So Here’s the Thing
by Martin Mundt

© 2007 by Martin Mundt
All Rights Reserved

Episode Two: Lost Dog

So here’s the thing—I just hate seeing those “Lost Dog” posters tacked up around the neighborhood, because the sense of loss and sadness in those fuzzy snapshots and terse descriptions of people’s pets just radiates off the paper, and also you just know that those animals are never going to be found. So normally I won’t even look at them. But this one was different—six typed pages—and I couldn’t help myself. I had to read it, and I was glad I did.

* * *

LOST DOG!

Collie, four years old, answers to the name of Sweetums Kissygirl III, last seen at the corner of Wabansia and Honore on Tuesday, July 8th.

She has a long, sleek, shiny, soft coat. She is a deep, rich, honey color, with a smile that lights up the world. She loves to take long romps on the beach in the moonlight, and she loves jazz, but only real jazz—Charles Mingus and Miles Davis—not the frothy dilution of smooth jazz that gets radio airtime these days. In fact, she sniffs at bland commercialism in all its forms, whether music, theater or art. She always says she will not watch television, but I have caught her at times staring rapt at the Teletubbies, and it is this sort of contradiction that has always made her seem much more ‘canine’ to me.

I can’t wait to see her at the end of a long day, any less than she can wait to see me. I count any time spent away from her to be time wasted. We have been together now for three happy years.

If you’ve seen her, please contact me.

Her eyes are like the stars. A cliché, I know, but nevertheless, when I gaze into them, I see a twinkle there that always reminds me of the sky on a warm summer night. And not a hazy, city night; but rather one of those glorious, luminously clear nights in the country, far from civilization, as we lie side-by-side in a field of wildflowers, a gentle breeze blowing the scent of honeysuckle over us, and we don’t speak because words are unnecessary; we just dream of our future together, blissfully exhausted, naked and spent.

These, I think, were the best moments, as well as my most precious memories, which I will cherish forever, for it was she who taught me the deep truth that love means never having to say you’re sorry, either for who you love or why.

She is the most wonderful dog I have ever known, and so what if we are different species? With happiness so rare in this cold, unfeeling world, does it really matter with whom we find love?

Yes, yes, I’ve heard all the arguments ad nauseum, but they all come down to the same thing really, don’t they?

JESUS CHRIST, PHIL, SHE’S A FUCKING DOG!

Prejudice. I can hear it in every dissonant syllable. From former friends to estranged family members to ex-psychiatrists, I’ve never heard anything but plain and simple species-ism; but the narrow-mindedness of others will not stop us. I have experienced, with her, all the riches a man can experience. When we spoon in bed after intimacy, my arms hugging her close, her coat like perfumed cashmere, our hearts still racing from our exertions, her hind legs still kicking spasmodically, I feel—I feel—Ah, I can’t even describe the feeling. Words fail me.

Of course, like every couple, we’ve had our bad times. Her favorite pastime is licking, and her tongue is strong and warm, almost prehensile in its delicate flexibility. I have known its touch to be exciting, gentle, loving, melancholy, but also at times gripped with a raw energy that goes beyond playful into realms of relentless, even obsessive, intensity. I am not ashamed to say that it was those times that I lived for; though it is true, she would lick anything when the mood seized her—me, herself, strangers—even sometimes to the point of publicly humiliating me with her wild and unashamed behavior. I believe she shocked people simply for the sheer pleasure of it.

In truth, I have, at times, harbored secret fears that she embarrassed me on purpose, but I always ignored these fears until now.

There. Finally it’s out in the open. Maybe she isn’t lost; maybe she has just left me. Maybe she has been waiting all these years for her chance to leave. I can’t believe it of her, and yet somehow I can’t help but believe it.

And can you blame me for being suspicious? I’ve seen the hungry looks she draws at the dog park; I’ve seen the “friendly” petting that all-too-easily slides into long, slow caresses, and, of course, the indiscriminate, almost promiscuous, licking.

Vicious arguments often followed these scenes at the dog park—arguments about nothing really, her uncontrollable urination during our lovemaking, her insistence that I wear a condom during her time of the month, my insistence that she be spayed—indeed, arguments about everything but the real problem. And the angry, cutting words were followed by long, even more painful silences in which my rash words festered along with her bite wounds.

The arguments grew more frequent in the last few months, the silences longer, and worst, our reconciliations became perfunctory. We no longer cuddled in front of the fireplace, and it seemed to me as if she licked more energetically at the dog park than in our shower. I can’t say I saw all this as it was happening, because I was just too happy to be allowed back into her good graces, perfunctory as they might have become (and in the good graces particularly of her tongue. Oh, how can I make you understand the wonders of her tongue in less than ten thousand words, or maybe just a single, long, slow, deep kiss?) But the anger, the jealousy, the insults continued to surface more and more easily, and the good graces became a wistful, and then a painful, memory.

Oh, god, I can see it all now! How could I have been so blind?

If you’ve seen her, please contact me.

I stopped taking her to the dog park, denying her what I was certain had become her deepest pleasure in life. I could no longer bring myself to walk her to her oral liaisons. She ran in circles, howling at me every time I left the apartment, but I hardened my heart against her pleas. I was proud, and hurt, and I suspected betrayal in her beautiful eyes, and lies in her every whimper. I shouted that I was the master, not her, and she snapped at me, but it was when I called her a Teletubbie addict that I saw in her eyes the depth of her own hurt, and that look would have made me cringe but for the stiffening of my anger.

A silence—the most terrible silence yet—descended between us. I could have taken my words back. I should have, but I didn’t; god forgive me, I couldn’t. And now she is gone, and I can’t.

Please, if you’ve seen her, please contact me.

She hung her head, and I thought I had triumphed, but, in truth, only my anger had triumphed; then, in my pride, I opened the door and screamed, “Go! Go lick your corgi whore in the dog park! Go present your eager, shivering buttocks to Humbert the Great Dane! Go ahead!” I almost shrieked the words in my jealous rage. All I could think was that I had been a deluded fool, deserving of my shame. “If you want to try and trade up from me, go ahead. See how far you’ll get without me. You’ll be sorry. I never loved you. I just used you, the same as you used me. Good riddance to bad choices, I say. I never want to see you again. Ever!”

I didn’t know what I was saying or doing. I am ashamed to say I lost control of myself. I even stripped her of her collar as she slunk towards the door—the collar I had given her, with the silver, half-heart charm engraved with my name. I wore the other half, engraved with her name, around my neck.

“I gave you that!” I screamed, spittle flying from my lips, and I raised the broken heart high in the air in my fist. She didn’t jump for it, or even raise her head. “It stays, but you can go.” I can’t even explain what perverse thoughts uncoiled from my subconscious to make me strip her of her one and only possession and send her alone into the night. Maybe I thought that by keeping both halves of a foolish silver bauble, I could somehow keep my living heart whole, but of course I was wrong.

I was an angry fool, and I paid for it. I haven’t seen her since.

She taught me that love is not just pleasure, though she was unsparing in her generosity when we made love; and she taught me that love is not just intimacy, though I have never felt so close to another living creature in my life; she taught me nothing less than the breadth and depth and scope of love. She was, is, and will ever be my one, true, loving soul mate.

Please, if you’ve seen her, then please, please contact me at:
phil@itsnotbestialityifitsconsensual.net.

If it weren’t for the consolations of Ready Freddie, my pet turtle, I don’t know what I would do.

* * *

So here’s the thing—I felt real bad for the guy after I read that poster. All the way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And when I walked through my front door, my new girlfriend jumped up on me and we kissed, and I said, “Hello, Sweetums, you’re such a good girl, aren’t you? Yes, you are. Such a good girl. Is Sweetums your name, girl, huh? Is it? Is Sweetums Kissygirl III your name?” And by the way she ran around in circles, howling and panting, I knew it was, and then she started to lick my penis.

And it was true—no words could describe the feeling.

But I’ll try.

It felt like OOOOOOOOOOOOWAAAAAAAAAH! YEEEEEEE, yah, yah, yah, yah, meep, meep, meep, ooh, ooh, love to love you baby, boofa, boofa, boofa, humf, humf, wang-a-lang ding dong, aaaaaaaaaa-OOOOO-gaaaah! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, giggidy, giggidy, giggidy, skizza, skizza, urk, urk, urk, eee, EEE, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

Oh.

Oh yeah.