I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship (8 page)

Despite all of this, I might feel differently if I got the snuggle portion of Charlie instead of the pointy parts, or if Charlie immediately burrowed up next to
me
and put his head on
my
pillow with a satisfied sigh. At least sometimes.

When Scott isn't around, there's nothing I want more than a warm body to curl up next to. And that's when Charlie refuses to sleep with me. He seems to feel he's being disloyal. (I'm guessing, of course, because he refuses to tell me outright.) If he agrees to be on the bed at all, it's at the farthest point from me, facing the door, ready to leap up at the slightest hint of a key jangle or a door click.

“He's the same way when you're not here,” Scott insists. “He just wants his family together.”

My husband, of course, is a liar. I've come home late at night to find the two of them spooning in bed, no bothersome female getting in the way of their union.

My first attempts to cast Charlie from the bed began weeks after we adopted him. Mommy and Daddy needed some alone time, I reminded Scott. Our sexual escapades were being usurped by these platonic cuddle orgies. Scott thought we should schedule our private moments
around
bedtime, because, after all, we didn't want the dog to feel lonely. But even then, Charlie was never far from his thoughts.

“He seems so sad out there,” he'd tell me as we snuck away, leaving Charlie curled up on the couch.

“He's asleep.”

“All alone.”

“He's unconscious. He's not sad.”

“But he might wake up, and he won't know where we are.”

It doesn't help that Charlie has the saddest face you've ever seen. If you gathered some orphaned unicorns in a room and had them cry into a vessel, the magical being that would mope forth from their basin of tears would look a little less sad than Charlie. Even when he's consumed with joy, his face looks like he's got Gilbert O'Sullivan's “Alone Again, Naturally” on a constant loop in his head. But really, his head is just shaped like that. His brain is probably only playing a series of beeps. Even so, closing the door on him meant him giving us that
look
(which was his normal look) while he trembled (which he does whenever we look at him). If he was in the bed already, we'd have to drag him out, after he spent a few minutes trying to convince us that he could just hang out at the foot of the bed, that he didn't care about whatever shenanigans we were up to. Once we got him out of the room and shut the door, we could hear him in the hallway, waiting for us to finish up.

Despite Charlie's best efforts to keep our bed a relations-free zone, I got pregnant. I had to break it to Scott: The dog would have to get out of the bed, for real this time. Our newborn would probably sleep with us, at least some of the time, and there was no way we could have Charlie burrowing down next to our helpless infant, pushing at our baby's tender flesh with his rough paws. We had to break the dog of the bed habit while I was still pregnant, I said, lest he become so inflamed with jealousy upon the child's birth that he pooped on our pillows or tried to set the house on fire. I wasn't so clear on what sign his jealousy would take, but I knew it wouldn't be good.

Besides, as a pregnant woman, I was increasing daily in girth, achiness, and difficulty in getting to sleep. I was growing less and less tolerant of the dog poking and nudging me so he could get fondled by my husband. There wasn't enough room for me, my husband, Charlie, my full-length body pillow, my snacks (sometimes there were snacks), and the fetus.

Scott agreed, reluctantly, but every time we banished him from the bedroom Charlie scratched at the door and wept. We purchased a dog bed and put it by ours. He sometimes used it during the day, but otherwise he regarded it as little better than the crate. Even on the nights I successfully got him off the bed, when I woke up in the morning he'd be there in between us, his head on Scott's pillow, the two of them snoring away. Then he'd stretch out and stick his paw in my eye.

When our son Henry was born, I knew that would be it. Charlie would have to get used to that dog bed, because there was no way he was getting on the bed if the baby was there. Only Henry didn't like to sleep with us. It seemed he and Charlie had reached an understanding when we weren't looking: Henry would sleep in his crib, and Charlie wouldn't eat him.

Whenever Charlie licked Henry's face, Scott would say, “Aw, he loves him!” but I think it was a reminder.
I like the taste of baby, kid. I like it just fine.

My efforts to free us of Charlie as bed partner redoubled when one night we were awakened by a horrible
glug glug glug
sound and a meaty aroma. We turned back the sheets and found, between us, a hot puddle of dog vomit, and Charlie burrowing ever deeper in the sheets, unapologetic, looking for a clean place to relax. As we changed the sheets, I figured this was my chance to finally get the dog out, once and for all.

“That's it,” I said. “He sleeps in the dog bed.”

“On the other hand,” Scott replied, “he might as well come back in now. It's all out of him.”

And then Charlie leapt in between us, in the new clean sheets, while the two commenced making out, Scott murmuring, “You feel all better now, don't you, boy?”

The next night Scott called for Charlie to join us in bed.

“Honey,” I said, “do you want to wake up again at three a.m. to change the sheets? Because I really don't.”

“That was a fluke,” he said. “It's never happened before—what makes you think it will happen again?”

It's happened at least three more times. Countless other times he's started to get sick, but I've become adept at tossing him from the bed at the first sign of any pre-sickness restlessness. This probably means I don't ever fully go to sleep. I'm always on watch, on the alert for potential dog sick. Sleep deprivation takes years off your life. My dog is killing me.

Charlie is thirteen now, at least—his exact age remains a mystery—so lately my efforts to get him out of the bed are met with the argument that he doesn't have much longer and his last few years should be happy ones. This one always gets me. It's true, of course. There's going to come a time, and it may be soon, when I'm going to miss being prodded in the butt by Charlie's paws. Charlie's face has turned from mostly black to gray. Scott has grayed just enough to match his dog.

Sometimes I'll come in and I'll see my two gray-haired men sleeping on their respective pillows, both of them snoring away.

I shove Charlie over, and take my place.

There's No Place Like Home, Judy

Alec Mapa

If you live a good life, you get to come back as a gay couple's dog.

Trust me, Mother Teresa is a Shih Tzu living on the Upper East Side wearing a Dolce & Gabbana trench and having her crap picked up by Uncle Steve and Uncle Dave.

Don't believe me?

My husband and I have two dogs, Ozzy and Sweet Pea, both of whom have a holistic dentist who makes quarterly house calls to clean their teeth.

She's called “The Tooth Fairy.”

I shit you not.

I have the canceled checks to prove it.

Ozzy and Sweet Pea fulfill my own mortifying need to be shamelessly affectionate in a way I simply can't be with people.

I have the restraining orders to prove it.

My own husband, after one too many kisses, will repel me with a flexed foot. My dogs are the only living creatures on the planet whose need to love and be loved comes as close to being bottomless as my own. At the end of every day, I am greeted at the front door as if I am a long-lost friend who, mistakenly, was believed to have been dead for years. I sometimes want to tell my dogs that I am undeserving of this avalanche of affection, but I can't bring myself to break the bad news. Besides, I need this illusion of greatness to go on living. Their nightly greeting has made bad auditions, lousy performances, and lonely, loveless days evaporate instantly.

In return, they get
everything
: ergonomically designed chew toys, gourmet treats, and a groomer so skilled she makes Vidal Sassoon look like a butcher.

Ozzy is a cairn terrier. He was an actor who worked on a popular network sitcom. He used to double for his brother. He was identical to him in every way except his metabolism. He got fired for getting fat.

Los Angeles can be a mean, nasty town.

An animal trainer on the lot introduced me to Ozzy and said, “This one's kind of depressed. All his friends at the kennel go to work every day, so he's all alone, and hasn't worked in six months. That's three years to you and me.”

I immediately felt his pain.

When Ozzy came to live with us, he was like a Stepford dog.

Ozzy could perform every standard dog trick from “play dead” to “speak” with just a wave of my hand.

It was creepy.

Neither my husband nor I made him do a single thing to amuse us.

Now he sleeps all day and eats his own poo.

I recently did the old “rollover” gesture just to see if he remembered, and he responded by audibly farting then leaving the room.

The most effort that dog will make for the rest of his life will be to move from one comfortable spot to the next.

Of course, I'm jealous.

My husband and I were watching
The Wizard of Oz
one night (because we're gay) when Toto, cinema's most recognizable cairn terrier and Dorothy's iconic dog, made an appearance. We pointed to the screen and said, “Look, Ozzy! It's you!”

In our imaginations, we instantly became convinced that Ozzy truly believed he was Toto, that he actually appeared in
The Wizard of Oz
next to Judy Garland, and, as a result, calls everybody Judy.

We speak his thoughts aloud constantly.

He sounds like an adolescent Mr. Magoo: affable and friendly, yet strangely formal.

We believe his playful woofs and snorts translate into:

“How was your day, Judy?”

“Know what I did, Judy?”

“I just ate some poo, Judy.”

“Can you smell it, Judy?”

“You will when I kiss you,
Ju-day
!”

We think this is hilarious.

On a two-week trip to Berlin one summer, we spent the entire vacation speaking to each other in Ozzy's voice.

“Hey, there's the Reichstag, Judy.”

“Nice bratwurst, Judy.”

“Ich bin ein Berliner, Judy.”

We could actually feel the already reserved German population physically pull away from our presence.

Our other dog is a dachshund-Chihuahua mix. A “Doxiewawa” or a “Chi-weenie,” if you will.

We named her Sweet Pea, after the
Project Runway
designer.

Because we're gay.

A neighbor had rescued her and thought that we (my husband and I, and Ozzy) would be a good fit.

The first night in our house she cried nonstop.

Sweet Pea was always affectionate and well behaved, but the whining cry was so hideous, it sounded as if she were being tortured.

I don't know if you've ever heard a Chihuahua mutt cry, but it's like squealing tires.

Only not as melodious.

Like someone decided to peel out of a driveway then changed his mind and stopped.

Then decided to peel out again.

Then changed his mind.

You get the picture.

Try listening to that for forty-eight hours.

I got it, okay?

Still, I understood why: She was terrified.

She didn't know whether she was going to be abused or adored. In essence, she was me right before doing stand-up.

I immediately felt her pain.

My husband not so much.

He wanted her out.

Fast.

So, I argued on her behalf.

“She doesn't know where she is! She's scared!”

My husband shot back, “I don't think she's good for Ozzy.”

I hated to admit he was right, but Ozzy's always agreeable demeanor had turned into a nonstop vibe of “WTF, Judy?”

After a very heated argument in the car, I had resigned myself to giving her back.

But when my husband and I opened the front door, we saw Sweet Pea in the fetal position, curled up against Ozzy, as if she were seeking sanctuary in his fur.

It was the cutest thing either of us had ever seen.

I firmly believe that while we were out, Sweet Pea sniffed the down doggie bed, the human-grade kibble, the organic herbal treats, and arrived at the conclusion that living with a gay couple was the equivalent to winning the lottery every hour for the rest of her life.

I'm positive the position we found her in was planned.

And it worked.

My husband changed his mind instantly.

To this date, Sweet Pea sleeps every single night directly on top of my husband's neck or in the crook of his balls.

She hasn't whined since.

Everyone wants Sweet Pea.

I've seen the most hardened bitter queens melt in her presence.

A recent dinner guest asked, “What do I have to do to take Sweet Pea home with me?”

I said she'd have to pry her from my cold dead hands.

And I mean it.

Because Sweet Pea has the pleading, doe-eyed look of a pooch in a sixties Keane painting, we've endowed her with the foulest, most inappropriate voice ever. She sounds like Paula Deen with Tourette's syndrome.

“How y'all doin', motherfuckers? Where's my goddamn breakfast, bitch?”

We admonish her profanity.

“Sweet Pea! Is that any way to talk?”