. These days her love life seemed doomed to emptiness, 
and that disturbed her greatly. Men and money ... those seemed to be 
her two pitfalls.

The end of her freshman year found her with no boy friend and a high B 
average, just a fraction away from the 4.0 requirement to renew her 
scholarship. For two weeks she fell into deep depression, wondering how 
a young woman as herself could extricate herself from this sticky 
spider-web of rotten luck. Her defensive female instincts told her that 
Dr. Osborn ('Horse Face') as he was called) had slighted her with a C 
because she was a woman--the only woman in his freshman agronomy 
course. Playing the weak female didn't change his mind, and playing the 
strong liberated one put him off worse. He "... didn't want to hear 
about it," claiming he had serious students to consider, and he could 
only give out so many A's and B's, and whoever got stuck on the low 
point of the Bell-shaped curve was just that ... stuck.


End of Page 1. See ipb-171.txt for full story.