Dogism

by Mark Anthony

  I couldn’t believe it. Here was Toni, feeling all over my muscles, and I hadn’t done a thing to try to turn her on. I knew Toni wanted to establish a relationship with me, but now I was beginning to have some serious reservations. All this time I had been thinking Toni was a respectable, high-maintenance lady, but lately all she’d been revealing to me was that she was nothing more than a two-bit hoe.

  The thought ran through my head that maybe it would be in my best interest if Toni proved to be a hoe ’cause then I wouldn’t feel as bad if I were to dump her. Plus, who was I fooling? I knew I wasn’t gonna marry her or nothing like that, so actually I should have been happy that she appeared to be a hoe.

  One thing that I decided to do differently as compared to the first night Toni and I made love was to take my time. I sat back and began to really enjoy every touch that Toni placed on my body. I caressed and squeezed all over her body as well. We weren’t like two rabbits in heat ’cause we did manage to converse as we made out. I definitely felt more at home this night as opposed to the last evening I’d spent with my beautiful, sexy mistress. This time I was no longer on her living room couch. Rather, on this late evening, I found myself stretched out across Toni’s bed.

  I don’t remember where Toni’s silk pajamas had disappeared to, but my plans of taking my time and enjoying things quickly went out the window. The smell of Toni’s coochie juices set me off. Before long, and like a deranged sex addict, I couldn’t believe what I’d brought myself to do next. But one thing is for sure, and that is, I was enjoying every moment of what I was doing.

  The sex lasted just about as long as it had lasted the first time we performed together. This time, though, things were much different on Toni’s part. When we were done having sex, she placed her head on my chest, and she expressed how she was starting to fall in love with me. To myself I was like, Oh boy, here we go. Why does it seem that after performing oral sex on a woman, they start talking about love? Maybe they confuse multiple orgasms with love, I don’t know.

  However, I knew that it was just a matter of time before that topic of love would come up. In a way, I was prepared for it, so I just made sure not to respond.

  As we lay in her room with the lights off, Toni expounded on her statement. Talking in a quiet and still tone of voice, Toni said, “Yeah, baby, I’ve just been really thinking. I mean every day you’re the only thing on my mind. Lance, it’s like you have a spell over me or something.”

  My ego couldn’t help but feel gassed as I chuckled like a pimp.

  Toni quieted me by saying, “No, Lance, I’m serious. I really have been thinking about our whole relationship. See, after we made love the first time, I didn’t know what to think or how to continue in this relationship. I was thinking about just not allowing things to go on any further between us. But I realized that would have been too hard for me to do.”

  As Toni spoke, I managed to remain quiet because I wanted to let her speak her mind. It’s sad, but I was feeling so good about all that Toni was saying. Yet at the same time I felt like the game was over. I had captured my kill and devoured it. To me, the hunt was always the most enjoyable part of the game. Unfortunately, in Toni’s case, that was over.

  Toni continued, “Lance, I know you’re married, and I don’t even like thinking about that. But I have to think about it because it’s a reality. Lance, I wanna know, have you ever thought about me in the ways that I think about you?”

  What the hell? I decided to just blurt it out. I mean I had done enough dirt, so why try to clean it up now?

  “Toni, when I first saw you, I knew that something special was gonna develop between the two of us. Matter of fact, I even told you that. And you know what? That something special is developing as we speak. Baby, without a doubt, I know that I love you. I’m past that stage in my life where I just have sex to be having sex. I’ve been making love to you, not just sexing you, so you should know that I love you.”

  Toni, who had to be excited by what I was telling her, tried to keep a serious face as she asked, “Well, where do you see our relationship going?”

  Toni stumped me with that question. But I knew that I owed her an answer. I understood fully that Toni was just like any other female. She was holding on to all of that emotional female crap. She needed her emotions to feel at ease.

  “Toni, I’ll be honest. And I’m not gonna just say this just because I know that this is what you wanna hear. I’m saying it because it’s how I feel about you. I know that you said you hate talking about the fact that I’m married, and so do I. Now I’m not saying right away or anything like that, maybe in a year or so, but I know things are gonna end between me and Nicole. And when that happens, it’ll make room for me and you to be together the way we want to be.”

  I was waiting for Toni to respond, but she didn’t. I didn’t know why I’d said what I just did because I didn’t mean it at all. I knew that if I kept talking I was bound to keep putting my foot in my mouth. Trying to put a lid on all of the love talk, I hugged Toni and asked her if she really believed that I loved her. She told me she did, and with the snap of a finger, we were kissing. When we paused, Toni let me know that she had been anticipating making love to me for the past week. She smiled like a little devil and told me that the reason she’d let my phone ring for so long was because of that same anticipation of having sex with me.

  I began laughing as I said, “Oh, so you used me.” Then I playfully pulled the bed sheets up to my chin and said, “I feel dirty and cheap.”

  Toni slapped me and laughed as she said, “I’m just trying to keep it real. A sista does have her needs, and Lance, you know you got that butta love.”

  We both began laughing, and Toni turned on the bedroom light. With the room bright, she informed me that she was going to the kitchen, and she asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I asked for a glass of water. After placing my order I watched as Toni walked naked toward the kitchen, feeling like the man. When she returned with my water, she sat on the bed, and after thanking her, I reminded her that I still had to wrap her hair for her so she could see my skills.

  Sounding excited, Toni replied, “Oh, that’s right. I have to see what kind of skills you got. You’re coming over tomorrow night, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be here.”

  Toni added, “Alright, bet. Tomorrow night I’m gonna see what kind of skills you got. Tomorrow it’s on.”

  Toni and I talked until about three in the morning. She didn’t have to get up for work the next day, but I did. I knew that I would only get about three good hours of sleep, so I was definitely ready to hit the pillow and be out.

  By the time I laid my head on the pillow for the night, it was five past four in the morning. I was hoping that two hours of sleep would be enough to carry me through the next day. So far, my adultery plan with Toni had been working to the tee, but the all-night sex thing was bound to wear a brotha down.

  NINETEEN

  The guilt of not having my wife by my side as I slept every night lasted for about three days. It was replaced with the rekindled excitement of being around Toni. For the past two and a half weeks, my plan continued to work like a charm. Nicole hadn’t suspected a thing. The fact that Nicole was still in the dark as to my affair with Toni was a testament to my split persona and skilled acting ability. As for Toni and me, we managed to enjoy each and every moment that we spent together.

  Although the majority of the time I spent with Toni had been at night, we still lived it up. Our nights together included activities such as romantic strolls on the boardwalk out at Long Beach, sex on the beach, weightlifting, the twenty-four-hour bowling alley, Rollerblading, the movies, and much, much more. I also proved to Toni that I did, in fact, posses a few skills in the cosmetology department. A couple of our nights were spent with me experimenting on Toni’s hair and eyebrows.

  Over the past few weeks, I’d also come to learn so much about Toni, things that almost turn me on in the same way her looks turn me on. There
is one thing that I was convinced of, and that is that Toni is definitely far from a home-wrecking hoe. Toni’s mind wasn’t on materialistic things. I’m not saying that she didn’t appreciate the finer things in life, but she didn’t let material things consume her. I remember thinking to myself how Toni’s non-materialistic quality was such a sharp contrast to Scarlet, who was always talking about how she had to buy the latest and top designer clothing and accessories. It was always “Gucci this” and “Gucci that,” or “Prada this” and “Prada that,” Manolo, LaPerla, or some nine-hundred-dollar snakeskin boots or something expensive. I mean, there is nothing wrong with wanting nice things, but it can’t be the only thing you talk about, and in Scarlet’s case, it seemed like materialistic talk was always on her brain.

  I explained to Toni how I’d been making over forty thousand dollars a year since I was nineteen years old, and how I now, with overtime, made close to seventy thousand dollars a year. Toni was shocked to realize that I make as much money as I did, considering what I did for a living. But at the same time she was not all that impressed. I tried hard to impress her by explaining how I used most of my paychecks to invest in Con Edison stock. Speaking like a certified financial planner, I described to Toni how if I kept investing the way that I’d been doing, that I should be a millionaire by the age of forty. I was also sure to let Toni know how young I was when I’d bought my house.

  I rambled on and on with materialistic mumbo-jumbo that most chicken heads would have been salivating over, but Toni wasn’t that concerned. In a polite way she told me that if she wanted to, she could have whatever she wanted by simply asking her father to purchase it for her. However, Toni told me that she never wanted to get by in life based on the level of success that her parents had achieved. Rather she wanted to go after her dreams and create a legacy of her own.

  Besides the fact that Toni wasn’t about money, one other thing in particular that impressed me about her was her expression of a genuine desire to help children. Toni told me that she was in school studying to be a special education teacher and that she only wanted to teach in impoverished neighborhoods.

  I was curious to know why, with her father being a doctor and all, she want to pursue a career such as teaching. Toni informed me that her father tried to instill in her since she was little that she had to become a doctor. She even wanted to be a doctor, but after failing miserably in school when she was young, she got turned off to the medicine thing.

  Toni wasn’t embarrassed at all to let me know that she had suffered from dyslexia as a child. She told me that she grew up privileged and rich, yet at times she still felt useless because she had a learning disorder. She explained that if as a rich kid she still felt useless, then she could only imagine how low the self-esteem levels could drop in terms of learning-disabled children who are poor. Toni added that ever since her problem was diagnosed, it has been her mission to help educate those who were like her but only less fortunate.

  With the way Toni was impressing me, and with the fun we’d been having, it was sad to say, but I had seriously been entertaining the idea of bouncing on Nicole. I thought if things were this great between Toni and myself, I could only imagine how they would be if we were spending all our time together. Plus, Toni is crazy about LL, and LL is crazy about her. She’d bought him exactly what he wanted for his birthday, and he was officially hooked on her from that point on, so I knew he would have no problem making the transition.

  I had been maintaining my sanity throughout this whole spending-the-night ordeal, but I was dog tired. In fact, during the week there was one twenty-four-hour episode in particular that really drained a brotha, but I guess in a sick kinda way it was more than worth it. Somehow within that time, I managed to have sex with Toni, Scarlet, and Nicole, all at separate times, which was a record for me. I would have to say that that was probably my most crowning and defining day as a dog, and at the same time I had probably never felt more disgusted with myself.

  Mainly what fueled me was, well, it was just something that I wanted to see if I could pull off, I and did. Doing both Toni and my wife was a relatively easy task. But hitting Scarlet’s skinz that one last time was the only minor hurdle I had to overcome. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I just had to have Scarlet that one last time so that I could prove to myself that I was still the man and so that I could also end things with her on my terms.

  Like I said, sexing Scarlet proved to be a little tough. I had basically popped up at Scarlet’s crib during my lunch break at work. She was surprised to see me, but she kept up her defiance in terms of forcing herself to not get close to me. She was properly allowing room for the permanent space, which, of course, was something I had originated and requested. We talked about this and that—basically it was a lot of small talk—but I was straight up with Scarlet and I let her know that I hadn’t stopped by to just talk, but I wanted to get some booty. I wanted a quickie.

  Scarlet was really ticking me off because even after expressing to her that I wanted her, she managed to keep up that wall. I had to kind of force myself on her. Yeah, I had to because she wouldn’t kiss me or anything. And in my mind I was like, Yo, why is she bugging out?

  I really had to get physical with her, and we had basically come to a point of scrapping with each other like boxers and wrestlers. Of course I was stronger than she was, so I basically managed to overpower her and get my way. Actually it was more like she finally stopped resisting me.

  So when she stopped, I literally ripped the zipper on her jeans while ravenously pulling her pants down to her ankles and then I did my thing. Scarlet was not her usual self, and I could sense that she wasn’t into the sex at all. It wasn’t even one of those love-hate-rough-but-good-psycho-break-up-sex type of episodes that we’d had on a past occasion. Although I did manage to enjoy it while I was pounding it, after I nutted and I was done, I began asking myself, Was this just some rough sex or did I just rape this woman? My mind was really buggin’ because I couldn’t tell.

  Scarlet managed to pull her jeans back up, and she buttoned them in spite of her broken zipper, and she looked as if she was confused and truly heated, but she kept silent. I guess I felt better about the whole situation when Scarlet consented to my request for a kiss. Despite the fact that she had given me a cold and quick non-wet good-bye kiss, which included no tongue action at all, it was still a kiss.

  I don’t know if she gave me that kiss because she wanted to really kiss me or if because she just wanted me to get the hell out of her crib. But I do know that when I left her crib and continued with my workday, I was basically feeling like, Okay, now I am definitely finished with Scarlet. Definitely.

  Yeah, that twenty-four-hour period had really drained a nigga both physically and mentally. Mentally I was all screwed up because now I was feeling like an adulterer and somewhat like a rapist, which was definitely no easy thing to sit with. But like anything and everything else, I had to just block it out and not worry about a thing and simply keep things moving. Physically I had never had so much sex in such a short period of time, and I was just worn out.

  I informed Toni that Thursday I was gonna be going back to sleeping at home for a couple of weeks just to make sure I didn’t wear down my body. Toni had no objections. But at this point in our relationship she had become more than attached to me. I could tell that, unlike before, Toni was now more insecure with the fact that my wife was still in the picture. Toni had been making comments such as, “I know you’ll probably dump me and go back to only being with Nicole.”

  And she’d been asking so many “what if” questions. She wanted to know what was gonna happen when she went back to school in August for her last semester. She was convinced that when she was to leave for school I would automatically revert to Nicole forever.

  As a matter of fact, I think it was Toni’s insecurity that led her to allow us to have unprotected sex during the past week. I had mentioned to her how sex with condoms just didn’t feel as good as sex w
ithout them. Toni immediately wanted to know if Nicole and I used condoms. After telling her no, I think she thought I was trying to imply that sex with my wife was better than sex with her. In no way was I trying to imply that, but from that point on, Toni and I didn’t use any protection. I know I was being beyond foolish, but, hey, I’m just sayin’.

  TWENTY

  I don’t know how on earth I had managed to slip up, but I had made a major, major error. When I walked through the front door of my house I thought the world was coming to an end. My heart dropped to my knees as I immediately thought my wife had somehow found out about my multiple affairs. Why else would she be so angry? After all, as far as Nicole was concerned, more than a week had passed since I’d returned to my normal schedule and plus, I’d been on point spiritually.

  “Lance, what is this?” Nicole yelled while holding up a videotape.

  I thought, Oh my God. I know Toni didn’t set me up and videotaped me. Scarlet del Rio. It had to be her ghetto Brazilian ass. For a split second, I thought that maybe Nicole had some private investigator tailing me during the past few weeks.

  I began my defense. “Baby, calm down. I don’t know what that is. I mean it’s a VCR tape, but—”

  Nicole interrupted me, “Lance, don’t play stupid. Now I asked you a question. What is this? And why is this garbage in the house?”

  At that point my heart began beating terribly fast. I was about ninety-nine percent sure as to what my wife was talking about.

  “Let me see that tape,” I said, taking it from Nicole’s hand. “Oh this,” I said very nonchalantly.

  “What do you mean, ‘Oh this’?” Nikki barked.

  “Nicole, calm down. It’s just a porno tape,” I said while trying to diffuse the situation.

  “Lance! Just a porno tape?”

  Still trying to downplay the situation, I said, “Yeah, it’s not like I watch it or anything. One of the guys on the job gave it to me.”