by George BECKERMAN

Desmond and Mol­ly were on a date. A first date. They sat in a cor­ner of a cozy café ex­chang­ing life sto­ries. He’s di­vorced. Three years. Her hus­band died a year ago. Trag­i­cal­ly hit by a car. Hor­ri­fied, Desmond ex­pressed such heart­felt con­do­lences, that Mol­ly was both touched and attracted.

Mov­ing on from the mo­rose, Mol­ly men­tioned that she just start­ed dat­ing and al­ready has Hall of Fame sto­ries. Like the guy who pulled out a Q‑tip and start­ed clean­ing his ears be­tween ap­pe­tiz­er and en­trée. Desmond, he’s been do­ing it for a while and hasn’t met any­one even ap­proach­ing in­ter­est­ing… un­til tonight. 

And there were the en­ter­tain­ing foibles of their for­mer spous­es. Ed was very af­fec­tion­ate. He liked to lick Molly’s neck. To him, it was a drug. He couldn’t stop. Uh-oh, Mol­ly re­al­ized that was T.M.I. But Desmond didn’t mind. In fact, he asked for more. Mol­ly laughed as she un­veiled that at din­ner, Ed would al­ways eat the meat, starch, and veg­gies sep­a­rate­ly, as if they were in­di­vid­ual meals. Desmond laughed out loud, so Mol­ly continued. 

Well, it seems Ed was a big New York Jets fan. When­ev­er they’d score a touch­down, he’d get so ex­cit­ed, he’d howl, jump up and down, prac­ti­cal­ly in­hale a can of beer and then on cue, un­leash a house-rock­ing belch. Desmond pitched in that his ex, Char­lotte was such a house­work freak that when he’d wake up in the wee hours to use the bath­room, she would make the bed. 

So many laughs, such a good time. They didn’t no­tice that they were the on­ly peo­ple left in the place and the wait­er want­ed to go home. As they ex­it­ed through the restaurant’s re­volv­ing door, they in­ad­ver­tent­ly got in­to the same wing. It was tight, but nei­ther mind­ed the close­ness. Desmond and Mol­ly felt like they’ve known each oth­er for a lot longer than a few of hours. 

As Desmond hailed a cab for Mol­ly, she just blurt­ed out that she makes a great cup of cof­fee. This took both by sur­prise. Mol­ly blushed and apol­o­gized. Desmond cal­cu­lat­ed that af­ter all the wine they im­bibed, cof­fee was an ex­cel­lent idea. And so be­gan the start of a promis­ing relationship.

Promis­ing mor­phed in­to se­ri­ous when af­ter a cou­ple of months of con­stant com­pan­ion­ship Mol­ly felt bold enough to in­vite Desmond to keep a few of his things at her house. Not long af­ter which, Desmond sold his place and moved in.

One morn­ing, Mol­ly opened the front door and was faced with a sad-eyed lit­tle wheat-col­ored dog. It looked to be part Ha­vanese, part ter­ri­er and all adorable. Be­fore she could re­act, the dog jumped in­to her arms. Mol­ly was in­stant­ly head-over-heels in love, es­pe­cial­ly when the dog be­gan lick­ing her neck.

From that mo­ment, the Ha­vanese, who they jok­ing­ly named Ed, was ad­dict­ed to Molly’s nape. At least his tongue was. Mol­ly loved her lit­tle guy, but it start­ed to be­come creepy. Stranger still, at din­ner time ca­nine Ed would al­ways sep­a­rate the kib­ble from the wet food in his bowl and eat them individually.

And then it got down­right bizarre.

One Sun­day, Desmond and Mol­ly had some friends over to watch foot­ball. The Pa­tri­ots ver­sus the Jets. When the Jets quar­ter­back tossed for a fifty-yard touch­down, Ha­vanese Ed howled as he jumped up and down in front of the tele­vi­sion screen. The guests got a big kick out of this demon­stra­tion. Ed knocked over a bot­tle of beer, fran­ti­cal­ly lapped it from the hard­wood floor, and pro­ceed­ed to un­cork a soul-rat­tling belch. It stunned the guests and made the hair stand up on the necks of Mol­ly and Desmond. 

As they lay in bed, Mol­ly asked Desmond if he thought it was pos­si­ble that Ed came back as a dog. Desmond laughed, but it was the kind of chuck­le that was lib­er­al­ly sprin­kled with doubt and anx­i­ety. Nev­er­the­less, he as­sured Mol­ly that her thought was ridiculous.

The next day, dog­gie Ed was hit by a car and perished.

A few months passed, and the cou­ple had come to terms with the loss of Ed. In fact, Desmond hint­ed that maybe it was time to start con­sid­er­ing adopt­ing a pup­py. Mol­ly im­me­di­ate­ly ki­boshed that idea. Not on­ly was the Ed ex­pe­ri­ence too freak­ish, but she couldn’t bear the thought of out­liv­ing an­oth­er dog.

The next day, Desmond came home car­ry­ing a small gym bag. When he un­zipped it, out popped the head of a pre­cious or­ange and white tab­by kit­ten, who leaped out of the bag and in­to Molly’s arms. Once again, Cupid’s ar­row scored a di­rect hit on her heart. And then, to their hor­ror, the kit­ten start­ed man­i­cal­ly lick­ing Molly’s neck to the ex­tent that Desmond had to pry the lit­tle guy off of her. The tab­by dart­ed away and dis­ap­peared. Desmond threw Mol­ly a sheep­ish shrug and pulled a six­pack of beer out of the gym bag. Odd­ly, one of the cans was open and emp­ty. The next sound they heard was a thun­der­ous belch com­ing from some­where in the house. 

Filed under Fiction on March 11th, 2022

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