The True Story And Fantasy Of Penny

Part One – The Meeting

This is actually two stories in one. First of all, it is a true story about an abused dog that I came to know in 2005 named Penny, and secondly it is a fantasy about what I wish so much could have happened between us if only I had been given more time to spend with this fearful and terribly confused girl. It is also about the end of a friendship, my two year friendship with John. This is the first time in history that I will be able to chronical and document from just as soon as we got her, the life and behavior of Penny who is a husky golden retriever German shepherd cross that has unfortunately been abused by men and was given to my room mate Russ by his step son Jamie. I think the first time that Russ told me the mixture of breeds that she was, he mentioned greyhound as well, but I don’t think that there is any greyhound in her. It is also interesting to note that the very first day that Jamie got her, Penny began sucking up to him immediately and the same thing happened with Russ even though he’s a rather big guy and can sometimes yell at his dogs. Penny did not like me very much at first, but gradually, very slowly we have had to repair the damage in our relationship, and we had to build up trust between us as we’ve begun to get to know and understand each other. This is a story of indifference, unfriendliness, hostility and mistrust on Penny’s side, and love, longing, desire, confusion, fear and even hurt and pain on my side. No, this is not my usual type of dog story, but this nevertheless is the story of Penny.

Now, at long last Shadoe was gone. It had been so horrible to hear her shallow breathing on that very hot June the 10th, 2005 as her lungs began filling up with fluid. She was almost unconscious, the end was very near. In fact, the previous night, Shadoe had picked her own spot to die, right behind our shed. She simply wouldn’t come into the house, but who could blame her. It was cooler outside than in the house anyway. I got home from John’s place that night around 10 PM to find an E-mail waiting for me from Russ, stating that Ron Trenton would be coming by the following Monday evening to put Shadoe down between 5 and 6 PM. But by Friday morning the 10th, Russ realized that it was very unlikely that she was going to even make it through the weekend, so the appointment was reschedules for that very evening. Around 11 o’clock that morning, Russ hosed Shadoe off to make her cooler, brought her into the house and managed to get some more heart pills into her, and that’s when he noticed her shallow breathing and so did I when I touched her body. He called Ron again, and he came right down from Acton and put poor Shadoe out of her misery. If it had been me, I would have probably put her down a couple of weeks before that so that she wouldn’t have had to suffer so much. Ron said that she was in such bad shape that probably fifteen minutes after he arrived, she would have slipped into a coma and then died on her own. I certainly loved Shadoe, but at least she was out of her misery. The only people that were in misery were the ones that she had left behind. But as much as I had loved Shadoe, I knew that she had lived a good full life, and that now she was no longer suffering. I couldn’t have stood to see her continue to live like that that’s for sure. I hung around the house for part of the afternoon, smoking a joint and talking with Russ, and I phoned Deb to let her know that Shadoe was gone. Later, I went to John’s house, and I tried to act normal, but all I could think about was poor Shadoe literally gasping for breath.

Knowing that the house was now dogless, because Shadoe, Sheila and Blazer were all gone, on Father’s day, June 19th Russ’ step son Jamie gave him a female husky, golden retreiver German shepherd dog cross named Penny. It was easy to see why Jamie had picked out this dog for him, she had the same kind of markings as Sheila, but her personality was nothing like Sheila’s at all. I had just called my father on Cape Cod to wish him a happy father’s day, when Russ knocked on my bedroom door. He asked me if I wanted to meet the newest member of the household and I said “Sure, I’d love to.” He told me that her name was Penny.” A feeling of deja vu came over me because this same thing had happened to me during the Victoria day weekend on Friday May 20th when I was introduced to a husky golden retriever cross that had originally been named Milleau, but which Russ renamed Gracie. She took to me instantly and I had her in my room Frenching me within just an hour or so of meeting her. She had certainly risen to the challenge with gusto, pinning me to the bed and really Frenching me furiously, burying her tongue deep into my mouth and letting me have it. I loved it. It excited me tremendously. The only problem I had with her is that she nibbled rather hard on my hand at times, and this ended up being the reason why she had to leave. She certainly got along just great with Russ and I, but on several occasions when I wasn’t home, between cab runs when Russ had checked the house to see how things were going, he had found Gracie biting the hell out of Shadoe. It’s that old instinct of the younger and more powerful member of the species overpowering the older and sicker one. But she was biting poor Shadoe pretty hard, and Russ couldn’t have Shadoe putting up with that during her last month or so of life, so Gracie had to go, and her name went with her too as Brandon changed her name again to Goldie.

but with Penny, it was a totally different story. as Russ tried to bring her over to me, she ran away. Russ said that my hand movements and body language were probably spoofing her because I am blind and she wasn’t used to a blind person. In fact, I never did get to meet her that day. It was just not meant to be. Russ gave me a pig’s ear to try to give to her, but clearly she wanted no part of either me or the treat. Russ said that he’d try again to introduce me to her in a half hour or so, but it just never happened. He said that Jamie was still here, and that obviously this dog needed some time to get used to her new surroundings.

I was extremely excited to meet this new dog as I always am when I am introduced to one, so just to keep busy and keep my mind off the thoughts and fantasies of taking this new dog into my room, getting her up on the bed and Frenching her, I recorded a New Hampshire Public Radio talk show about the 100th anniversary of the US Forest Service which in New Hampshire controls the White Mountain National Forest. Normally I would have found this program extremely interesting, but with a new dog in the house, a possible new friend and companion, Penny was all I could think about even though I hadn’t met her yet.

The next morning, Monday June 20th I finally managed to find Penny and meet her but nothing could have prepared me for the reaction I got from Penny when I crawled over to her. I never would have drempt in a thousand years that the meeting between us would have ended up being like this, but then, I had never dealt with an abused dog before. The meeting didn’t go at all as I had planned or expected. I love dogs, absolutely adore them, and normally they can sense this and they start bonding to me very quickly. But not this dog. She was in Russ’s ex-wife Elaine’s area of the living room, lying on the love seat. As I slowly started to approach Penny which I did on all fours so as not to tower over her, I heard a deep mennacing growl coming from deep inside her throat. It was a long low ominous growl that resonated through her whole body. She would emit a very long low mennacing growl, and then have to come up for air and take a deep breath, but then she’d growl again. The growl rattled through her whole body. It was very serious, unfriendly and mennacing and she meant business! I had always been told that the worst possible thing to do when a dog starts growling like that is to show fear. So I didn’t show any fear, I didn’t try to anyway. First I tried to present Penny with that pig’s ear that Russ had given me the previous day, but she showed no interest in it at all and even though I was trying to present her with food, the growling didn’t stop at all. I knew better than to touch her head or get anywhere near her mouth, so I gently stroked and rubbed her body but the growling continued. At least it wasn’t getting any worse. I had hoped that the gentle soothing touch of my hands combined with my talking to her in a soft gentle voice might have relaxed her or calmed her down, but they didn’t seem to have any effect on her at all. Clearly for some reason only known to her, this dog didn’t like me at all. My heart sank. OK, yes we had a new dog in the house, but a dog that didn’t like me. To me, that was just terrible. If she had been a nicer dog with a different temperment like Gracie had been, she would have probably already been in my room and I would be starting to get to know her. But although I love dogs, I was no fool. Penny didn’t want to get to know me, not yet anyway and those growls meant business! There was something very different about Penny than any other dog that I had ever encountered before. I just had the feeling by her growling, that she had been seriously abused, and my theory was going to be proven right. After that first meeting with Penny, I really had no desire to meet her again. I felt no warmth, no friendship, not even any kind of common ground with this dog. Because of her mennacing growls and stand-offish attitude, I actually had no more interest in her whatsoever.

The next day I went over to the love seat, but she wasn’t there. I didn’t have any idea where she was, but because she was so nasty toward me, I didn’t really have any desire to try and find her either. After all, I knew that all she would do is growl at me anyway. I called Deb, my former girlfriend in Columbus Ohio in tears and explained the situation to her and she said I just had to be patient. That’s basically the same advice that Gail, the owner of Creature Comforts pet store gave me as well, she said that in time, Penny would probably come around and start warming up to me but it was going to take some time. Over the next week, Penny kept such a low profile around the house that I nearly forgot about her. After all, we hadn’t really met yet, and if this was the way that Penny was going to act toward everyone, then it would be best for me to just forget about her and pretend she didn’t exist. We were obviously not going to bond at all or get close in any way, so as far as I was concerned anyway, we were still dogless. We certainly didn’t have the kind of dog that I would have chosen for the house.

Things went like this until the following Tuesday June 28th. I had slept very porly for several nights because my bedroom was so hot. I was lying down on my bed when around 11:30 that morning I heard a familiar whistle. John and Norm came over even though John wasn’t supposed to. It was all so stupid. Russ had kicked him out of the house in November because he simply asked Russ for an ashtray, but then, that was the way that Russ was, like it or not. He was a psycho. When he was in a decent mood, everything was fine. When he wasn’t, all hell could break loose. . . John had meant to bring the laundry over but he’d forgotten it, so we listened to a few songs on the computer and smoked a joint. Suddenly as we were about to leave, John spied Penny in front of Elaine’s bed and he started walking toward her, and she treated him the same way as she had treated me with those mennacing growls. Obviously she did not like men at all. Twice John started to approach her slowly, but each time he approached, there was that mennacing growl that meant business. John said to Penny “Oh, you’re showing your teeth as well as growling. Fuck off then. I would have loved you to death, but no, no, no, I’m out of here” so he booked it away from Penny toward the door. So we took off in a hurry, after all, John wasn’t really supposed to be there in the first place. My room mate Russ didn’t like John at all because of his excessive drinking, and just because one day he had borrowed an ash tray from the living room and brought it into my bedroom so we could smoke a joint and had forgotten to put it back, Russ had banned John from the house. This is how totally unreasonable Russ could be if he didn’t like someone and he certainly didn’t like John. Both John and his roo mate Norm commented on how there must be something wrong with that dog, that it must have been seriously abused at some point earlier in its life. At this point, I still felt absolutely no emotion toward Penny, and that was extremely unusual for me, but then, I was getting my feelings of indifference and ambivalence from Penny’s personality and behavior. This was not normally the way that I felt about dogs at all.

Still, the fact that I couldn’t seem to get anywhere with Penny really bothered and depressed me, and since I was going to be living in the same house with Penny, we were somehow going to have to come to terms with each other, and come to an understanding at some point. On Wednesday morning June 29th, I slowly approached the area where she was lying in front of Elaine’s bed and she started growling again. This time I had some small kibbles of food that I had originally bought for Shadoe back at the beginning of May. She didn’t seem to like them very much, and because she had been so sick during the last days of her life, I just didn’t see much of Shadoe these days but Gracie had loved them and had eaten a lot of them during the Victoria day weekend.
(Note: The Victoria day weekend is a Canadian holiday weekend which is always celebrated just before the third Monday in May in honor of Queen Victoria’s birthday which is actually on May 24th. This leads some folks to call it the May 24th long weekend.)

So despite the fact that Penny was growling, I slowly and gently put out my hand, and she actually stopped growling and sniffed my hand and smelled the treats, then she opened her mouth to take them out of my hand. That’s when I unfortunately noticed a very large soft warm wet pink heavenly tongue coming out of her mouth at me and very gently licking the treats out of my hand. I say unfortunately because this was going to make Penny’s situation and behavior much more frustrating for me now that I had felt that large warm wet tongue of hers against my hand. My mind simply went wild with incredible fantasies about what Penny could do with that tongue for me, but because she had been abused and her trust of people and especially me was minimal, I was quite sure that these fantasies were just not going to happen. The feeling was absolutely electrifying. “So,” I thought, “this dog does have at least one redeeming quality and one precious item on its body, its tongue.” My heart leaped with excitement, even though I knew that this tongue wouldn’t be mine to see in great detail for months, years or maybe even ever. It was so soft and full, and the first thing that it reminded me of was Tina’s gorgeous tongue. But Tina had been dead for almost two years now. I hadn’t seen such a beautiful tongue since I’d seen Tina for the last time in November of 2002, but wouldn’t you know that this heavenly looking tongue would belong to a dog that had been seriously abused and was very aggressive and touchy. Almost immediately my mind started racing, but I knew that it would be a very long time if ever before I’d ever get to see that gorgeous tongue.

I had set the nearly empty bag of treats on the love seat, and I went back and grabbed a couple more for her. This time when I approached her, she actually didn’t growl. I immediately patted her body and praised her and told her that she was a good girl. “Well,” I thought, “at long last we’re just beginning to make some tentative progress and that’s a good sign.” As she opened her mouth again, I felt that warm wet loving tongue of hers again. I gently patted her and said to her over and over again, “Penny, I know that you probably have no idea of what I’m saying to you, but I promise you that I will never hurt you, never hurt you, never hurt you. No Penny, I would never hurt you. I know you don’t know that now, but hopefully one day you will realize that honey.” I still didn’t fully trust her and clearly Penny didn’t fully trust me yet either. I didn’t dare get too near her face in case she decided to turn on me. this tongue wasn’t nearly as loving as Tina’s, but perhaps one day it would be, though I knew that my progress in actually getting to know Penny would be much slower than I had experienced with any other dog before. Again the feeling was absolutely electrifying. I patted her and talked to her in a soft soothing voice, telling her that I appreciated the fact that for now anyway she wasn’t growling at me and she was being a good girl, but I still couldn’t be sure if I could trust her or not. I wanted to be able to feel even a bit of that beautiful tongue of hers, even if it was just for a second. Then it hit me. I’d take a couple more dog treats out of the bag, but instead of putting them in my hand, I’d put a treat inside my mouth. This would do two things. It would show her how much I completely and totally trusted her which might make things better between us, and it would also give me the chance to feel her tongue coming out of her mouth. So I grabbed the treat from the love seat, crawled back to the area where she was, and then I just lay there on my back. At first she did nothing. Moments passed. I wondered what she was thinking, or if she was even aware that the treat was actually in my mouth. I could feel her sniffing around, looking for the treat. Then she sniffed my hand where she could tell that the treat had been. I imagined her thinking to herself, “OK, I can smell where the treat is, but what do I do now?” She paused realizing that the treat was no longer there. She hesitated for a few moments and then suddenly she did it. She very gently, extremely gently in fact took the treat out of my mouth and it felt heavenly. Even that extremely brief contact with her tongue was absolutely electrifying and electricity shot all through my body and into my dick. I could tell by the shape that The area of her tongue that she was using was right near the tip, an extremely soft area that I was just dying to see, but I knew that wasn’t about to happen for a long long time. No matter how long I had known Tina, she never let me examine this section of her tongue very long which always depressed me a bit. Sometimes I would wait for months in great anticipation to explore the very tip of her tongue, only to end up very disappointed at Tina’s unwillingness to show me that area for very long. But Shadoe on the other hand would roll the tip of her tongue downward slightly, and then jam it into my mouth and rub it very slowly over my tongue, and then run it along my lower gums and teeth. It drove me absolutely crazy. How in the hell did Shadoe know how to do all this?

I slowly made my way back to the love seat and grabbed two kibbles of dog food. This time I put both of them into my mouth. I crawled back to Penny and once again, she took one of them out. For a dog with a very mennacing growl, she was exceptionally gentle when taking those small treats out of my mouth. But the touch of the tip of her tongue on mine, even for a brief moment sent me into pure ecstasy and I damn near came.

“My God” I thought, “there just has to be a way for me to get Penny to French me.” I wondered if sticking out my tongue and moving it around slightly might work. After all, that’s all that it had taken to get Gracie, now Goldie to French me, and it was the same with Shadoe. Tina just started frantically Frenching me on her own back on June first of 1994, and although I had never cared for her much before, I found myself in love with her after her passionate greeting on June first. So, despite this rocky beginning with Penny, was I going to fall in love with her too? Hardly. I stuck my tongue out and tried to get it as close to her tongue as possible. But that wasn’t really possible because of the way she had her head lying. Elaine’s bed was in the way. If that bed hadn’t been there, then we would have had all kinds of room. I strained and strained to get my tongue to touch Penny’s, but she had her mouth closed and her head tucked away.

Then I thought of another idea. This was also often a simple way that I could get dogs to start quickly French kissing me if I didn’t have werthers butterscotch candies around and it usually worked. The idea was to start licking their paws with my tongue. Now dogs generally want to check out your saliva with their tongue when you’re licking them and putting it all over their bodies, but they really want just their own saliva and not your saliva on their bodies. So, they start feverishly licking. The best way to get them to French you is to simply intercept their licking. When they start licking their paws, just stick out your tongue and place it on their tongue so that they are in contact with each other. Once most dogs feel your tongue against theirs, they kind of like it and will continue Frenching you sometimes for a surprisingly long time. But not Penny. The moment I started to lick her paw, it was the old story again, that mennacing growl. I was beginning to get some clues as to just what poor Penny had been through. If she didn’t like anyone touching her paws even licking them, then someone must have done something dreadful to her paws. Well, I guessed that it wasn’t going to be as simple to get Penny to French me as I had originally thought. Of course it didn’t help that I didn’t have any werthers on me because then possibly Penny would have become a very willing pupal. Tina absolutely loved Werthers and loved taking them out of unsuspecting people’s mouths. Blazer had also loved Werthers butterscotch candies and so did Shadoe. Even Sheila who had been the slowest dog to get into Frenching loved her Werthers. Goldie appeared to love them too. I had only had a couple left when Goldie who was then named Gracie was here during the Victoria day weekend, but I could tell by her reaction and her mad passionate French kisses, that she loved them too.

But getting back to penny, I went back to the love seat and got her yet another treat. It felt so wonderful when as she took it out of my hand, her tongue momentarily touched my hand and shot a load of electricity all over my body. I lay beside Penny, holding her gently and talking in a soft soothing voice to her. At one point, I felt her body relax and her head lolled onto my stomach. She may have actually felt comfortable enough to sleep for a few moments so this was yet another sign that Penny was starting to come around. I would occasionally keep giving her treats, and she took them extremely gently out of my hand. It was really remarkable how gentle this big dog was at taking treats out of my hand despite her size. Obviously this was taught to her for the benefit of small children.

We lay together with me talking to her from time to time, asking her questions like “Well, do you like me a little yet?” “Are you beginning to trust me?” “Do you want to be my friend?” “Can you see that I don’t ever want to hurt you at all?” Naturally I got no answer, but at least when I would leave for a moment and go to the love seat and then come back to where Penny was lying in front of Elaine’s bed, she would still growl a bit, but not for very long. The growl was much less mannacing too. It was more like a growl under the breath, as if her brain was telling her that she should growl at me because I am a man, but not really wanting to frighten me and sound mannacing because after all, I was treating her alright. I could see that we were making a little bit of progress, and I was happy about that but I knew that it would be painfully slow. Now that I had seen that large warm beautiful tongue of hers, my mind was racing and all I could do was imagine us Frenching together somewhere, or imagining that soft warm lovely tongue on my dick. I knew though that it was going to be a very long time before that happened if it happened at all.

I grabbed another treat out of the bag and gave it to Penny, but as she licked the palm of my hand after taking the treat from it, I turned it over so that the back of my hand was on top and not the palm any more. Then Penny started slowly licking the back of my hand with that huge warm beautiful wet tongue of hers. At first it was rather tentative, but it felt absolutely wonderful, so electrifying, so divine. I was already getting harde just after a couple of licks and I was actually afraid that I was going to come right at that moment. As she licked at the back of my hand with that warm wet beautiful loving tongue, I found myself saying things to her like “Oh Penny, Penny, yes, yes, oh your tongue is wonderful I love it baby, I love it, oh God Penny what a gorgeous tongue, oh honey that’s wonderful, you’re a good girl, oh yes Penny, you’re a good girl, oh God does that feel good baby.” When she saw my reaction and heard my happy sounding voice, she continued to lick it for a good twenty seconds. “Well,” I thought, “that was a pretty good start.” But then Penny did something that I certainly hadn’t expected her to do, especially at this point in our relationship. She opened her mouth very wide and she very gently put my hand inside her mouth. It was large, it was warm, and it was so divine. She started rubbing her tongue against my hand. Again the feeling was electrifying. Then she let me see the ridges on the roof of her mouth. Those ridges were always fascinating to me, because the size and spaces between the ridges varried so much from dog to dog. There weren’t many dogs that would tolerate me putting my hand in their mouth and poking around, looking at the ridges. As tolerant a dog as Tina was, when I’d tried to look at some of the individual ridges on the roof of her mouth, she had bitten down on my finger pretty hard, or had at least repelled my hand from her mouth. Neither Sheila, Blazer nor Gracie had liked me touching those ridges. But Penny seemed to be letting me touch them, and she was prolonging it. She kept her mouth wide open and didn’t close it on my hand at all. I read this to be a sign of submission and acceptance, a sign that Penny now trusted me and felt relaxed around me now, and she had decided in her own doggy way that I was an OK guy that liked her and wasn’t going to hurt her.

I couldn’t believe what I had just experienced. Most dogs would try to force my hand out of their mouths when I was trying to look at their tongue or the ridges on their pallet, but Penny had not. She had left her mouth wide open, not bitten my hand even the slightest bit and she had allowed me to take a liberal look at those beautiful ridges. I lay down on my bed feeling completely confused. Just minutes ago when I had started to approach Penny for the first time today, I had felt no emotion toward her at all. I just thought she was a mean and nasty dog. But now that I had gotten a chance to look at her tongue, I was already beginning to fall in love with her because of the shape, size and physical characteristics of that beautiful tongue. But I knew that we were a long way from being on safe ground, a long way from establishing a mutual trust and understanding between us. My mind was racing with fantasies, but the reality was that my getting to the point where I could actually French Penny and touch that heavenly tongue of hers with my tongue was a long way away. How long would it take? I didn’t’ have the slightest idea. It could be three months, it could be six months, it could be a year, it might never happen at all if Penny was that distrustful of men. This conflict within myself ate at my emotions until I thought I was going to snap. It was such a paradox. This was the nicest most beautiful tongue that I’d seen on a dog in years, but this dog didn’t like men and had already growled at me a number of times.

I went back into the living room, and Penny was still lying in front of Elaine’s bed. As I approached her, she softly growled at me again, but not for very long as I presented her immediately with another treat or two. It definitely looked like we had made some progress on this day, and for that I was very happy and greatful.

Later that afternoon, I went over to John’s, and all I could think about was this wonderful tongue that Penny had that I hadn’t known about before. Because I hadn’t known about her gorgeous tongue, I could easily ignore Penny before, especially since she hadn’t done much to impress me or give me any hint that she liked me at all. But now since I had seen it, that tongue was all I could think about, and I was already looking forward to the next morning when perhaps we’d meet again in front of Elaine’s bed. My body was at John’s place but my mind was not. It was in our living room imagining me Frenching that big warm wonderful heavenly tongue of hers, but realistically I knew that it would be a long time before that happened.

I took $20 out of the bank machine and went to Creature Comforts and bought a small bag of those small marrow filled milkbones that I’d been giving Penny earlier in the day, and I also bought a nice big pig’s ear for her. I didn’t really know whether she liked them or not, but I sure knew how well Blazer, Shadoe and Sheila had liked them.

I could hardly sleep on Wednesday night, partly because I was so excited about my meeting with Penny the next morning, but also because as usual, the room was hot. Why wouldn’t it be, despite the fact that I didn’t want her to, Elaine was always shutting the door to my bedroom even in the hottest weather, the bitch! . I felt the same familiar excitement that I used to feel about seeing Tina again when I was going over to Gloria and Ted’s place. I realized though that with Penny, there would be a big advantage because she lived here, so once she fully accepted me and would start Frenching me with that heavenly divine tongue, I would be able to see her any day I wanted to. Furthermore she lived right here at home so I didn’t have to make a long trip like the one I used to make to Gloria and Ted’s place. Also, because I would be able to see her so much, I would probably be able to train her to do just exactly what I wanted her to do. I lay awake thinking, and thinking, and fantasizing about Penny. What would she be like when I’d really gotten to know her? Would I ever get her into my bedroom with me? What would her kisses be like? Would she French me very quickly with that tongue of hers, or would she kiss me very slowly instead? How would the tip of that gorgeous tongue feel against my lips and against my own tongue? I knew none of the answers to these questions, and I knew that it would be a long time if ever before I did. I lay there tossing and turning and thinking about all this, but finally I dropped off to sleep.

~~~~

Part Two – The Big Setback

I was up around quarter to 8 on Thursday morning June 30th. I couldn’t wait to give Penny a couple more of those small marrow milkbone treats and have her take them out of my mouth so incredibly gently like she had done the day before.

With great excitement and anticipation, I walked out into the living room, and then I got down on all fours so that I would be at her level. As I approached Elaine’s bed, Penny started growling at me, but not with quite the mennacing growl that she had initially used the day before. I had a couple of small treats ready for her to take out of my hand, and again that huge warm tongue came out of her mouth to take the treats. Again it felt heavenly and just feeling the tip of that tongue on the palm of my hand just filled me with electricity and I nearly came again. I grabbed a couple more treats from the old bag which only had about a half dozen of those little marrow filled milkbones, but this time instead of putting my hand near her mouth so that she could take the treats out of it, I lay on my back with a treat dangling from my mouth, just waiting for her to very gently take it out of my mouth like she had done the previous day. She hesitated, and hesitated. My heart sank. Had she somehow forgotten what she was supposed to do? Or, had she decided that she just couldn’t trust me enough to allow herself to do that? People had told me that when dealing with Penny, there might be some days in which she trusted me a fair bit, then other days she might not trust me as much and I might feel there had been a set back. After all, there was no way for me to know what had happened to her in the home where she had been abused and unfortunately she couldn’t tell me, so the memories of that situation and Penny’s insecurities might take a considerable amount of time to heal. She would never forget what had happened to her.

I lay there with the milkbone getting softer and softer in my mouth. Finally I took the small milkbone out of my mouth and put it into my hand and I let her take it from there. I was so disappointed. I had thought that we’d made a fair bit of progress on Wednesday, but obviously Penny was having second thoughts and was suffering from some sort of a relaps. For some reason she could still not fully trust me to even do the things that we’d done together the preceding day. Finally after what must have been a full 30 seconds, Penny gently took one of the kibbles out of my mouth, but she was much less sure she should do it this morning, and she was much more hesitant and tentative with her actions.

I was so disappointed with her manner. It didn’t really seem as though she was warming up to me very much at all. Obviously it was going to take a long time for me to win her over and gain her full and complete trust. Maybe that wouldn’t actually happen at all. That was a very real possibility and it broke my heart to think about it.

I lay beside her on the floor in front of Elaine’s bed, and I talked softly and sweetly to her telling her that she was a good girl and that I realized that she didn’t know it yet, but I loved her very much and that I would never ever hurt her. On Wednesday night over at John’s when I had been thinking about the possibility of Frenching her, I had found a hard candy on the kitchen table and I asked John if I could have it. I thought it might come in handy and just might get Penny to French me with that huge wonderful tongue if I stuck it out of my mouth. John had asked me, “Do you like peach?” “Oh yes” I said, and he gave me a peach sucker which I also saw as a possibility to get her to French me. I grabbed the hard candy and put it into my mouth, letting the candy stick out so that if she wanted to, Penny could lick it. Her nose got fairly close to my mouth, but she didn’t try at all to lick the candy. She obviously didn’t feel comfortable enough with me yet to do that, and she didn’t want to be that close to me yet. Had she not had such a gorgeous tongue as she did, I might not be starting to fall head over heels for her and thinking about her during my every waking moment. But I could see the same old routine that had started with Tina when she first gave me those dynamite French kisses at Gloria and Ted’s old place back on June 1, 1994 repeating itself with Penny. The unfortunate thing though was that because of Penny’s background and temperment, I knew that I was going to make much slower progress with Penny than with nearly any other dog that I had ever known. She was so timid and skiddish compared to all the other dogs that I’d worked with. They all seemed excited to work with me and eager to make me happy and please me. But Penny only seemed to be tolerating me, not loving and enjoying the lavish attention that I was giving her.

We lay together, and she put one of her big paws into my hand which also made me think that she was beginning to accept me as a friend.

Once again she did the same thing that she had done the day before, she opened her mouth wide and put my hand into it so that I could fele that luscious tongue. I was beginning to get the feeling that this was something that Penny liked to do for some reason, and it sure turned me on that’s for sure. This time, she kept my hand inside her mouth for a good thirty seconds, rubbing that big warm wonderful tongue of hers all over my hand and in particular my fingers. I was vaguely aware of the ridges on the roof of her mouth, but this time, I concentrated on the feel of her tongue on my hand, which even though I was just touching it, the softness and warmth and the feel of her tongue sent me into ecstasy. I kept touching the end of her tongue with my fingertips and saying to Penny, “Oh yes, yes, yes I love that tongue baby, I love your tongue so much Penny. It is so wonderful, absolutely divine. I love it baby, oh I love it honey. Oh my God girl, you’re really turning me on, oh, oh oh yes, oh God, oh yes Penny, ah ah oh my God I’m coming.” It was true, I was coming and a lot too. I reached down to my under shorts and found them soaked. I put a little bit of seamon on my finger to let Penny smell, and I said to her “Honey, you did that. You did that to me Penny and thanks for giving me so much happiness already. I know you don’t fully trust me and I don’t deserve this love from you yet, but thank you baby for giving it to me. You are such a good dog, such a good dog, such a loving dog Penny.” Now I grabbed the peach lollipop and put it into my mouth, but again I stuck it out of my mouth. Maybe Penny would love the peach flavor better than the hard candy. She turned away uninterested in the peach sucker.

“Dammit,” I thought, “I really want to get Penny to French me somehow, so maybe I’ll try licking her paw again.” I bent down and began licking her paw, but as soon as I did, her mood totally changed, and once again she began growling with that no nonsense low mennacing growl. She obviously didn’t like her paws being touched. This might give us a clue as to how she had been abused before Jamie had gotten her.

My dick was still throbbing. I quickly left the area and cleaned myself up. I decided that perhaps I should give Penny a bit of a break from me. After all, we had been on the floor for over half an hour, and I didn’t want to over do it with Penny and make her angry or annoyed with me. I still didn’t totally trust this dog fully and she could probably sense it.

About a half hour later, I decided to head back toward Penny and give her the pig’s ear that I’d bought for her the day before. I put the pig’s ear in my hand and walked over toward Penny. As I entered her area she began growling at me, and this time, it was that same old mennacing growl that she had used on me the first day I’d met her. I couldn’t believe it. We had really started to become a bit friendly with each other, so why was she growling at me like that? I made the mistake of getting firm with her. I said, “Hey Penny, no, no, don’t growl. Listen, I live here, so you better not growl at me.” I guess she could hear the edge in my voice, an edge that was being brought on by a mixture of frustration and being over tired. Now that I’d just barely raised my voice at Penny, the growling suddenly became louder and even more mennacing. I tried to gently pat her body to calm her down, but clearly it wasn’t working. Penny was really upset. This was when I should have been sensible and just walked away from her and left her alone. After all, that’s what she wanted me to do, she was making that quite obvious. I had no right to force myself on her like I was doing. I still had the PIg’s ear in my hand, so I dropped it on the floor in front of Penny, and then another wave of frustration hit me, and unfortunately I raised my voice again and said, “OK Penny, be that way! I’ve bought you a treat and you don’t even want to take it now.” This had definitely been the wrong thing for me to do. I went back into my bedroom and flopped onto the bed and cried for a few minutes.

I walked back into the living room and approached Penny again. Because she still remembered both the edge in my voice when I tried to get her to stop growling and the fact that I had yelled at her for not taking the Pig’s ear from me, she began right away to growl at me with an extremely low mennacing growl. What was it with this dog anyway? All dogs liked me. Even my room mate Russ’s sister Avril’s little American Eskimo dog named Elsa who had seen two men smash Avril against her own apartment door back in 1996 had jumped right up on my lap and wanted me to pet her on Saturday May 10th of 1998 when Avril visited Russ for the first time in Georgetown and she also met me that day. So if Elsa could accept me, why couldn’t Penny? Elsa had been a very small dog and I’m not particularly crazy about small breeds. But Penny was a large dog with a gorgeous tongue that I didn’t try to get anywhere near now because she was still growling. I tried once again to gently pat her on her side, but the growling increased. Clearly, Penny didn’t want me to touch her or even be near her. This was just not what I was used to, and I honestly couldn’t believe that this was happening. I kept talking to her and saying things like, “What, what, why are you growling at me Penny? I’ve told you so many times before that I love you very much and that I will never hurt you. Why can’t we be friends? Why don’t you like me? Why won’t you trust me? I know, it hasn’t been long enough yet that you’ve known me but God damit I do love you although I don’t love your behavior right now that’s for sure.” Well, they always say that the worst possible thing to do is to show fear when a dog is growling like that. If you do show fear, then the dog knows that he or she has the upper hand in the situation and has you under control. Inwardly I was scared as hell, those growls were becoming even louder and more viscious by the moment. But on the outside, I wasn’t going to show Penny that I was afraid at all. I said to her, “OK Penny, you are obviously upset by something that happened today, and you’re making it quite clear that you want me to leave you alone. Obviously you want nothing to do with me right now, and as much progress as I thought we had made yesterday has all gone up in smoke. But I promise you Penny that I will never hurt you, and even now I want to part on friendly terms, so goodbye Penny, I’ll see you later.” With that, I bent down to give her a kiss on the side of her head or on her paw. I thought I was well away from her mouth, but with lightning speed, as soon as I bent down toward her, I heard a little yelp, and then I felt a canine tooth pierce my lower lip, and then I immediately tasted blood. “Fuck,” I thought, “Jesus H. Christ, that bitch actually bit me. I can’t fucking believe it.” Then I began to cry. I wailed, “Penny, you fucking bit me, I can’t believe that. Why the hell did you do this to me? I didn’t hurt you girl. I do love you you know, even now I still love you, but OK, if you want nothing more to do with me, then that’s exactly what I’ll do from now on, completely ignore you, but this is really a shame because I really do love you because I love all dogs.”

I went into the bathroom and washed my face, but I couldn’t get the bite wound to stop bleeding. I called Karen, a neighbor that didn’t live that far away, and luckily she was home, and I told her that Penny had bitten me, and I asked her if I could come over there so she could look at the wound to see how serious it was.

Karen said that the bite wasn’t a serious wound at all. She figured that it had been a warning bite more than anything, and luckily at the same time that she bit me, I was starting to move away from her, so she didn’t get me very much with those big sharp teeth of hers. I was surprised when she actually bit me that it didn’t hurt more. I always figured that a dog bite would hurt much more than it did, but then again this wasn’t a real serious bite and I didn’t get malled by her or anything. It actually felt like a little pinch, but when I could taste blood on my bottom lip, there was no doubt in my mind what had happened. It was just a small puncture on the left side of that lip, but it was bleeding. Karen got me a cleanex and put it on the spot where Penny had bitten me and applied pressure to see if she could get the bleeding to stop, but as soon as I took the cleanex away from the wound it would start bleeding again. She told me that it was a mistake for me to have ignored her warning growl and bend down and try to kiss her. She said that no matter how good my intentions had been, the growl should have told me to stay away from her. I thought at the time though that if she was afraid of me for some reason, that getting right down to her level and kissing her might have calmed her down and made her realize that all I wanted to do was be friends with her. That notion was definitely wrong! I was in a complete state of shock. This had never happened to me before. Dogs always took to me very quickly because they could read from my body language that I loved them very much too. But Penny’s behavior was so different, so totally foreign to me that I was more upset with the way this made me feel psychologically than by the pain of the bite itself.

Karen got me a coffee and I just sat there, still not believing that one of man’s best friends had actually bitten me. It just didn’t make sense to me, because this had never happened before in my 51 years of life. Oh sure, the occasional little dog that saw me using my cane on the street had bitten me before, but not a dog that I’d spent so much time with and had tried so hard to show that I was a friend. My head was realing. What had I done wrong? Had I lost my touch with dogs? Why had she bitten me in the first place?

Karen said she had a bit of work to do, so I went out onto the pattio where I could be by myself and think. A dog biting me like Penny had was just not normal, at least as far as I was concerned. Now I began to notice that the inside of my mouth was swelling up a bit. Suddenly I had no more errotic thoughts about Penny’s huge soft warm wet tongue at all. This dog was too viscious for me to explore that tongue again, it was obviously going to be off limits. My thoughts about Penny had completely changed. Obviously she really had been abused and it seemed to have effected her psychologically. She was a bit unstable probably because of her confusion and feelings of uncertainty toward men. Some men like Russ and Jamie were alright, but I was a man in her life that obviously wasn’t because of the difference in my hand movements and body language because of my blindness. That damn blindness, I cursed it again for screwing up my life! I sat there nearly in a daze still not believeing that this had actually happened to me. After all, even Avril’s little Elsa had come right up to me and sat on my lap the first day that she and Avril were at the house, and she certainly had a good reason not to trust men after what she’d seen those two men do to Avril. Of course, there was one big difference between Elsa and Penny, Penny was much much bigger. Also, because Elsa was a very small dog I had completely ignored her because I’m not terribly fond of small breed dogs, so I had just waited for her to come up to me, where with Penny, I tried to present myself to her on Monday June 20th, and she had obviously wanted no part of it.

I didn’t quite know what I was going to say to John when I saw him next. I was a bit hurt that he and Norm hadn’t included me in their night at Boston Pizza the previous night, but I know I’d get over that.

John finally walked out onto the pattio, and he said, “Oh Sam dog, yu’re here.” He had to do a couple of things, and then he looked at me and said, “What did you do to your face?” It looks like you’ve nicked your face with a razor or something. I said, “No John, it’s Penny. She bit me this morning.” John said “Oh yeh, I knew you couldn’t trust that dog. She doesn’t like men at all.” Then John’s neighbor Jen started talking and the two kids started screaming. Then they squirted me with water guns, and the nice cool water actually felt good. Jen’s six year old daughter Brianna said hi to me and I said hi back, and she said, “You sound sad.” Yes indeed, I really was sad.

Then Karen called me to come into her apartment again, and John was with her. They both started asking me why I wouldn’t consider moving in with John. On the surface, it certainly had a lot of things going for it and that way, John would have access to my computer again. I loved him very much and almost thought of him as a brother, but there were times when John got… well, just too drunk, and I knew that when he was in that state, it was difficult for people to get away from him, and I valued my privacy and my space, and the ability to go home to my own house on those rare occasions that I just felt I had to get away from John. I also knew that John slept on an average only two to three hours a night. I knew that I’d never be able to keep up with that and that as long as John was awake and walking around, that would keep me awake as well and then I wouldn’t be able to sleep much either. We certainly had a lot in common from love of music to making and listening to CDs to partying to enjoying good food, but I also enjoyed intelectual discussions and John was not in any way intelectual. In fact unlike me who had a great interest in many countries around the world, that kind of stuff didn’t interest John in the least. Basically I thought John was a nice guy, but God dammit I seemed to be going through a whole lot of money lately, and no matter how I tried to budget, it just wasn’t working and I constantly found myself short of money by the end of the month. I said to John, “I am considering moving in with you because I am obviously not happy living with Russ and Elaine at all, but I just don’t think I’m ready to move in with you yet. I think you have to mature just a bit more before I can consider it. Also, if Norm is going to be living with us too, I can’t live with that man because he’s just too moody and unpredictable. At this point, Karen backed off, but John said that he’d let me live there for a whole month for free if I was worried about the expense of moving which quite frankly I couldn’t afford right now. Anyway, the conversation was interesting and it did get my mind off Penny and her viscious bite.

Then John told me to go downstairs to his apartment for coffee which Norm was making, and he said he’d be right back. I walked downstairs and said hello to Norm and showed him the bite that I’d gotten from Penny. He said, “Someone oughtta kill that fucking dog, it’s viscious.” It’s funny, I’m the one that she bit and I didn’t feel like that at all, though I questioned whether I’d ever be able to trust Penny again or become friendly with her after this incident. Norm fixed me a coffee and we talked a bit, mostly about Penny and the bite. Then I asked him if he had had a good time at karaoke at Boston Pizza the night before. Norm told me that he didn’t even remember having gone to Boston Pizza. Apparently John didn’t remember it either. When he’d come back from Boston Pizza, he spoke to Karen for a few minutes, telling her that that’s where he’d been, but Karen said that John was so drunk he could hardly stand. It appeared that both guys had ben so totally smashed when they went to Boston Pizza, that neither of them had remembered the night at all.

Karen had gathered up all the stuff of John’s and Norm’s that had been left out on the pattio on Wednesday night and put it in front of John’s apartment. So John told Norm that he might want to come and get all his stuff which was outside, and then he split, There was just one problem. It was mostly John’s and not Norm’s stuff, and Norm was not very happy about being told to bring this stuff inside, while John made himself scarce as usual. Norm started bitching and complaining about how John always told him what to fucking do, and he was sick of being John’s slave. He was pissed off that most of the stuff that had to be brought in was actually John’s and not his, and he started muddering to himself like he usually did. He said, “I am not going to be here by the time the snow flies. I am moving out.” I had heard it all before, and quite frankly I just wasn’t in the mood for Norm’s shit, because I had other things on my mind like Penny and the fact that she bit me. So I excused myself and told Norm that I just wanted to quickly check my E-mail and write a quick E-mail and then I’d be right back. The person that I wrote the E-mail to was Karen. This is what I wrote.

Subject: Well, I am already home again.

Hi again Karen,

Thanks for looking at the wound that I got from Penny and fixing it up. I can’t seem to completely stop it from bleeding. Even now at 2:34 PM, it is still bleeding a bit.

Karen, I just had to come home because Norm was in such a bitchy dreadful mood, and I was in no mood for it today with the way this day has turned out so far. I guess he was really bullshit about John telling him that all his stuff was outside, and that he might want to bring it in so that it doesn’t get stolen. Norm was just mumbling and grumbling under his breath and I was in no mood to hear it today. I don’t think there’s any way that the three of us can live in that small an apartment. Just as sure as I’m sitting here, Norm will drive me as crazy as he has been driving John lately. I’m sure that that’s a good part of the reason that John’s been drinking so heavily lately, because of Norm’s attitude. I’m not trying to justify or make excuses for John’s drinking, just explain why it’s happening that’s all. I also hope that you will respect my wishes and keep the contents of this E-mail to yourself. But getting back to Norm, he’s just a miserable moody bastard that’s impossible to get along with except during those rare times when he is in a good mood. But I don’t want to force John to kick Norm out either, because that wouldn’t be fair to Norm. He must have a place to live too. Anyway, I don’t know what the answer is, but I think before I could move in with John, he is going to have to mature a bit. Also Karen, you have no idea how much money he’s already soaked me for over the past two years. It’s not been all at once, it’s just been a little here and a little there, but I’ve seen my savings go from almost $1400 to less than $200, and in fact I had to transfer some money from a term deposit that I have, into my checking account just so that I can continue to live, although right now I must say that I don’t care much whether I do or not. Boy, this depression has really hit me this time, and I can’t seem to snap myself out of it which is really pissing me off because usually I can shake depression on my own. Anyway Karen, sorry about the mess left out on the pattio last night. Really I should have cleaned it up, but I did take some dishes down so I thought John had cleaned up the rest of the pattio and I didn’t realize that he hadn’t.

Best,
Sam

After writing that E-mail, I went back to John and Norm’s place for coffee. I guess I had four or five more coffees which Norm fixed me that afternoon, still grumbling all the while about John. And where was John? He said he’d be right back but he seemed to have disappeared. Meanwhile Norm was still grousing and bitching about the way John was treating him, and he kept saying “I’m not going to be here much longer that’s for sure. I’ll be gone before the snow flies.” NOrm was either drinking again or still drunk from the night before. So I excused myself and told Norm that I was just going to go out and get some fresh air. So I went out to the back pattio where I could just have some peace and quiet and think. With Penny and I living in the same house, we would somehow have to resolve the issues between us. It might just be that this was a dog that I couldn’t touch at all, ever, because she was so afraid of men, and for that I really felt sad for her. There was obviously no way that she could tell me what had happened to her in the past, but I wished so much that somehow she could, and get it off her chest. Time passed, 15 minutes, half an hour, 45 minutes. Finally John showed up with Lisa, a woman that had been living next door in the old apartment that John had lived in before which was now a well known crack house in town. Karen’s sister Vicki had seen this woman lying on a picnic table in a yard behind John’s earlier in the month, and she had cleaned her up, died her hair and helped her out. John had seen Lisa as an opportunity to get some, which was John’s typical way of thinking which was most unfortunate. I really didn’t care much for Lisa. It drove me crazy when she tried to sing, because she always sang off key. I know that people that do that can’t help it, but when you’ve got a good musical ear, it can really be irritating when someone can’t carry a tune at all. We sat outside for a bit, and then Norm came out. He was under the impression that I had left, and he didn’t even realize that I was still there. He thought I had gone home and I said, “No Norm, I told you that I just wanted to come out here and get some fresh air.” We headed downstairs and then John put on Christina At Night, a syndicated Canadian country show that ran after 7 PM on CING, the new country 95.3 in Hamilton. New my ass. They had been with that format for over three years now, so how was that new? I sat in the kitchen feeling like I really wasn’t there. My body was at John’s place, but again my brain was not. Of course John was talking a lot to Lisa and pretty much ignoring me, but then again I was pretty quiet that day and I didn’t really feel much like socializing with any one, especially any one that I didn’t know that well. The fact that Penny had bitten me really upset me because dogs just didn’t do that to me.

Well, it was the last day of the month and I knew that John would need grocery money. So around 10 PM I left without a word and walked down to the Royal bank. I walked inside, took out my wallet and I couldn’t find my Royal bank card. I looked in the specific spot in my wallet where it should have been and it simply wasn’t there. “Oh Christ” I said, “That was a wasted trip, and where the hell is my Royal bank card anyway?” I walked back to John’s place and I said to him “Jesus Christ, what the hell else is going to go wrong today? First I get bitten by a dog, and now I can’t find my Royal bank card.” John said, “Sam here, let me see your wallet. Maybe I can find it for you.” Then he said, “Oh yes, here it is, it was on the other side of the wallet behind another card, so it’s here Sam dog, don’t worry.” But I was worrying. John said, “I guess one night when you were either really drunk or stoned you must have been showing it to me for some reason and you didn’t put it back in the right place or something.” There was just one problem with that explanation. Because it is always very important for me to know just where those bank cards are, regardless of my state of mind at the time, I am always extremely careful to keep those bank cards in the correct order. Now I was really starting to become suspicious. When I had gone home during the afternoon, I had checked my Royal bank balance and discovered that it was only $750 and it should have been around $1150. My first thought was that with the Canada Day holiday coming on Friday, I was just one of the unfortunate folks that didn’t get my check on the last day of the month, and now with Canada day, I’d have to wait to get it until Monday the 4th.

Later, Lisa and John and I went out back and smoked a joint. John asked me what time I thought it was, and I said 20 to 11, and that’s exactly what it was. Lisa couldn’t get over the fact that I could do that at all. I got high, very high. With Lisa around, John was practically ignoring me anyway so that gave me the chance to tune out of the conversation since it didn’t involve me anyway and I tried to send a message telepathically to Penny, telling her that I loved her very much, the reason my hand movements and body language were so different was because I couldn’t see, and that I wished that somehow we could be friends. I just tried to picture Penny which is a bit of a difficult thing for me to do. Even if I had seen before and then went blind later, it would be easier for me to picture Penny in my mind. But since I hadn’t ever seen at all, the task of trying to picture her in my mind was going to be a formidable one. I sat there in the kitchen, really wondering how on if it would be possible for me to send a message from me over at John’s to Penny here at this house, and I knew that Penny probably didn’t know many words, nearly the number of words that both Blazer and Shadoe knew. So trying to communicate with her in words was probably all wrong anyway. From what I’d heard about animal communicators, they communicated with animals in pictures, and I couldn’t see how I could do that.

Then John mentioned having to go grocery shopping the next day and I reminded him that Friday was Canada day, and that was a stat holiday and none of the big grocery stores would be open. I told hin that convenience stores might be open, but not big stores like Lobblas or food Basic. He said, “Oh well, I’m sure we’ll figure out something for supper tomorrow night but I don’t have much here in the way of groceries I’ll tell you that. Maybe we can all split on a pizza.” We hadn’t had pizza for awhile so that actually sounded good to me.

Well, around 12:30 AM on now, Friday, Canada day July first, Lisa made us bacon egg and cheese sandwiches. John normally didn’t buy bacon at all because he didn’t like it because it had so much fat in it. But he had actually broken down and bought some for the first time that I could remember. The sandwiches were very good and thank goodness they filled me up because I was really getting the munchies after getting high.

Then John said that he was about to die Lisa’s hair. I figured that this would be as good a time as any for me to exit. After all, I didn’t know if Lisa and John were going to fool around a bit or anything, but I knew they wouldn’t do it as long as I was around, so I thought I should be decent and give them some time alone, plus, I was still very tired. I hadn’t slept well for over a week. So I said goodbye and walked home and thought about what an incredible day I had just been through, and then I E-mailed Russ to let him know that Penny had bitten me and I warned him that he should be very careful around her…

~~~~

Part Three – Repairing the Damage

Around 20 to 1 in the afternoon on Canada day July 1, I finally woke up. There was a knock at my door and it was Russ. “Sorry man” he said, “I’m really sorry that Penny bit you, but she’s a different breed of dog from Shadoe, Sheila and Blazer and she doesn’t like to be kissed and cuddled. I guess I should have re-introduced her to you before this. So let’s go out and meet Penny again.” I stiffened. This just wasn’t like me. I wasn’t afraid of dogs, but the fact is, I was afraid of this one. Russ led me out to the living room, and as I approached the area where Penny was, I stopped. Russ said, “Come on.” He sat me down in a chair, and he said to Penny, “That’s Sam, and he lives here.” I just didn’t know what to expect but I didn’t expect what happened next. Out came her tongue and she gave me a great big kiss right on the lips. I felt that she was trying to tell me that she was really sorry that she’d bitten me but I couldn’t be sure. I sat there not quite knowing what to do. Normally I would have reacted to a kiss like that but I was still a bit nervous of her. So she came right over to me and kissed me on the lips again. It really seemed as if she was trying to communicate through her body language that she was really sorry that she had bitten me.

Then Russ suggested that we should go outside. It was much cooler than it had been the previous day, and there was a stiff northerly breeze as well. Russ led me out to the table because I had no idea where it was. All this new stuff, the table and chairs and barbecue hadn’t been in the yard when I last sat out in it, so he had to lead me to it. I wondered if Penny was watching this and beginning to figure out that I couldn’t see. I really don’t know who bought them, Russ or Elaine. Several times in the next 20 minutes, Penny would come over to me, and she was so tall that I didn’t even have to bend down for her to plant a kiss right on my lips. The feel of that beautiful tongue of hers even for a fleeting moment just made me wish that the kisses had been slower and that I could somehow get her to French me, but I never would have done that in front of Russ. She would come over to me, kis me, and then let me pat her for a few seconds, then she’d wander off somewhere else in the back yard, and then eventually she’d come back to me. After about a half hour, Russ said, “Well, I think we’ve made some good progress today don’t you think? And if you can be here on Sunday afternoon, you and I will sit out back and get stoned and that will really mellow Penny out.” I told Russ that I certainly would plan to be here to do that because I thought that was important.

I went into my room, mulling over just what I’d experienced, and because I had seen that tongue of hers once again, I was wishing I could see it in greater detail, and now I was thinking of Penny again in a much more positive light.

Then John called me and invited me over for coffee but I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect because Lisa was still there. I just didn’t care for her that much and we didn’t have much in common, plus I knew that John would be talking to her most of the time and ignoring me. We seemed to be falling into a rut. We knew each other so well that there wasn’t much for John and I to talk about any more. We could talk about music but that left people out of the conversation like Lisa, and talking about how Russ and Elaine were treating me just made John too angry. As I left the house, I noticed that Canada day was much cooler than the past few days had been, and it was quite breezey out there. I got over to John’s place and there was no coffee ready. Actually Norm had warmed up some coffee that had been made earlier in the morning, but then John decided to throw that out and make some fresh coffee for me. I waited and waited but the coffee never materialized. Again I was sitting in John’s kitchen but all I could think about were Penny’s beautiful kisses. I really got a strong feeling that she was really sorry for having bitten me, and was trying to apologize for doing so by kissing me. Her tongue had come right out of her mouth and she had kissed me right on the lips, and she didn’t do that very often. Again my body was at John’s place but my mind was elsewhere, with Penny to be honest about it. Her kisses this afternoon had just captivated me. I couldn’t wait till Sunday July third because Russ had promised that he and I would smoke a joint together and I would be able to spend some more time with Penny. But first I’d have to get through the next day, Saturday the second which I knew was going to be very long. Around 2 o’clock that afternoon, Norm dropped over a thermus of coffee, and he told me that John had left the house with Lisa, and he didn’t really know where he was, but that John had told me that he wanted the grocery money. I brisoled and said to Norm, “Look, I haven’t gotten my Canadian check yet so he’ll just have to wait that’s all.” However, in reality I had indeed gotten my Canadian check for the month of July. I worked on the computer all day and around 5:30 or 6 PM, I went down to the Royal bank and took out $60.

~~~~

Part Four – Strengthening the Bond

Sunday July third, I woke up around 12:30 PM. I took a shower, checked my E-mail and then started a long E-mail to my best pal Jay about my feelings about Penny. Then Russ asked me if I wanted to head out back and smoke a joint but just then there was a knock at the door. Norm was here again, asking yet again for the grocery money. I knew that Norm himself was in a bad financial way and it was not like him to be a nag, but he was just trying to get that money from me to cover his own ass because obviously John was putting pressure on him to get my grocery money. I was none too happy about this, after all, John still wasn’t back from wherever he had taken off to, so I gave him the $60 and said, “You tell John that I really appreciate his patience and understanding about my Canadian check not coming in.” I was being sarcastic of course.

Norm quickly left and then I went out back and discovered that Jamie was there too in addition to Russ. Russ led me out to the picnic table and I brought the small bag of treats that I had bought the previous Wednesday out to the table so that I’d have plenty of them to give Penny to strengthen the bond between us. Russ and I split a joint while Jamie smoked a whole one himself. Within a couple of minutes I was very stoned, and all I wanted to do was to concentrate on trying to communicate with and right things with Penny. She came up to me and like she often did when she approached me, she put her big nose into my hand. Then because it was rather hot in the sun, she lay down under the table we were sitting at, and I said to both Russ and Jamie, “Guys, just trust me on this one. If she begins to growl at me, I’ll back off immediately but I think that it’s important that I get right down to her level and communicate with her right where she is..”

So as Penny moved herself under the table, I bent down and followed her down there as well. I gently put my arms around her but didn’t make her feel in any way that she was being cornered or trapped. Then I began softly talking to her. I said, “Penny, OK, you do seem to like me somewhat, but I have a very important question to ask you. I really do want to be your friend Penny, but how do I know that you won’t bite me again? How do I know that I can trust you girl? Do you realize that you’re the only dog that’s ever bitten me? That really scared me and I don’t want to be afraid of you. I know you are a beautiful dog, but you do have a real mean streak that right now is keeping me at bay from you and that really depresses me girl. So, what do you think, can we be friends? Do you think Penny that we can be friends? Do you think that you could learn to like me Penny? I really am a very gentle loving guy if you’d give me a chance.” Now my buzz was really kicking in, and I was really wishing and hoping with all my heart that Penny would give me a bit of a French kiss no matter how briefly from under the table. But she didn’t. However, very slowly and ever so gently, she put her face right up to my nose and touched my mouth slightly with her nose. This was obviously the way that Penny usually did things, very slowly, carefully and tentatively. This was a sign of the lack of self confidence that she had as a result of her abuse. When she first took kibbles of food out of my mouth it was done the same way, very tentatively and hesitantly. Clearly Penny didn’t have the confidence of most other dogs so when she did something she always paused and hesitated before doing it, and did it oh so tentatively. If I read this sign correctly this seemed to be an indication that she wanted to get to know me better and possibly become friends, but it was so tentative that I couldn’t be at all sure that I was reading this sign correctly. After all, both Wednesday and Thursday June 29th and 30th, she had put my hand right into her mouth without closing it on my hand at all, and I had read this sign to be one of submission and trust, but because of the events that had happened later that day, obviously that wasn’t what Penny’s behavior had meant. I grabbed a couple of treats and gave them to her, and because both Jamie and Russ were right there, reluctantly I just let her take them out of my hand rather than putting them in my mouth and giving them to her that way. However, even this was a turn on because of that huge warm tongue that she was using to lick the small kibbles out of my hand. As I was thinking about how Penny had put my hand into her mouth previously on both the 29th and 30th of June, suddenly she did it again, and this time with me lying on the grass with my dick underneath my body, it absolutely drove me crazy. It was a total turn on! She put my hand into her mouth again, and this time she really let me feel her tongue rubbing up against my hand. Obviously because of my reaction she was beginning to pick up on the fact that I really liked it when she did that, both rubbing her tongue on my hand while she kept it in her mouth, and also licking my hand with her tongue extended outside her mouth. She obviously knew that both of these actions turned me on, and she was beginning to do this more and more frequently with me which seemed to be a small sign that perhaps she was beginning to accept me as a friend and she wanted to please me a bit. I thanked her for putting my hand in her mouth, and then she licked my hand again with her tongue. She got up, then I got up. But when I returned to the chair, I wasn’t sitting in the same chair that I had been sitting on at the picnic table before. Russ asked me, “Are you really stoned Sam?” I had to admit that I was. Then I discovered something that Penny was doing that both Russ and Jamie wanted to stop. She seemed to like to eat rocks. She was apparently teething, but there was the danger that chewing on rocks could break her teeth and we didn’t want that to happen. I also began to notice that Penny often used her nose like a shovel, digging into the ground with it and moving her nose forward and almost using it like a battering ram. She would often ram my hand with that big nose of hers as well, and where that big nose was, a huge warm tongue wasn’t far behind, but I wasn’t getting to see nearly as much of her tongue today as I had hoped, and she wasn’t really kissing me much like she had done on Friday. But today she didn’t feel she had to apologize for anything. She was so much bigger than either Shadoe or Sheila had been, and her movements and body language were quite different from that of any other dog I had ever seen. She would sometimes plant her nose in my hand, and sometimes she’d just smell the ground with it, and because she rubbed her nose so much on the ground it was getting a red spot on it which was probably getting sore.

Russ and Jamie sat there, and Jamie spoke so softly that sometimes I had a hell of a time actually hearing what he was saying and I was too embarrassed to keep saying “What? Could you please repeat that Jamie?” so I just shut up and missed most of the conversation between him and Russ. The conversation didn’t really concern me, they were talking about people and things that I wasn’t cluing into anyway because I didn’t know them. One thing that both Russ and Jamie stressed though, was that I should let Penny come to me and that would get me further in the long run. Russ told me several times that Penny was a very different dog and had a different personality than Shadoe, Sheila and Blazer had had, and that she didn’t really like to be kissed or hugged or cuddled or fondled or fussed over very much. This was understandable, and was just one more sign of her abuse. You could see how the abuse had effected her personality and this made me very sad. She generally liked being by herself and not being bothered very much. Unlike any other dog I had ever seen, Penny didn’t seem interested in any part of the house except for Elaine’s area. Clearly, she didn’t feel that she had the full run of the house which she certainly did, but she obviously didn’t realize it yet. I certainly was willing to listen to both Russ’ and Jamie’s advice about leaving Penny alone and letting her come to me, but on the other hand, if I never went to see her, she might never decide to interact with me and I didn’t want that. As I saw it, it was going to take both of us to reach out to each other, try to communicate with and understand each other, and try to establish a friendship. I couldn’t expect Penny to do it all, and I wanted Penny to know that I loved her and cared about her. So although I respected the fact that perhaps Penny didn’t like being fussed over now, I just had the feeling that gradually in time, she would come around and would accept the love I had to give her.

One thing that Russ observed about Penny, was that she wasn’t a particularly smart dog like Shadoe had been. He said “She’s just a big floppy dog that’s all.” Later I was to see why he said that she wasn’t very smart. I held out my left hand with a treat in it, and Penny came over to the right of me in the chair that I was sitting on, not to the left side where the treat was. Jokingly I asked Russ, “Do you think I could train Penny to be my guide dog?” He laughed and said, “Well, if you wanted her to take you to Heather’s Bakery here in town, she might eventually get you there, but she’d find a lot of dogs and people to scrap with along the way so I think it would take you a long time for Penny to get you there. Let’s put it this way, getting you over to Heather’s wouldn’t exactly be her top priority Sam.” We both laughed trying to imagine me using Penny as a guide dog.

Penny came back again and nuzzled me with her nose. I gave her a couple more treats and patted her and started asking her again, “Penny, how am I going to know when I can trust you girl? How am I going to know that I can talk to you and pat you and do anything I want to with you, without you biting me? Penny, do you love me? Oh girl, I know the answer to that one right now, you don’t. I think right now you are just tolerating me but I do truly hope someday that I’ll be able to win your love, because I really do love dogs very much girl.”

Each time she came over to me and nudged or nuzzled me with her nose, I would pat her side oor her back, or rub her under her belly, or scratch her behind the ear, talking to her all the while and giving her a couple of kibbles of food, sometimes letting her take them out of my hand with that large warm beautiful tongue of hers, but at other times getting her to take them right out of my mouth. I would keep asking her questions like “Penny, can you be my friend?” “Penny, do you love me?” “Penny, when will you trust me?” or “Penny, promise me you won’t bite me again.” I figured the serious but non-threatening tone of my voice would make her realize that at least I wanted her to look at me and pay attention to what I was saying. I didn’t expect her to understand it yet, but eventually I figured that as she heard it over and over again, she might eventually begin to understand a few words here and there. It was certainly worth a try at any rate.

I had loved Penny and I both being under the table and her taking a kibble of food from out of my mouth down there, so each time she came near me, I would try to get her to lye under the table with me again but she would immediately wander away so I guessed that I was getting a bit to intense for her, probably due to the fact that I was so high and I was really trying to talk to her very seriously, but Penny just had no idea what I actually wanted or expected of her. At one point I was talking to her, and she started to walk away so I pulled her back towards me and said in a slightly firm voice, “Penny, look at me! Don’t walk away from me, pay atention, I’m talking to you about something very important and I’m not finished talking to you yet.” Later I thought about this and realized that this was a bit nervy to have done considering that Penny had bitten me just three days previous but she certainly didn’t show any signs of aggression, fear or anger towards me now.

She seemed willing enough to come over to see me for a few brief moments, but she was obviously much more distracted outside than in the house, so she wandered off a lot more probably because of the many different smells, rocks and other things that were outside. If I called her over to give her a treat, she would come over and get it, but she wouldn’t stay beside me for very long.

Finally Russ said, “Well, I’m going in now. Do you want me to bring you inside or do you want to stay out here? I asked Russ if Penny and Jamie were going to still be out here and he said yes they would. But when I started trying to talk to Jamie, it appeared that he had gone inside too. I tried to call Penny over to me so that I could get a nice look at that huge warm loving tongue of hers since the two of us were alone, but she wouldn’t come over to me either. Perhaps she was already inside the house, I really didn’t know. It seemed that as long as Russ was around Penny, she seemed quite happy to treat me decently, even give me kisses sometimes, but on my own, I just got the feeling that Penny didn’t really feel much love or friendship for me yet anyway. Still, Penny had sometimes come over to me and nuzzled me with her nose to let me know that she was there, and she seemed to be accepting treats from me with no problems at all. So, perhaps the worst between us was finally over and we could start to become friends now, I certainly hoped so.

After about a half hour of just sitting and thinking about Penny and trying to call her over to me from time to time, I went into the house. I was still pretty high so I worked for several hours on a long E-mail that I was writing to Jay about my honest feelings about Penny. I had started the E-mail just before I got to see Penny today, and I had the feeling that things had really changed between us now, and that Penny would never growl or bite me again. Perhaps Jay was the only person that actually realized and understood that I had a fettish for dogs with huge tongues and Penny’s tongue was absolutely massive. I continued writing this E-mail to Jay, revising, correcting, adding, and editing it until I had it just the way I wanted it.

~~~~

Part Five – Robbed Blind

Monday was the fourth of July, a stat holiday in the United States, but a normal working day up here in Canada. So around 2 o’clock that afternoon I called the Royal bank line to see if in fact my July disability check from the Canadian government had come in or not. The woman on the other end of the phone assured me that the check had indeed come in, but she pointed out that I had made a lot of withdrawals over the past few days. My head was spinning, what withdrawals? As far as I knew, I had withdrawn $60 for myself back on June 22 when I had had to transfer that $700 from my term deposit into my Royal bank account, and the following day or at the most two days later, I had transfered $40 to my visa to pay them a bit of money and that was all. But the woman on the phone told me about withdrawals on the 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th of June, and I knew that something very strange indeed was going on. I knew right away that because Penny had bitten me on Thursday June 30th, I hadn’t made any withdrawals from the Royal bank machine that day because I was just too down and depressed and didn’t feel like it. I had attempted to withdraw $60 later that evening but I couldn’t because my Royal bank card seemed to be missing from my wallet, and all too quickly John seemed to know just exactly where it was. Also at the time that the withdrawal was made on June 30th, John had disappeared from his apartment and had asked Karen’s sister Vicki to drive him down to Milton to do some errands for Lisa and bring her back to Johns place. Suddenly a light went on. For months I couldn’t figure out why no matter how hard I had tried to budget my money I was always running short at the end of the month. I was always very careful with my money and I just couldn’t understand why all of a sudden I couldn’t seem to budget wirth a damn. I put it down to partying a lot and sometimes perhaps forgetting about a bank withdrawal or two that I might have made in the course of the month. But no, I wasn’t forgetting my withdrawals, I was getting some help in withdrawing money from John. When I had to ask him to take the rent money out of the Royal bank when I had been so sick with the flu back on February first of 2005 and he told me later that he didn’t even remember my pen number, I never should have believed him and taken his word for it, but unfortunately that’s how much I had trusted him. Now everything was coming together and it was all making sense to me now, finally. It seems that John, the person that I had really thought was my best friend here in Georgetown had been robbing me blind, and he had been doing this for months, maybe even years. It just had to be him, because no one else had access to my pen numbers but John himself. Suddenly I felt very sick, hurt and betrayed. I just couldn’t believe that John had done this to me, especially since he had always told me that I was his best friend. But apparently many people were deeply concerned about this as a real possibility from my parents to Russ and his sister Avril to a fellow named Bob from the George and Dragon bar in town who absolutely hated John. I should have become suspicious when he kept telling me over and over again that when he had still been allowed at the house, whenever he was in my bedroom, he’d pick up any loose change on the floor and give it back to me, every cent of it. Why did he feel he had to constantly keep saying that to me over and over again? Was it to try to make himself believe that he wasn’t stealing money from me? If he was an honest person and he really had been my best friend, saying that wouldn’t have really been necessary would it? If he said it once, he said it a hundred times, “I’d never steal money from you Sam dog.” sSuddenly that statement about always picking up my loose change and giving it back to me rang very hollow and empty. “Yeah you fucking son of a bitch” I thought, “you constantly told people how honest you were because you picked up my loose change and gave it back to me while robbing me of hundreds of dollars in the mean time. Thanks pal, thanks you asshole.” I was numb with shock and grief. After all, eventually the money could be replaced but our friendship could not. It was over right then and there, there was no question about that. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to deal with this yet and just exactly what I’d say to John, but one thing was obvious, there was just no way that I could simply let it go without at least confronting him about it.

The woman I was on the phone with from the Royal bank transfered me over to a woman at the local branch of the bank here in Georgetown who luckily I knew, her name was Tracy and I had dealt with her before on several occasions. She also knew John and when I told her what he had done, she was in the same state of shock and disbelief that I had experienced just a few minutes ago. We made arrangements for me to go over to the bank at 3:15 that afternoon to fill out some forms and change my pen number. Then I went to the CIBC, and a woman named Brenda who worked there said that she’d have to call the Alton Towers branch of the CIBC in Scarborough where my account had actually been opened and see what they recommended should be done. We tentatively set up another appointment for around 3:15 the next day.

Then I called Jay with the terrible news, and he was another person that wasn’t particularly surprised that John had done this to me but I was so shocked and felt so devastated and betrayed. How could he have done this to me, his best friend? How could he keep telling me that I was his best friend while at the same time taking money out of my bank accounts? It just didn’t make sense, it just didn’t add up. I just couldn’t accept it because the awful truth was that John was really no friend at all, but just a heartless con artist and that reality was just too hurtful for me to swallow right now, never mind accept. I just couldn’t imagine that he could do this to me. I kept wanting this horrible nightmare to be over so that I could wake up, but this wasn’t a dream, it was reality.

I made my way to the Royal bank almost in a daze, and Tracy and I filled out the forms that needed to be filled out. She gave me a temporary bank card and told me that in a week or so, I’d get two copies of my permenant card in the mail, and I would use the card that had the highest number on it.

Then I walked across the street to the CIBC to see what I would learn there, and again a sizeable amount of money had been withdrawn from that account as well from bank machines in town that I didn’t even know how to get to on my own.

When I got home, I called Karen with the news. “That God damn fucking bastard” I said as she picked up the phone. “How the hell could he have done this to me?” But the fact was, he had. I just couldn’t believe it. For two years I had trusted him with my very soul, and this was the kind of person that John had turned out to be. Two years of friendship had gone up in smoke, and now I knew how very depressing my life was about to become, and I sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to that! After getting off the phone with Karen I felt a big knot in my stomach and I knew what was about to follow. Suddenly all I could do was cry. Yes, I just flopped down on the bed and cried and cried. A torent of tears was being released, and they just streamed uncontrollably down my face. I knew that had Shadoe been alive, she would have been on the bed in an instant, kissing those tears away as fast as they came. But the fact was, Shadoe was dead, and Penny had enough of her own problems because of her abuse, that I knew I simply couldn’t expect Penny to be able to comfort or understand me like Blazer and Shadoe had done in the past, because she hardly knew me and didn’t feel very close to me yet. I was extremely depressed, an absolute basket case. In fact, I didn’t know I had so many tears to cry but this really hurt. The feeling of betrayal was just unbelievable, and the fact that this bastard claimed he was my best friend while doing this to me only made things so much worse.

Russ certainly got a real surprise when he came in the door that Monday evening around 6 PM because I gave him his rent money and then asked if I could speak to him alone in his room. Once he had closed the door, I gave him a big bear hug and said, “God damit Russ, you f–ker, you f–ker, you were absolutely right all along about John. He’s no f–king good. All he is is a user and a f–king God damn con artist.” The ironic thing is, that just three days before on Canada day when Russ and I had been outside with Penny, I had told him how much John missed using the computer, and I had asked him, no, I’d practically begged him to let John just stay in my room and listen to music on my computer when no one else was home. Russ had held his ground and said, “I don’t trust him. John is a thief and he’s not welcome in my house.” So, that had been the final word from Russ on that subject. Now it looked like Russ had said that with good reason, and almost everyone in Georgetown seemed to know that John had been doing this to me for quite some time.

I went over to Karen’s for supper and although I’m not normally fond of Spanish rice, this was excellent and so was the lasagna. Another friend of Karen’s was supposed to stop by for supper too, but he never did show up although her daughter Michelle dropped in for a bit. Karen told Michelle what John had done to me, and I told Michelle how bored and desperately lonely I was. Michelle piped up and said that Marco, the fellow that she was going with and was going to be marrying soon would love to have my company during nights when he had to drive to places like Shelburne to pick up some meat. Anyway, I told Michelle that I thought that would be a great idea for both of us.

After supper was over, Karen made me a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches which I just assumed that I was going to eat for the next day’s supper because Karen had said something about being away all day Tuesday the 5th, but as it turned out, she was going to be home in time for supper that night. So Karen gave me two ham and cheese sandwiches, a couple of muffins and a couple of containers of apple sauce complete with plastic spoons. We walked back to the house, and Karen being the straight forward person that she is, said in a loud enough voice for everyone in the house to hear as she opened our refrigerator, “I’m putting this bag of food for you on the top shelf of the refrigerator, OK?” The message was clear, it was “Don’t move this anyone so that Sam can’t find it.” This action of Karen’s was going to cause reprecussions, and Russ would feel he had to say something to me about it the following night all in the name of protecting his darling Elaine.

I still felt numb with grief and shock. After all, I had been going over to John’s place regularly and partying with him for over two years, and now all that was coming to an abrupt end and my life was going to revert back to the hell that it had been like before I’d met John. Only now things would be even worse. When we had first moved up here, Russ would make an effort to talk to me for an hour or so each day particularly during supper time, but now that he wasn’t feeding me any more plus Elaine was there as well, now sometimes I didn’t talk to Russ at all for weeks on end. Also, now that Al was gone, I hardly knew this other roommate that had been living with us since February named Roger who was a factory worker at Applied Wiring in Georgetown and who I didn’t have much of anything in common with anyway. Roger seemed quite content to keep to himself. Of course Elaine who was the third room mate that was living with us simply hated my guts, never mind that I’d never done anything bad to the woman, in her eyes I stared at her and she didn’t like that. If she had just thought about it, she would have realized that there was no way that I could stare at her since I’m totally blind.

I called Russ’s sister Avril that night or maybe she called me, but at any rate, I let her know what I had discovered that John had been doing to me for God knows how long, and Avril said to me “Oh God Sam, I was afraid of that. I’ve been concerned that that’s what he’s been doing to you especially when you talked about how hard it was to budget your money lately.” While talking to Avril, a long distance call came in and it was my friend Gary who had been trying to get a hold of me since the previous Thursday June 30th but I was waiting for my new phone bill to take effect, and the fourth was the start of a new billing date. Gary wanted to come out here from Brantford and have me make some more CDs for him on my computer. But as much as I wanted to see him, because Gary had Parkinson’s disease which makes his body movements very different from that of normal people as well, I just couldn’t guarantee that Penny wouldn’t growl at him or worse, bite him. So reluctantly I told Gary that for the moment, I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to come out for a visit until we all knew Penny a bit better. I also had to tell him about losing both Shadoe and Marg, and about my dad’s fall, about Penny biting me, and about what John had done to my bank accounts. Gary just couldn’t believe it. He said, “It sure doesn’t sound like you’ve had very good luck lately, and here I thought I’d had it bad when I got over heated and almost died last weekend while trying to use my bike and cycle to a concert that I wanted to go to.” “Man” I thought, “some guys have all the luck. With me having no more life to speak of, I’d just love to die. After all, what do I have to live for?” The answer quite clearly was nothing. I finally went to bed around 1:30 in the morning, just wishing that I’d never wake up again.

~~~~

Part Six – The Police

I woke up feeling just as miserable on Tuesday July fifth as I had felt on Monday the fourth, and I knew that it was going to be a long long month, never mind looking any further ahead than that. At one point in the morning I was thirsty and went to get a glass of water in the bathroom, and I couldn’t believe what Penny did. As I started to walk into the living room, once again she growled at me and I couldn’t figure out why. Was she increasing her territory so that now she felt that the entire living room was hers and not just Elaine’s area? I didn’t know the answer but I had to admit that I was rather scared. Was Penny just testing me, just daring me to come toward her and challenge that growl? Or was she just playing a game with me? I didn’t know but one thing was for sure, the fact that she had actually bitten me was certainly going to make me treat her very differently than I had ever treated any other dog in my life.

Avril had told me the previous night that she was going to check into the possibility of reporting this theft of my money to the police, and true to her word, she had indeed called the Halton Hills police on my behalf. She called me and strongly urged me to contact the police and have John charged for stealing my money under the pretence of being my best friend. I seriously doubted though that I’d have a case against John since I had actually given him my pen numbers. But, I did call the Halton Hills police. Within barely half an hour I heard a knock at the door and a British fellow named Simon Langer was standing at the door. He asked me if I had called the police and I told him that I had, but I was just astounded with the speed that he had come to the house since my initial call to them had barely been made a half hour ago. When he came into the house he saw Penny, and he asked me if that was my guide dog and I told him no, it was my room mate Russ’ dog. I also told him that she had bitten me the previous Thursday morning. I explained to him about my living situation, how none of my room mates would speak to me much, never mind feed me or help me with my laundry. Then I explained to him about meeting John at the Georgetown summer festival two years ago, and that ever since then I had considered him my best friend. I told him what I had discovered the previous day. He told me that I had three options that I could choose from in terms of the money that John had stolen. 1, I could charge John for the theft, but because John is on welfare and is very familiar with his legal rights, once it went to court, John would probably tell the judge that he would be willing to give me only a dollar or five dollars a week if that. Option 2 was to contact the banks and have them charge him, and option 3 was to do absolutely nothing and just chock the whole friendship with John up as a bad experience. Well, I didn’t want to do absolutely nothing, but at the same time, because I passed John’s house on the way to Karen’s, I didn’t want to get beat up by John either. I didn’t think under normal circumstances that John would beat me up, but when he had been drinking heavily, it was anyone’s guess what he might do in that state of mind when he was really angry and pissed off. Personally officer Langer didn’t think there was much that could be done since I had willingly given him the pen numbers for my bank cards. He said that he’d talk to people at both banks and see what he could do. I found out that he was from the Thames Valley area of England, and we talked just a bit about British radio stations and how so many of them were now available on the net. I was very proud of Penny because even though officer Langer was a man, and many dogs are frightened of police officers, she had been very good and hadn’t growled at him at all. After he left the house since it was around noon, I decided to finally eat my lunch and maybe I would see Penny there as well. I thought she might really love eating part of one of my ham and cheese sandwiches and this might actually strenghen the bond between us. I even held out a piece of one of the sandwiches that I had broken off, but Penny was nowhere around. Then I grabbed a couple of the small kibbles of food, and to my surprise, there she was, and she took those kibbles oh so gently from my hand and then licked my hand with that huge warm wet tongue.

Just then the phone rang, and it was a woman from the Halton Hills Police just letting me know that officer Langer was going to be delayed in getting back to the house because there was something else he had to do. I called Avril to let her know what had happened so far with the police, and then I called Jay. Jay tolde me that he just sensed that there were some real emotional problems with John, and that’s why he tried not to get too close to or involved with him. Jay was one of the people that wasn’t particularly surprised that John had been doing this to me, but he could certainly understand my feeling of hurt and betrayal. Suddenly my call waiting went off and it was John. He told me that he was sorry that he hadn’t managed to call me from a pay phone that morning like he had said he would, but things had come up. Then he told me that Russ had threatened him and that the next time he tried to do that, he wasn’t going to take it. I told John that I hadn’t put Russ up to it or anything and it had nothing to do with me. Then he said, “Hey, I didn’t steal any of your money and I’m not going to take the blame.” I said “John, you are the only person that had my pen numbers, so if it wasn’t you that stole my money…” He interrupted me and asked, “Has Karen been feeding you well?” I said to him “John, don’t try to change the subject on me, right now we’re talking about the fact that you stole money from me. Suddenly I heard a knock at the door and Elaine got it because she was much closer to the front door than I was. She yelled to me that the policeman was back to see me again. I was afraid that John might look out his window or if he was outside he would see the police cruiser for sure. My heart was in my throat. I just said, “John, I’ve gotta go” and then I hung up.

I came out to the living room to see Simon Langer again. Penny must have sensed that I was nervous because she came right up to me and started to lick my hand, but Elaine called her back into her part of the house and she left immediately and I was really sorry that that had happened. I wished that Elaine wouldn’t call Penny away from me like that. If Penny could sense Elaine’s feelings of hatred toward me, that was certainly going to slow down the process of us becoming friends. Oh well, nothing else was going right in my life, so why should I think that I really had a chance to get close to Penny? It probably just wasn’t meant to be, after all, I was a man and she didn’t trust them.

Officer Langer told me that he had been to both banks and had spoken to two different women about the situation that I was in, Tracy at the Royal bank who I had spoken with the previous day, and Brenda at the CIBC. He said he couldn’t guarantee any results, but at the same time he was hopeful that possibly I would get some of the money back. Meanwhile the phone rang and rang and rang, obviously John was calling me back because of the abrupt way I had hung up on him a few minutes ago. I bet he called my phone number at least ten different times but I was obviously busy with officer Langer.
I asked him if there was any way that he could escort me to the CIBC and he said not really. I was an absolute basket case. Talking to John on the phone just as officer Langer had pulled up to the house had really scared me much more than I had realized. I was shaking, I was terribly thirsty and my heart was pounding in my head.

As I walked out the front door, I actually became disoriented and started wandering around aimlessly. I had turned too soon after crossing Cross Street, and I thought I was at the sidewalk of the street but I hadn’t walked quite far enough yet. I was an absolute nervous wreck. I went to the CIBC, and I asked Brenda for a drink of water. She never did get one for me despite the fact that I was so thirsty. She also didn’t have any new information about the situation, although she did give me back my CNIB ID card which I had left there the day before. She also gave me a new bank card which we immediately entered a new pen number for. I was still shaking from the close call of talking to John on the phone and then officer Langer showing up at the same time.

I stopped off at a local bar for a beer, but being that it was a Tuesday afternoon the place was dead. So I walked home, flopped on the bed and started to cry again. Where was Shadoe? I needed her desperately now, but she had lived her life and now she was gone. I knew that it would be a very long time if ever, before Penny would have any desire to try and help with my emotional needs.

Then it started to rain. Karen had said that I should come over to her place sometime between 6 and 7 PM, but around 6:30 there was a knock at the door, and Karen was standing there with some more Spanish rice and lasagna. Russ said to me, “Gee, that was nice of her to bring that stuff over to you. But please just tell her not to talk so loud when she comes here, or not to come here quite so late. Last night she woke Elaine up when she walked into the house. It was 9 o’clock, and Elaine had gone to bed at 8:30.” “Whoopie shit,” I thought, now you’re trying to tell me what time I can have friends visit the house? I swear you would do anything at all for that bitch. If she begged you to jump off the CN tower you’d probably do it for her.” But as usual, I just let the comment go and ignored it.

I worked on my computer for a while, and then Russ stuck his head in my door and asked me if I wanted to feed Penny. I said sure and jumped at the chance. After all, I figured that this would be a good way to strengthen the bond between us. Russ put some dry dog food into a bowl, and then put wet dog food on top of it. Then I went to the kitchen counter and mixed it all around with my hands to get a good amount of my scent onto the food so that Penny would identify me as one of the people that would feed her as well as Russ. Russ called Penny over, but just as I went to put the food bowl down on the floor, I accidentally stepped on one of her paws because I didn’t know exactly where she was, and Penny ran and hid at top speed I might add. In fact because I had done this, even Russ couldn’t get Penny to eat that night. So there was another brilliant idea of mine that had gone down the drain because I had stepped on Penny’s paw. My God was this poor dog ever skiddish and nervous. I didn’t mean to step on her paw and I felt so bad that I had, because it had only scared her further rather than making her feel calmer around me. It didn’t seem as though I could do anything right with this dog but then, I had never dealt with an abused dog before.

Later that night I called my folks and all I said was the word hi, and mom knew that there was something terribly wrong. She and dad called me back so that I wouldn’t have to pay for a lengthy long distance call. Both mom and dad had also been worried that John might be stealing money from me because I had been telling them how difficult it was getting to budget my money every month, and when I told them that in fact John had been stealing money from my bank accounts for months, possibly even longer, they both felt absolutely sick about it and told me how sorry they were that someone that had the nerve to call me their best friend had done this to me. They even suggested that perhaps I shouldn’t ever use my bank card since I couldn’t tell for sure when someone was watching me putting in my pen numbers from behind, and that perhaps I should do all my banking from inside the bank. By the time it was time for me to go to bed, I was absolutely drained. This had been a very stressful and eventful day, and that point in the afternoon when I was talking to John on the phone only to have officer Langer show up again reminded me of a scene in a movie. Only this was no movie, this was reality and I was sure that John must have seen the police cruiser here.

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Part Seven – Time Alone

On Thursday morning July 7th, I was invited to Karen’s for a quick coffee and I was just about to head over there. Naturally I had my cane in my hand, ready to take off for Karen’s. As I passed Elaine’s area, Penny growled at me again. I couldn’t believe it. After all, I had tried to be very nice to her, but she still wasn’t accepting me very well at all and then it hit me. My cane must have looked to her like a stick and she was probably afraid that I might hit her with it. I had an easy solution to this problem. I wouldn’t extend the cane to its full length until I was outside the house, and I would collapse the cane before I walked inside the door so that Penny would only see the cane in my hand as several small pieces of metal, but not something that would look to her like a stick. Starting that morning of July 7th, I stuck to that plan and it did work. Penny only growled at me a couple more times.

I went over to Karen’s for a quick coffee because she was going out shopping with her daughter Michelle and Michelle’s two two-year-old twin girls. In fact, they arrived just before I left for home and I remember one of the little girls playing with a harmonica. But before going home I went to Creature Comforts and bought a bag of medium sized Mother Hubbard milkbones for Penny. I was sure that she’d really like them and I excitedly went home to give her a couple of these new treats which were much bigger than the tiny marrow bones that I’d been giving her since I’d met her. I thought that this would be yet another way to strengthen the bond between us, but despite the fact that I called and called her many times and even held out one of the milkbones in my hand, Penny wouldn’t come to me at all. I was devastated. I know that this is stupid, but I took it very personally and it really depressed me. Obviously Penny only tolerated me, she didn’t have any feelings for me yet and that depressed me too. I knew that there was no way that I could expect Penny to meet my emotional needs like Shadoe had done, but all I could think about was just how that huge warm tongue would feel if it ever ended up against my tongue in my mouth, or even inside my ears or in my eyes. But I knew that that wasn’t likely to happen for a very long time.

Well, I knew that if I thought about Penny too much it would really depress me so I decided that whatever I did, I had to keep busy. I E-mailed Karen’s sister Vicki to let her know what John had done to me since it was Vicki who had gone down to Milton to pick Lisa up as a favor to John on June 30th which was the same day that Penny bit me, and then the bastard ended up paying Vicki with my money.

Later that afternoon, Russ dropped in after a cab run for a few minutes and he said to me, “Well, the bitch is gone until Sunday” meaning Elaine of course. I couldn’t help but wonder if he felt that way about her, why did he even let her come here and live with us in the first place? However, being positive that Elaine would be gone until Sunday gave me an idea. I really hadn’t seen much of Penny since Sunday July third, oh sure, she’d come up to me occasionally and let me pat her for a few seconds, but if Elaine saw this happening she would always call Penny back just to be a bitch. Now with Elaine gone for the weekend I decided that I’d go into Elaine’s area of the living room and find Penny. It didn’t take long for me to find her. She was curled up in the easy chair that I had first seen her lying on on Monday June 20th when she had growled at me when I approached her. Now however she didn’t growl. Mind you, her tail didn’t wag with excitement either, but at least she wasn’t growling at me. The first thing I did was give her one of the new milkbones that I’d just bought at Creature Comforts earlier that morning. As she opened her mouth, I just couldn’t get over the size of it. Like everything else about Penny it was massive and even though this was a fair sized milkbone, it seemed to get lost in her mouth. As she very gently took the milkbone out of my hand, my heart sank. She wasn’t eating it. Why? Did she not like them? “Well,” I thought, “At least I bought a bag of assorted milkbones so if there’s one flavor that she doesn’t like, she’ll hopefully like the others.” Suddenly after about 30 seconds, I heard “crunch crunch crunch” as she finally began to chew up the milkbone into small pieces. I was also aware that Penny was drooling heavily and I thought, “Oh good, she’s a drooler, that’ll really be interesting if I ever get to French her.” I must have been sick. Most people were grossed out by a dog’s drooling, but I loved it and it really turned me on in a perverted way. I wondered why it had taken so long for her to start chewing up the milkbone. Russ had said that she wasn’t a very smart dog. Did she not realize that this was a treat for her? No, I doubted that. I was pretty sure that she knew it was meant for her. But then I thought that perhaps she wanted to soften it up first with her saliva which certainly made sense and wasn’t a bad idea actually. After she finished the first milkbone, I immediately gave her another one. I think I gave her four of them in a row so she would start associating me with good experiences and treats. I figured if I really spoiled her, I might break through that wall of resistance and she’d start to like me. I didn’t know if she’d ever actually love me, but I could certainly hope for that but it would probably take a long time.

As I started patting her, I was simply amazed at how big everything about this dog was. She had huge paws, she had a huge head, a huge body, a great big mouth and a large tongue. When she was sitting on that chair and I was sitting on the floor in front of her, Penny was taller than me when she sat up. She just towered above me.

It was at about this time that I began to notice that Penny had a rather strong doggy smell to her. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was noticeable. I guessed that part of the reason for the smell was caused by the oil in her heavy coat. I noticed it particularly around her hind legs and vaginal area, and I also noticed that there was a lot of heat trapped in that area of her body. I put my hand down around her hind legs and she opened them up wide for me and let me pat her in that area. I kind of got the feeling that I may have actually hit on something that Penny liked and wanted me to do. I still wasn’t sure of just exactly what she thought of me and I was dying to know if she liked me even just a little, and I wished with all my heart that there was some way for me to know Penny’s thoughts about me. But I guessed I’d just have to go by her actions.

Sitting in that chair in Elaine’s area, I really didn’t know whether she was happy that I’d come to see her and was giving her attention or not. I knew that at least she didn’t seem to dislike me like she had at first, but she wasn’t warming up much to me either, and yet it was unfair of me to say that. From time to time she had given me a couple of kisses when Russ was around, so she did have some feelings for me. But as I sat there patting her head which was so tall since Penny was sitting up and holding her head high as if she was very proud, it was just hard for me to know whether she liked and appreciated this attention or not. I just wondered, was this making her happy or did she just want me to leave her alone like Russ was always saying she wanted. He kept telling me that Penny was a very different dog than either Shadoe or Sheila and she didn’t like to be kissed or hugged or fondled or fussed over very much. While it’s true that Penny was very different than Shadoe, Sheila or Blazer, I wasn’t so sure that she didn’t like to be fussed over. Maybe now she didn’t like being fussed over too much because she was still getting used to her new humans and her new surroundings. But I just had the feeling that sometime in the future, I might see a much more affectionate dog as she began to relax than I was seeing in her now. Russ kept teling me that she just wanted to be left alone. I had tried to do that since Sunday, but now since Elaine was gone, I saw a golden opportunity to try and strengthen the bond between us and that’s what I intended to do during this weekend. After all, I was hoping that if I played my cards right, Penny would end up really liking me and caring about me as her favorite human being of the house, and then perhaps I’d finally have one being that cared about me, Penny.

Suddenly I got an idea. I knew that Penny really liked to lick my hand when it was all covered in butterscotch from a Werthers candy. She would lick and lick at my hand until all the butterscotch was gone. So perhaps if I rubbed the residue from a Werthers candy onto my lips, then Penny would lick my lips to get the butterscotch off with her great big huge warm passionate loving tongue and in that way, I’d actually get her to French me. I opened a Werthers and put it in my mouth. When it was nice and wet, I took the Werthers out of my mouth and rubbed it all over my face. I bent down towards Penny and she started to move her face away from me. Obviously I was going too fast and Penny didn’t feel comfortable about doing that yet, so it wasn’t going to work. It had sounded like such a good idea, but I kept forgetting, Penny had been abused by someone who was male, and it was going to take a long time for her to gain my trust and the trust of others. No one really knew just what she had been through, but it had obviously left its scars on her. Unlike most other dogs that loved me from the first moment that they met me, Penny was taking things very slowly. She was advancing at her own pace and not anyone elses. It didn’t matter how badly I wanted to feel that tongue of hers against my own tongue, that simply wasn’t going to happen until Penny was ready for it to happen.

Now I came up with another idea. I’d rub some of the Werthers butterscotch candy onto one of her paws and see if she’d lick it off with her tongue, and as she started to lick herself, I’d start licking her too and our tongues would meet. But when I put the butterscotch candy on her paw, she didn’t lick it off. I realized that this could make Penny’s coat a real mess since the furr on it was so long. If she wasn’t going to bother to lick the butterscotch out of her coat, that would leave it a sticky mess and Russ would wonder what the hell had gotten all over her coat. I tried once again with a butterscotch candy, burying my face into her back leg area, an area of her coat that was often hidden by her back legs. But again she wouldn’t lick it off so this idea too wasn’t going to work. I’d just have to wait for Penny to lick me on her own, and right now I only knew of one way to accomplish that.

Now I took the Werthers out of my mouth and rubbed it all over my right hand. Instantly Penny’s huge warm tongue shot out and licked my hand furiously and I nearly came. Her tongue was such a turn on that I just couldn’t help myself. It felt wonderful and even just licking my hand, that huge tongue of hers could sure turn me on.

Then she grabbed my hand and put it in her mouth in the same gentle way that she had done several times before. She didn’t even let her teeth touch my hand at all. I could certainly feel her teeth inside of her mouth, but she didn’t bite down at all. Depending on how I positioned my hand in her mouth I could either feel that warm heavenly tongue of hers or I could feel the ridges on the roof of her mouth, and I found both of them to be a real turn on. I didn’t exactly know what this meant, but I wished I could figure out for sure just what Penny was trying to communicate to me by doing this. It was one of the very first things that she had ever done back on Wednesday June 29th, and I had read this to be a sign of friendship and acceptance, a sign that Penny liked me now and was no longer afraid of me. But given what Penny did to me the next day, that wasn’t obviously what this behavior meant. What did it actually mean? Was it just something that Penny liked to do because of the retriever in her? I really didn’t know, but all I knew was that again, this was a serious turn on. To feel that huge warm wonderful tongue rubbing up against my hand just turned me on so quickly it was unbelievable. When she licked the butterscotch candy on my hand, that was a tremendous turn on as well.

Penny would sometimes shift in the chair, sometimes she lay with her head right next to the fan so that she could get the benefit of the air from it. Today was actually pretty comfortable, but it was going to get much hotter in the weeks to come. Even today which wasn’t very hot and humid, Penny was panting a bit because of that heavy furr coat that she was carrying around. I felt that she should have been trimmed nice and short for the summer and if she had been my dog, that’s what I would have done for her. Sometimes however she would sit up straight and end up towering over me. All the time I was talking to her, asking her questions like “Penny, what exactly do you think of me? What if any feelings do you have for me girl? I don’t think that even now you particularly like me, I think you are just tolerating me but I don’t think you enjoy my company and that really makes me very sad because I love you so much Penny, yes I do love you.”

I would pat her huge tail gently, stroke her chin, rub behind her ears and pat her head, rub her belly with its huge amount of thick furr on it. None of these things seemed to make Penny show any emotion at all. Usually if you did something that a dog really liked, it would act all happy and wag its tail or lean into your hand when you rubbed behind its ears. But with Penny, it was really hard to tell if anything I was doing was pleasing her at all. Maybe Russ was right, perhaps Penny just prefered being alone and not having anyone bother her at all. Perhaps the reason she acted like this was because of the abuse she’d been through, and none of us but Penny knew or understood how bad it had actually been for her. This was really frustrating because I really wanted to talk to an animal communicator and see if she could tell me the best way to reach Penny and help us to bond with each other. But, whether I liked it or not, I didn’t have the money to spend on something like that, and I was still a bit skeptical as to whether these people can really communicate with animals like they say they can. There are many psychics that are nothing but frauds, and I had just been dealing with a fraud for two years that I’d honestly thought was my best friend so I didn’t need to open myself up to any more frauds at this point in time.

I sort of gave Penny a gentle hug but I didn’t prolong it or hug her too tight because Russ had stated so emphatically that Penny didn’t like to be hugged or feel trapped or cornered. Later, I learned from Jamie that they used to leave Penny in a crate a lot of the time. If she was anywhere near as big then as she was now, that crate was probably very small for her, and if she was kept in it a lot, it’s no wonder that she didn’t like to feel trapped or cornered. I spent about 45 minutes with her just talking to her, giving her several of the small milkbones plus the residue from butterscotch candies so that she would lick my hand, and lick it she did, in fact she absolutely soaked it because of the huge size of her tongue and the fact that she drooled quite a bit. It felt absolutely marvelous to feel the soft warm smoothness of her tongue on my hand and in fact it excited me and turned me on a lot, and I’m quite sure that Penny could pick up on that. Sometimes I’d let her take a butterscotch candy right out of my hand. Again when she did this, it was always extremely gentle and I think she enjoyed chewing up those butterscotch candies.

I just stayed either sitting or kneeling on the floor in front of Penny as she sometimes lay, sometimes sat up in the chair in Elaine’s section of the living room. Had Penny enjoyed receiving all this attention from me? It was really hard to tell. So far, I really hadn’t gotten any clues but it certainly couldn’t have hurt our relationship. I knew I was going to have to be very patient and it would take a long time to win Penny over because of her abuse. I also knew that I’d be back to see her numerous times throughout this four day period without Elaine around.

That evening, Russ asked me if I wanted to go out back and smoke a joint. I certainly wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like that. I thought, “Well, Russ is actually willing to do something with me however briefly and that’s certainly nice of him because time has been going pretty slowly so far this week.” Roger joined us outside which I certainly hadn’t been expecting, but that was OK. Maybe I’d actually get to know him a bit better which certainly wouldn’t hurt since I was going to be around the house so often nowadays. Russ lit up the joint and passed it around. I asked Roger if he got high, because I wasn’t sure if he toked or not. He told me that occasionally he would smoke a joint, but it wasn’t something that he was in the habit of doing on a daily or even weekly basis. Russ couldn’t seem to understand though, why I would have ever gotten mixed up with John in the first place. He had thought that John was a real asshole almost from the first time he’d ever met him. But what Russ didn’t understand was that John had offered me friendship and he had cooked and done my laundry for over two years, and when John wasn’t drinking which admittedly wasn’t that often, he could really be a nice guy when he wanted to be. He had offered me friendship which was something that I really needed. Unlike Russ who made no bones about telling me that he didn’t need people in his life, I did need people. If Russ had been a different type of person, he and I could have been as close as John and I had been since we shared common interests in collecting music, in airchecks, recordings of radio stations from the past, and in DX-ing, listening to distant radio stations that were hundreds of miles away. But Russ was so moody and had pushed me away so often plus of course he had hit me in the past, that there were permenant barriers up now that made it impossible for me to feel completely and totally relaxed around him. Perhaps because I was high, I decided to have a heart to heart talk with Russ, and discuss just how I was feeling right now without John in my life. I asked him if there was any way that he might possibly be able to talk with me a bit more than he was doing now. Russ immediately got on the defensive and said, “Look Sam, I work 72 hours a week, and I am talking to people in my cab all day, and when I come home at night I am tired and all I want to do is do my own thing. I just want to relax in my room and work on the things I have to get ready for the next week on Mr. Aircheck and that’s the way it is, and if you don’t like it, that’s too bad.” Then Roger chimed in, “You have to understand Sam, that we’re up at around 4:30 in the morning, so by the time that we get home in the evening, we’re tired and we don’t want to have to talk to anybody, we just want to do our own thing.” Then Russ said, “That’s right, we do our own thing around here and that’s just the way it is buddy.”

“Oh great” I thought, “They’re ganging up on me and it’s two against one here. Well, I guess that makes sense, after all, all this time that I’ve been over at John’s place partying, Russ and Roger have become buddy buddy and they know each other very well and think like each other so I’m the odd man out. You’d think I’d made a real unreasonable request here, but I sure know where I stand that’s for sure.” My spirits plumitted and I could feel myself going down, down, down into the depths of depression and my buzz was ruined. In fact, I almost felt like I was completely straight again. Penny whisked past me and she put her nose on my hand for just a moment, but she didn’t stay near me for any length of time. Suddenly I became very quiet. After all, what else was there to say? It was them against me and I knew it and would just have to accept that whether I liked it or not.

Then, the subject of Penny came up again, and again both Russ and Roger insisted on setting me straight about her. Again Russ said that Penny was a very independant dog, and unlike Shadoe, Sheila or Blazer she didn’t like to be kissed or cuddled or fondled or fussed over very much at all. “Yes Russ” I thought, “I’ve heard all this before.”

Then Roger began to speak. I really began to notice the slow, deliberate thick tongued speech that he had, as if he had possibly suffered a mild stroke in the past. He said, “When Penny decides to do something, you just don’t stop her. Penny has a mind of her own. Last night Elaine was watching TV and lying on the couch, and Penny decided to walk over to the bed and make herself comfortable there. It didn’t matter to her that Elaine was in the way, she just pinned Elaine on her back on the couch and walked over her and lay down on the bed. The other day I was on the couch, and Penny just came over and almost stood on my dick and my balls and I thought, OK Penny I’ll move. I’m not going to let you castrate me with your big paws and huge body, you can have the couch girl.” I suddenly realized that because of Penny’s size, she was a very powerful dog and because she had never had any training of any kind, she was used to doing just exactly what she wanted and in getting her own way. Somehow this situation would have to be changed or there could be some serious problems down the road.

but at the same time, another fantasy began to crystalize in my mind. I started thinking about lying on my back on my bed, and Penny pinning me down with her paws and her massive body and showering me with frantic kisses with that huge soft warm wonderful tongue. I could even imagine myself playing a game with her and yelling “Penny help, help, you’ve pinned me down and I can’t get up. In fact I can’t even move.” Maybe this was really sick, but the thought of this happening was really a turn on, obviously the pot was still having an effect on my brain because I was still high, and just thinking about being pinned down on my own bed as Penny franticly kissed my face was extremely appealing to me. In fact, the dog that we had briefly owned during the Victoria day weekend that Russ had named Gracie had done just that on Friday night May 20th when we were together and she was Frenching me like crazy, pinning me to my own bed as she lay on top of me. It had been terribly exciting for both of us and we had both been breathing heavily. But Penny was so big that I was sure that she could definitely pin me to my bed, and I probably wouldn’t be able to get out from under her, so when I yelled “help, help” during this game because she was pinning me down, I would end up being quite serious about it. The idea of doing this was terribly exciting and erotic to me, but I knew that this would probably never happen because I just couldn’t picture Penny being that co-operative with me nor feeling that close to me or comfortable with me. This fantasy stayed in the front of my mind all that night though, probably fed by the horney state I was in from being high.

Russ and Roger began talking, Roger about the things he had to do at Applied Wiring which was the factory that he worked at. I remember him saying, “Well, one more week of work and then I’ll be on vacation.” One thing was sure obvious, Roger got along very well with Elaine. He was talking about something that he had said to her earlier that had made Elaine laugh. I thought to myself, “That’s really something that you can get that bitch to laugh. I can’t even get her to crack a smile.” This further alienated me and made me feel more strongly and positively than ever that it was them against me. They were the good guys, but because I had hung around John, I was the bad guy.

Russ had things to do, so we all went inside. But about an hour later, Russ ordered pizza for all of us and that was a real treat. I had been supposed to have supper with Vicki that night because she had come back to Karen’s apartment that evening. Vicki had left a message on our answering machine inviting me over for supper, but I couldn’t miss Russ buying pizza because that just didn’t happen everyday, hell, it almost never happened. It had at one time but that was when Russ was still willing to feed me. But nowadays Russ normally never did that kind of thing. So I left a message on Vicki’s answering machine and told her that Russ was buying pizza for us. He asked me what I wanted on my pizza, and I chose sausage bacon and mushroom. I was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately though, he ordered my pizza with a thin crust, and that’s not the way I like my pizzas to be. I enjoy a thick crust and I always thought that that was the way that Russ liked them as well. That was always the way he used to have them in the past, but I guess with Ronnie riding him about his weight at times, he had become a lot more self conscious about what he ate, so it was thin crust pizzas now obviously. Well, this certainly could have been a better night, thats for sure. I was still feeling rather hurt and depressed about the way that I had been raked over the coals for simply asking if there was any way that the guys could talk to me a bit more, and now my pizza wasn’t even that great. In fact, the toppings were so heavy on the pizza that the crust was actually collapsing and mushrooms were going everywhere. I ended up with a fair amount of the toppings on the table and that wasn’t like me. But this pizza was really very messy to eat and I didn’t like that, and again it made me feel very self conscious. I didn’t want Roger who hadn’t seen me eat before, to think that all blind people are messy eaters, although my ex-wife Mary certainly is pretty messy. Often she gets more food on her face, hands and clothes than in her mouth. Anyway, I finished my pizza and went to bed feeling pretty alone, sad and blue.

The next morning was Friday July 8th. I couldn’t believe that it was only a week since we had celebrated Canada day. Because I was so bored and the time was dragging so slowly without having anything to do, it seemed like Canada day had been perhaps a month ago and not just a week ago. HOwever, today I woke up for the first time since I’d learned about what John had done to me feeling that at least I had a reason for getting up this morning, a purpose, and that was to try to love Penny. I felt so sorry for her, having had to move into a newhouse with complete strangers that she didn’t know or trust. But as usual, she was really starting to suck up to Elaine. Because Elaine worked on various farms with horses and other animals, she always had animal smells on her and as bitchy and nasty as she was with people, Elaine was very kind and understanding of animals and drew them to her like a magnet. I could just see Elaine saying, “Oh, I know that I said that I’d leave here just as soon as Shadoe was gone, but I can’t leave here now. Look at Penny’s eyes, look at how she looks at me. I’m the only person here that she loves.” And why shouldn’t she say that, she was staying here rent free and had been doing so since June of 2004. But although the thought of being with Penny made me feel happy, there was something else on my mind that was definitely bothering me and was ruining my slightly happier mood, and that was the way that Russ and Roger had reacted to my request for them to talk to me a bit more. I went to Heather’s Bakery and had two coffees and a cinnamin bun, and then I came home and started patting and talking to Penny who I found again in the love seat in Elaine’s little area of the living room. Again I gave her several milkbones as treats and I noticed again that she would hold each milkbone in her mouth for a minute or two before starting to chew it up. I didn’t know if she was doing this to soften the milkbone with her saliva or what. I wondered if she really liked these treats or if she was just eating them because she thought I wanted her to. At this point in our relationship she would sometimes grab my hand and put it in her mouth, but apart from that she didn’t do much to let me know what she thought of me one way or the other. I was left guessing. She wasn’t putting any of her paws on my arm or putting her head on my shoulder or snuggling up to me in any way. She just lay there on the love seat and let me do whatever I wanted to do to her but she didn’t really seem to enjoy it. Once again I put a Werthers butterscotch candy in my hand and let her lick it with that huge warm fabulous loving tongue and instantly it turned me on. The feeling of her tongue on my hand felt absolutely wonderful and send shivers down my spine and shots of electricity all through my body. Sometimes when I gave her a Werthers, her large warm tongue would come out of her mouth and she would just lick my hand. But at other times she would open her mouth and put the hand that I had in front of her covered in sticky Werthers candy into her open mouth and would lick my hand with her tongue as she held it inside her mouth. This was even more of a turn on for me. This was when I began to notice that the smell of Penny’s mouth was lingering on my hand. Penny’s mouth had a slightly stronger smell than that of other dogs, and even when I washed my hands the smell of the saliva from her tongue and mouth would stay on my hands for some time so I could smell it even after leaving her. I thought that this was really nice. It was something of Penny that I could still smell after I left her, something that she had left behind that I could enjoy. I know that this sounds absolutely sick, but I found this to be a tremendous turn on as well. I sat there with Penny just letting her lick the butterscotch residue off my hand with that huge warm loving tongue just wishing that she’d kiss my face with that tongue, or better yet, let our tongues touch. But I knew that that was a very long way off, or was it? I must have spent a good twenty minutes to a half hour with Penny.

I E-mailed Karen and let her know how down I was and how alone I felt after talking to Russ and Roger the previous night about them possibly talking to me a bit more now that John was completely out of my life, and Karen sent me a reply that she was going to be busy for most of the weekend so unfortunately she wouldn’t be able to have me over for any meals until sometime next week. As it turned out, I would never see her again. Like so many other people in Georgetown had done during the eight years I had lived there, Karen just disappeared and I never heard from her again. I thought she had been a real friend but obviously I was wrong. So now I had no one to see, nowhere to go unless I went to one of the bars, and because of the tight financial spot that John had left me in, I wasn’t going to be able to do that for a while that’s for sure. I knew damn well that Elaine must just be thoroughly pissed off that I was home all the time now because she hated me so much, but at least for this weekend she was gone, which meant that I could feel relaxed in my own house and feel that I could be in some other room in the house beside my tiny bedroom.

Later on that afternoon I approached Penny again in Elaine’s area of the living room, and once again she was lying in the chair with her head next to the fan so she could get the benefit of the breeze. I was happy to see that again as I approached her, Penny didn’t growl at me. I figured that this was a good sign. Again I gave her several milkbones, and I noticed that each time I gave her one she would hold it in her mouth for about 30 seconds before starting to chew it. She seemed to want to soften up the milkbones first by soaking them with her saliva rather than just eating them dry. I didn’t know if she found that this soaking of the milkbones brought out the flavor in them or what, but this definitely seemed to be a consistent behavior with Penny. She would always pause before eating her milkbones. As she grabbed a milkbone from my hand, I noticed that she’d be drooling quite a bit, and that saliva from her tongue would drip on my hand as she gently took the milkbones from me. I also noticed that her furr around her front paws was getting wet from drooling so much. I knew that this was kinky as hell, but I wished that she would drool all over my face. I still couldn’t get over the massive size of Penny’s mouth and head, and how those milbones got lost in her mouth once I gave them to her. As she waited for the milkbones to soften, and then eventually began chewing them up, I kept hoping that she would start licking herself so that I could lick the same place on her body where she was licking herself and meet her tongue, but she never seemed to do that. She would chew the milkbones into little pieces which would fall deep inside the chair. Because I was patting her head, I would follow it around as she sniffed those tiny pieces of milkbone out of the chair, and I’d hear her making long sniffing sounds which was also a real turn on for me for some strange reason. I loved it when a dog was really sniffing hard, or breathing through its nose when we were Frenching. I desperately wanted to be able to French Penny. I knew that if she was ever willing to do this with me, because of her massive size, because of the massive size of her paws, mouth, lips and tongue, I just knew that she would be an incredible turn on for me, perhaps even more of a turn on than Tina had been. It just depended on how good a Frencher she was and what her technique would be like. Some dogs like Shadoe, despite the small size of her tongue could be a tremendous turn on, and yet Sheila who had a much larger tongue and could have theoretically turned me on much more than Shadoe did, just didn’t manage to do it somehow. Even the few quick kisses that Penny had already given me had been a tremendous turn on and had shot powerful waves of electricity through my entire body. The way she had brushed her large warm wet tongue over my lips was just electrifying, and I knew that the constant contact of her tongue against mine would probably make me come in les than thirty seconds. I also thought about the soft smooth skin of her lips and on the side of her huge mouth. The prospect was dizzying for me, but because of her abuse and mistrust of men, I knew that this was something that I was going to have to wait a very long time for, and in fact I realized that it might never happen at all.

After I had given Penny about four milkbones in a row, I grabbed a butterscotch candy and put it in my mouth so that it would get nice and wet, and then I rubbed it all over my hand. Instantly Penny’s tongue was out of her mouth and viggerously licking the palm of my hand. Even this felt absolutely wonderful, so heavenly. As I leaned over the chair so that my dick was actually touching the front of the chair, between Penny’s tongue feverishly licking at my hand and the fact that my dick was touching the chair, I shot a load which I wondered if Penny could smell or sense somehow. I would very quickly grab her tongue in my hand, but I didn’t want to frighten her in any way so I never enclosed her tongue in my hand for any length of time at all. It was really frustrating though, Penny was very willing to lick my hand which was covered in butterscotch candy residue, but no matter how I positioned myself she would not lick my lips, face or eyes at all and certainly not my tongue like I desperately wanted her to. But then I got another idea that I thought might work. I grabbed another butterscotch candy from my pocket and covered my hand in it so that it was nice and sticky. Penny’s large warm wet tongue instantly came out to lick my hand. I figured that while she was busy licking my hand, all I’d have to do was very slowly bend down towards where her tongue was located and extend my tongue out towards my hand and then our tongues would meet, but as soon as she saw that I was extending my tongue toward hers, she immediately raised her head from my hand and sat up straight, and she wouldn’t lick my hand any more. God was she ever tall when she was sitting up straight in that chair. She actually towered over me. It seemed that the only way that she’d lick my hand was if I would just allow her to lick my hand, but not try to do anything else like position my tongue anywhere near hers. So, this was another disappointment. Obviously it was not going to be very easy at all for me to get Penny to French me, and whether I liked it or not, I was just going to have to be patient. But there was just no way that I could be patient. I felt that nobody in that house loved me at all, and the only being that even had a remote chance of loving me if I spent enough time with her and gave her love and treated her the way that I thought she deserved to be treated was Penny. Once I realized that I couldn’t get her to lick my face, I gently held one of her paws and I patted her on the head, behind the ears, under the chin and I rubbed her belly softly talking to her all the while. I was saying things like, “Penny, you really are a good girl. I’m so glad to see that you’re not growling at me any more, and that it seems like you’ve decided that we can be friends now. You are really a lovely girl Penny, but my God, what a big girl you are.” As I touched various parts of her body, I would comment on them and say things like, “Gee Penny, what huge paws you have, or what a big head you have, or what a big mouth you have, or what a big tongue you have, or what a big frame you have.” It was true, Penny was massive. If this was how big Penny was, I couldn’t imagine how big a Saint Bernard or a Great Dane or an Irish Wolf Hound would be. I wondered if she liked any of this attention but it was really hard for me to tell. She certainly wasn’t giving me much feedback to go on unfortunately. Finally after a good 40 minutes of being with her, I thought I should give her a rest. After all, all that licking had probably made her thirsty and she must have desperately needed a drink. It was rather warm outside, but it was going to get much hotter over the next week.

I washed my hands and went back to my bedroom and the computer, and I could still smell her saliva on my hand and I thought that was sort of romantic. While it was true that she hadn’t kissed me yet without Russ being around, it was nice to have some of her scent on my body. I must be sick.

My room mate Roger was from North Bay and for some reason that city absolutely fascinated me. I had discovered a very detailed website about the city of North Bay and I wanted to see if I could get someone in the city to record some of the local radio stations there for me. I was right in the middle of composing an E-mail to the webmaster of the site, when I heard a tremendous crack of thunder outside that was so loud that it scared me and made me jump. A surprise, fast moving thunderstorm was heading through Georgetown so I immediately shut down my computer.

A half hour later, the air outside was much cooler and dryer, and you could feel the contrast of this air as compared to the air of just a half hour ago. The cool breeze coming in through the back door felt so cool and refreshing and I wondered if Penny would get up from Elaine’s area and take advantage of the drop in temperature and humidity but she didn’t.

That evening I was back again to visit Penny and again I gave her some milkbones to enjoy. As always she took them extremely gently from my hand, and they got absolutely lost in her huge mouth. Now that Roger was in his own bedroom with the door closed and Russ was out working since it was a Friday night, I gave Penny two milkbones by handing them to her. But then I took a milkbone and leaned over and let it hang out of my mouth. With no hesitation now, she very gently took the milkbone out of my mouth, and for a split second, her tongue was right next to my tongue as she gently grabbed the milkbone from my mouth. Nevertheless, I thought that if I sounded overly happy just as soon as her tongue entered my mouth, perhaps she’d get the idea just how much I loved it when she did this. I excitedly said to Penny, “Oh yes Penny, that’s a good girl. I love that honey, oh yes I do. I wish you’d do that more often and do it slower for me baby. I suppose someday you will, but oh God Penny how I love that when you do that.” I knew that all she was understanding was my excited and happy tone of voice, and she probably had no idea of exactly what I was saying to her, but I hoped that someday as I repeated and repeated these phrases over and over, that eventually she’d figure out what I was saying. Again I let her lick several butterscotch candies that I had covered my hand with, and in fact I think I even gave her an entire candy which she took very gently out of my hand. I stayed with Penny off and on between 7 PM and around 1 AM. At no time when I approached her did she growl at me even once and I thought that was certainly a good sign. All through the evening she continued to put my hand into her mouth and and she allowed me to really see her tongue in great detail which I felt was a consession on her part. But just what did this mean? What did it mean when she would grab my hand and put it into that large cavernous mouth of hers? She kept her mouth wide open and never bit down on my hand even just a little. She didn’t try to trap my hand in her mouth, her mouth was always open while my hand was inside it. I just wished I could understand what her message was here, and what it meant when she grabbed my hand and put it into her mouth. Was this just her retriever instinct and a need for her to have something inside her mouth? I didn’t know. Very slowly, Penny was beginning to like me and trust me and to realize that I would never hurt her and that I loved dogs much more than either Russ or Elaine did despite the fact that they felt otherwise. I went to bed around 2:30 in the morning on Saturday July 9th.

I woke up briefly a couple of times during the night, but I didn’t get up until around 11 o’clock. An E-mail that I wrote to Jay that day pickes up the story.

I took a shower, got dressed and shaved and then headed down to the Georgetown farmer’s market. I ran into Tanya, that lovely lady with a huge smile and an infectious laugh that I think I’ve told you about before. She cuts hair. Anyway, she directed me to where the barbecue was and I had a sausage on a bun. Then I grabbed a coffee from Heather’s Bakery but because the weather was so nice, I decided to sit outside and drink it. I was just about to put my coffee on one of the tables sitting on the street because of the farmer’s market, when some idiot came along and started to grab the table with my coffee still on it. I said to him, “What the hell are you doing? Can’t you see that I’m just about to sit down and have coffee here?” The man must have been rather embarrassed because he quickly disappeared into the crowd. Presently a former cab driver with E-Z Taxi named Bill that used to work with Russ came over and we talked for awhile, and then his liv in room mate Brenda joined us. She had bought some cherries at the farmer’s market and she offered some to me, but I don’t know about you, I don’t like spitting cherry stones out and leaving them on the ground so I only had one. I actually like marichino cherries better than cherries with stones in them. At one point, Brenda said, “Ah yes, you can never get enough cherries” and suddenly my mouth began to curl upward and she caught on immediately and started laughing a bit, and it was sort of an evil laugh. I apologized that my mind was in the gutter, and she said there was nothing to apologize for. Now that’s the kind of woman I like. Anyway, we talked for a good half hour which was really good because it helped me to pass the time.

But all too soon, the market closed down and I had to head back to the house.

I grabbed a couple of milkbones for Penny, and for the third day in a row as I approached her, there was absolutely no growling. I don’t think she’ll growl at me any more, I think she finally trusts me especially since she never sees my collapsable cane fully extended in the house any more. I realized that last night I was really trying to get her to lick my hand with that huge warm tongue of hers, so today I decided I should back off and just lay with her and let her do whatever she wanted. I’d scratch behind her ears and pat her side and rub her under her belly, all the while talking to her about what a good dog she was, how pleased I am that she’s no longer growling at me, and about how sad and lonely I feel since John has departed from my life, not that I expected her to understand anything of what I was saying. Both Russ and Roger keep telling me that Penny is not a very affectionate dog, and she doesn’t like to be kissed or hugged or cuddled, and of course she may not want that in this hot weather. But that’s not the feeling that I’m getting from her. A couple of times she snuggled right up to me, and she laid her head on my hand, occasionally licking me with that tongue for which I always praised her. I must have spent at least a half hour just laying there with her and talking to her, and I gave her three milkbones in all. I don’t feel I’m getting much love from her yet, but I know that it’s still much too early, and the fact that I’ve come this far so quickly is really something of a miracle. I know that I can’t expect much from her in the way of support just yet because she’s dealing with her own feelings, but I think we are definitely beginning to establish a bond. Because Russ and Roger both know that she has been abused by men, and they feel that she doesn’t like much human contact, they will only interact with her when she comes to them, and I get the feeling that that’s what they feel I should do. But I am asking nothing of her, I am just sitting in front of her when she’s on the love seat or lying on the fllor with her when she’s in front of Elaine’s bed, and I think the fact that I am reaching out and trying to show her that I love her is going to put me ahead in the game, especially if Elaine does leave and all those familiar things in that area that she considers hers drastically changes which it will. I’m almost positive that she’ll gravitate to me, because apart from Elaine, there’s no doubt that I’m the one that’s paying the most attention to her.

Then I sat outside for awhile, but the sun was just too hot for me in the early afternoon.

Then I started thinking about a Frank Sinatra album that mom used to have called Where Are You from 1957 featuring a dozen melancholy love songs with a lush string arrangement by Gordon Jenkins. I hadn’t tried to download any of the songs on that album for my parent’s anniversary CD, so today I went to easy news and I managed to find all twelve of the songs that were on the original vinyl album. The album has been re-released on CD with four bonus tracks, but I really don’t care about them since they weren’t on the original album.

As I started downloading and then playing some of these songs, many of which I probably haven’t heard in almost 30 years, suddenly another [SPAM] of tears started to flow yet again, and my nose began to run as well. First of all, although John was obviously never a lover, the lines “Where are you? Where have you gone without me. I thought you cared about me. Where are you?” just totally unhinged me. Then there were the other songs that I downloaded from this album including The Night We Called It A Day, I Cover The Waterfront, Maybe You’ll Be There, Laura, Lonely Town, Autumn Leaves, I’m A Fool To Want You, I Think Of You, There’s No You, Where Is The One and Baby Won’t You Please Come Home, and with every song that I played, another flood of tears asaulted my face. I thought about going out to the living room and seeing if I could get some comfort from Penny, but then I thought better of it and decided she shouldn’t see me in that emotional state quite yet.

I must admit that I was totally unprepared for those Frank Sinatra songs to do that to me, but let’s face it, music is a very powerful catelist, and if you’re feeling blue anyway, sometimes it can completely unhinge you whether you want it to or not. I guess the subject matter of these songs was part of what did it to me, but also, I had heard these songs way back when I was so young that we’re talking about a time when I knew that mom loved me and I loved her too, because she was just a weekend drinker at that point and it hadn’t become a problem for her yet. But oh my God did I cry and cry and cry. I’m damn tired of crying and I wonder if it will ever stop!

I was so surprised that those Frank Sinatra songs had unhinged me so much, but then again, that’s what music can do under the right circumstances, and these songs were all very melancholy and that’s just exactly how I was feeling at this point in my life. Now I was home just about all the time, and there was no more escaping to John’s place where I would feel better and be able to relax and almost forget that Elaine was living with us and hated me. In fact, there was no longer any friendship with John, and that was the saddest thing of all. The money could eventually be replaced but the friendship could not, and now I was feeling a very big void in my life. When I had last heard these Frank Sinatra songs I had been a whole lot younger, and when I had first heard them, I had only been three or four years old, and I still felt back then that Mommy actually loved me. So it should have been no surprise that hearing these songs now at this particular time in my life and with the way that I was feeling now would make me sob uncontrolably. I wanted to head out to the living room with my eyes full of tears just to see if Penny would lick them away. I thought that because my eyes would be very salty she actually might do this and this would possibly strengthen the bond between us but I didn’t want either Russ or Roger to see me in this state so I decided against it. It probably would have been too much for Penny to handle as well.

~~~~

Part Eight – First Kiss Alone

Around 6:30 I finally emerged from my room after listening to the song Where Are You by Frank Sinatra altogether too many times, and there in her chair as usual was Penny. This time I decided that I’d just concentrate on giving her milkbones and I wouldn’t try to get her to lick my hand at all. After all, I realized that I was getting impatient, and I had probably over done it yesterday with the butterscotch candies and she probably didn’t want to be licking my hand so much with that glorious tongue of hers. So tonight I’d cool it. I’d simply give Penny a few milkbones and talk to her and pat her. I would however, let her take a couple of milkbones out of my mouth like I usually did. She did it again, taking those milkbones out of my mouth oh so gently. It was quite a bit warmer today than it had been the day before, so Penny was panting more than she had been yesterday. Once again she took some milkbones from me and drooled, and once again she was just sitting towering over me in her favorite chair. I started stroking her behind the ears and asking her, “Penny, do you feel any more comfortable with me yet? Do you like me being around you or like Russ and Roger are always telling me, would you actually prefer to be alone? Are you starting to feel relaxed in this house Penny? You know girl, you don’t have to stay in this area of the house if you don’t want to. The entire house is yours, and you’re welcome to go anywhere you want to in the house, especially my bedroom. But I know that you’re not going to understand what I’m saying to you for a long time. I wish you could be like Blazer who seemed to understand many of the words, even sentences I spoke to him. Blazer was a truly wonderful dog,, I wish you could have met him. I bet the two of you would have gotten along real well together. Anyway Penny, are you happy now? Do you like me now? Do you consider me a friend yet? Would you like to ever become intimate with me?” I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that I would have gotten the answer to that question anywhere near as soon as I did.

I put my hand down around her back legs and she opened them up wide for me, releasing all kinds of heat. “There, does that feel better being able to release all that heat Penny? Are you feeling better now girl?” Then I patted the inside of her left hind leg, and then I started rubbing her belly. Because she was sitting though, her tail wasn’t wagging and I wasn’t getting any indication at all about whether any of what I was doing was pleasing her or not in the least. Of course I was at a definite disadvantage in terms of reading Penny’s body language because I couldn’t see the expression on her face. If I had been able to do that, it would have been a whole lot more helpful. I kept softly talking to her and rubbing her belly, and then I switched to patting Penny on the top of her head. She was so darn tall. At one point I remember that she yawned and I asked her jokingly, “Am I keeping you up Penny? Would you like to get some sleep girl?” Well, I hadn’t done a thing with butterscotch candies, and I finally broke down. I didn’t cover my hand with any butterscotch candy residue, but I did put two Werthers into my mouth and lean forward towards Penny. But her head was way above me. As I gently patted her head with the tips of my fingers and kept talking to her, suddenly I asked her, “Penny, I just wish I could know what you’re thinking right now. What are you thinking about girl.” Suddenly she lowered her head so quickly that I didn’t realize she was doing it, and she suddenly surprised and shocked the hell out of me. Suddenly without any warning at all, I felt a quick but deliberate kiss on my lips. Penny without any prompting from me had given me a very quick tentative French kiss, but it was a start. I was in disbelief. I hugged her and said “Oh my God Penny, are you telling me that that was what you were thinking about when I asked you just a moment ago?” I couldn’t believe how absolutely divine her tongue had felt as it quickly swept across my lips. She hadn’t actually placed her tongue directly inside my mouth, but she had kissed me which is certainly a whole different type of behavior than biting me. Was she still trying to tell me that she was sorry for having bitten me, is that why she was kissing me, or was she beginning to feel some sort of love and affection toward me? It seemed a little early for that, but I supposed it was possible. I was certainly very greatful that Penny had done this so soon, but would she do it again? I couldn’t help but think that if I was already breaking through Penny’s resistance of men, that was very impressive indeed. I now became a lot more hopeful, in fact, too hopeful. I never ever would have dreamed in a million years that Penny’s first French kiss with the two of us being alone would have been this soon. I just didn’t think she’d do it this quickly, and because she did, I became much too optomystic about our future.

I continued to stay with Penny that night, and suddenly the front door opened and there was Jamie. For the first time ever I saw Penny’s massive tail start wagging. Clearly, Penny was very happy to see Jamie. He produced a joint and the two of us got high. He remarked about how much my guide dog Blazer used to love getting high, and he sure had enjoyed it emensely. Whenever I was going to get high, Blazer would be right there beside me, panting as hard as he could to get as much smoke into his lungs as he could. I was sitting in the chair that Penny usually sat in, and now she was lying on the floor. I was on my knees, and I slowly inched forward toward Penny and she let me pat and stroke her without growling at me. James made the comment that Penny looked a lot more relaxed around me. We sat and talked and let the buzz kick in, and all of a sudden James did something that was kind of strange. He started speaking very slowly, one word at a time. He said “Hello Penny. You are a good girl.” I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was opening and closing her mouth while saying those words to her as if she were a puppet. Apparently she gave him the strangest look as if to ask, “What am I supposed to do?” James certainly had a lot more nerve around Penny than I did, but then again, she had never bitten him. Shortly after that he left, and I was quite sure that Penny must be sad to see him leave. I hoped that if I continued giving her attention to help her not think of James leaving, this would also strengthen the bond between us. Suddenly she got back up on the chair that she always sat in, and I decided to try sitting in the chair along with her. Unfortunately as I positioned myself fairly close to her, she let out a yelp, and I realized with horror that I was sitting on the end of her tail. I quickly got up and repositioned myself, and I told Penny that I was so so sorry for sitting on the end of her tail. I promised that I’d be much more careful about that from now on. but I thought to myself “Oh Christ, now I’ve done even more damage to our relationship and this is going to be a definite setback between Penny and I and she’s going to hate me for much longer now.” Luckily that didn’t turn out to be true.

Sunday July 10th was the hottest day of the summer yet. As I got up and headed toward the bathroom which was off the living room, Penny surprised me by growling at me again. This really took me by surprise because I felt I had spent enough time with Penny by now, and had done nothing but treat her with love and kindness that I certainly didn’t expect her to still be growling at me at this point. I didn’t know what was going on in her mind. I didn’t know whether she had decided to increase her territory and make the entire living room hers instead of just Elaine’s section of it or what. Then again, perhaps it was just so hot that she was warning me not to touch her and start patting her like I had done the day before. It was certainly a whole lot more hot and humid today, and because of this I had every intention of staing right away from Penny. About an hour later, James came by again, this time with his girlfriend. I walked out into the living room to say hi to James and meet his girlfriend when the most curious thing happened. Penny walked right up to me and gave me a long slow kiss right on the lips. I was beginning to see a pattern here. It seemed that Penny seemed more confident and would not hesitate to give me kisses as long as either Russ or James were around. But if we were alone, then Penny wouldn’t kiss me. We had hot dogs for lunch, and then in the mid afternoon Elaine unfortunately returned to the house so I sadly realized that my freedom to see Penny whenever I wanted to was over for the moment. Elaine’s presence made me extremely tense. It was so hot inside the house that I didn’t want to stay inside, so I stayed outside in the back yard for most of the afternoon and evening just thinking to myself, not doing anything or talking to anyone. I realized how very different the atmosphere of the house was with Elaine around. Russ had seemed so relaxed and even a bit more friendly than usual while Elaine was gone, but now that she was back, I realized that he’d be moody and sullon again and not speak to me at all for several weeks.

~~~~

Part Nine – Daphanie

Out of the blue on Monday July 11th, Gloria called me and asked me what the hell I had been up to over the past three years. It was true, I hadn’t been in touch with Gloria and Ted for a very long time. The last time I had spoken to either of them was on Monday November third of 2003 when Ted called me with the terrible news that Tina had had to be put down due to cancer and internal bleeding. I was crushed and numb with sadness, but because I hadn’t been around to see Tina or Gloria and Ted for that matter since November of 2002, I didn’t feel quite as devastated about Tina’s death as I had always feared I would be when that awful day actually came. I did like Gloria very much, but Ted was a different story. He was cheap, he was a user and he never gave me back my change when I gave him money to buy beer. He was also always bitching and complaining about something no matter when I saw him. So, because I felt that it was time to get the garbage out of my life, rid myself of any users, I had sort of eased them out of my life. Another thing was that for the most part I was hardly ever home. I was at John’s place much more often than I was at home except during the two months that John had been in jail. So even if Gloria and Ted had tried to call me, they wouldn’t get a hold of me. I can’t recall any answering machine messages that had come in from them between November of 2003 and the present.

But now I was in a completely different situation. Now I didn’t have any friends and I was living under the same roofas Elaine who I knew absolutely hated my guts for some unexplainable reason. Gloria informed me first of all that the previous September she had gotten a computer and she wanted to know if I could help her learn to use it. There was just one problem. I used the Window Eyes speech software program and she used Jaws. They were two totally different programs and I knew next to nothing about Jaws. Still, I figured that Jay would be able to help me get Gloria started with some of the basic Jaws commands. The next thing she told me was that in January she had gotten a new dog, a small female Cocker Spaniel named Daphanie. At first Gloria had thought she was a cock-a-poo, a cocker spaniel poodle cross, but in June of 2006 when Gloria and Ted took her to the vet, she found out that Daphanie was a pure cocker spaniel. Apparently Daphanie had been especially trained for a little boy with tourettes syndrom, but he had been too rough with her, pulling her long hair and grabbing at her and wanting to wrestle with her, which was much too rough for such a small dog. Reluctantly the parents realized that Daphanie wasn’t working out, and they decided they’d have to give up the dog and give her to someone else. Somehow Kathy’s daughter Kelly had found out about this, and the first person that she thought might like this highly trained dog was Gloria. So, Gloria and Ted had adopted Daphanie back in January of 2005. When they had gotten her, even though it was the dead of winter her coat had been very short so that the little boy couldn’t pull it. But they had let it grow, so now she was a long haired good natured loving dog. One thing that Gloria told me though that surprised me a bit, was that Daphanie never barked when someone rang the doorbell.

So, after discussing all these things, Gloria casually asked me if I wanted to come out there for the next weekend and I figured “Why the hell not? I have absolutely nothing else to do anyway, and I certainly wouldn’t be missed by any of my three room mates. And one thing was for sure, at least I’d get fed at Gloria and Ted’s unlike at home. So I said sure, I’d come over there on Friday July 15th.

That same afternoon of Monday July 11th I realized that Elaine was already beginning to start her shit with Russ about me. She was already quite aware that I was home all the time instead of being away from the house like I had been for the majority of the time in the past, so she told Russ that I had never once changed my bed sheets in the eight years that I had lived there. HOw would Elaine even know that since she hadn’t lived with us for anywhere near eight years herself? Because Rus is an incredibly, even naively easily led person, he believed her and fell for her bullshit hook line and sinker. When he came into my room and started yelling at me and telling me what Elaine had told him, I said it was bullshit but I changed my bed linens anyway so that neither of them could now say that I hadn’t changed them in eight years. Now I was wishing that I was heading off to Gloria and Ted’s place today. My bedroom was stiflingly hot so I went over to the MaGibbon HOtel bar and let a couple of people buy me a few beers since I was so low on money thanks to John. I spent the majority of Tuesday and Wednesday July 12th and 13th either at the MaGibbon or the Shepherd’s Crook just to cool off since the bars had air conditioning and my bedroom was like a sauna! One thing was certain, it was much too hot to even touch Penny, and I was sure that if I approached her she would start growling at me so I just kept away from her during this hot spell that had the entire house feeling like an oven.

As I boarded the bus for Brampton on Friday July 15th to begin the long trip to Gloria and Ted’s, for the first time since before Tina had stolen my heart back in June of 1994, I wasn’t overly ecstatic about making this trip. After all, Daphanie was a small dog and generally I prefered large dogs with their big warm juicey tongues and their way of sticking them into my mouth and snuggling next to me and giving me hugs with their large warm paws. But many smaller dogs were yappy. Even Shadoe had barked a lot more than her daughter Sheila who had been larger. But Shadoe although she was small, had made me fall in love with her instantly because of her charming ways and her playful kisses. I was still missing her terribly. I just couldn’t believe that she was gone, and now more than ever, I felt so alone in my own house.

But what about Daphanie? What would she do when I arrived at Gloria and Ted’s place? Would she just ignore me? Would she pay any attention to me at all? One thing was definite, no matter what she did and how she acted toward me, she was never going to measure up to Tina because Tina and I had just been so incredibly close, and during the last two years that I had seen her, we had Frenched and Frenched each other for hours and hours and I got the distinct impression that Tina loved Frenching me just as much as I adored Frenching her. Her tongue was just perfect and so unique. I had never seen another dog’s tongue quite like it. It was so damn soft and full at the tip, and whenever the tip of that amazing tongue touched any part of my body even for a split second, the effect was truly electrifying. When I had first met Tina, nothing at all about her had impressed me . But by June 1, 1994 when she had smothered my face with kisses she had won me over completely and I hadn’t looked back since. I couldn’t ever forget her because we had spent so much time together and done so much together over the years, and even though she had been dead for two and a half years now, the images of Tina were extremely powerful and erotic.

It really seemed like Tina had loved me almost as intensely and in the same way that a human female could have loved me. She had loved me with an intensity that even all these years later had still left my head spinning and my dick throbbing. This was the wonderful amazing thing about dogs. They were absolutely not in any way judgemental, and their love was totally unconditional. I knew one thing, that Tina was going to be one hell of a hard act to follow. So I had absolutely no expectations about meeting this new dog of Gloria’s called Daphanie. Not only did I have no expectations about meeting her, but my love for dogs had been badly shaken. After all, though most dogs took just a couple of minutes to decide that I was a really neat guy that loved dogs, Penny had run away from me when Russ had tried to introduce her to me on Father’s day, and my self confidence with dogs was at an all time low. After all, I had been bitten by Penny and this hadn’t happened to me until now. For the first time in 51 years, I had been fairly seriously bitten by a dog, and the image of what had happened that day was just too fresh in my mind to go away! Yes, whether I liked it or not, Penny had put just a bit of fear in my mind about being accepted by dogs. So I really didn’t have a clue of what was going to happen between Daphanie and I during our first meeting.

When I got to their door and rang the bell, it seemed strange not to hear a dog barking at all. But once I got into the house and got myself settled on the couch in the living room, this pint sized little dog ran up to me, put her two front paws on my lap, started making excited little whimpering sounds of joy and started frantically kissing me. What I noticed immediately was that her tongue was rough and small, and she was planting quick furious kisses not only on my lips, but she was parting my lips and her tongue was darting in and out of my mouth. “oh thank God” I thought, “I needed this re-assurance today! This is the kind of reaction that I am more used to when meeting a dog for the first time. Well, I guess I still have this same ability to quickly make dogs realize and understand how much I truly love them, and I guess it was just Penny that reacted so differently because of her abuse and her very different life experiences from that of most other dogs. Wow” I thought, “I wasn’t realy expecting this at all. This Daphanie really reminds me a lot of Shadoe. Maybe Daphanie and I are going to become closer than I had originally thought, and maybe we’ll get along much better than I had ever dared to hope or dream.”

I had brought over a bunch of MP3 CDs that I had made, that I wanted Gloria and Ted to check out, and I asked Ted which CD he wanted to play first. He chose my early seventies CD to play. The first cut on that CD was I’m A Train by Albert Hammond. We had some Kool Ade and we talked in the kitchen. It sure was hot outside although the ceiling fan in the kitchen helped somewhat. It was just too hot for Gloria to make a hot supper, so we had colecuts and potato chips. Later in the evening I tried to see if I could figure out how to use Jaws so that I could teach Gloria how to use it as well. Around 1:30 in the morning we all decided it was time to crash. I took my pants and shirt off and hung them over the back of the couch, and then I lay there in my underware thinking “God is this ever a lot more comfortable than that old cot of Claude’s that I used to have to sleep on upstairs.” The couch was actually long enough that I could lay on it fully spread out, and I didn’t have to curl my body into a ball to fit on this couch without my feet sticking out the end. I heard Gloria call Daphanie and she ran upstairs to Gloria’s room so naturally I assumed that she would be staying with Gloria all night. But oh how wrong I was going to be proven. Daphanie just stayed upstairs long enough to feel sure in her doggy mind that Gloria and Ted were both resting comfortably and well on their way to sleep.

Suddenly I heard her running back downstairs again. My heart leaped with joy and excitement, “Could this really be happening?” I was aware that Daphanie was right next to the couch, wanting to get up on it with me. “Hell” I thought, “If this is what she wants to do, I don’t mind it in the least!” In fact the prospect rather excited me because this was something that Tina and I had never gotten to do, sleep together or French each other on the couch late at night. I quickly tapped the couch to let her know that it was just fine to get up there.” IN a flash she was on the couch with me, and in another flash her tongue was suddenly darting in and out of my mouth. What happened next absolutely stunned me! “Wo” I thought, “Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting this from Daphanie at all!” Naturally when she gave me kisses when I first met her in the afternoon I was hoping that she just might act like this towards me, but I never realy expected that she would since we’ve just barely met. I love it when a dog decides to get kissy like this, but with most dogs it takes a few meetings before it actually happens.

I thought to myself”Daphanie wants to give me a good night kiss. HOw sweet of her!” But she didn’t just want to give me a good night kiss. What she wanted to do was kiss me and kiss me and kiss me. As her small tongue began probing in and out of the inside of my mouth and deliberately rubbing up against my tongue, I was in a state of shock and disbelief. Sure, I had somehow hoped that Daphanie just might possibly do this to me, but I’d never dreamed in a million years that she actually would, not this soon anyway. After all, we hardly knew each other, and this was only the first day that we had met. So why was she doing this? Did she really feel this comfortable with me already, and did she already have this much love for me in her little doggy heart? She couldn’t have. But, here again, this was the neat thing about dogs. It didn’t take many of them long to really start bonding with a person that is very loving, and I certainly had a lot of love to give Daphanie and she was obviously picking up on it somehow.

“Oh baby” I whispered in Daphanie’s ear, “Oh Daphanie honey, why are you acting like this to me already? We’ve only known each other for a few hours, and you already seem to love me so much. Well Daphanie darling, I love you too, and you are giving me so much joy and happiness baby that I truly love you for it. You are so full of love baby, and there is another very special dog in my life that has just recently passed away that you remind me so much of honey.” I thought to myself “My God, Daphanie is acting just like Shadoe! Her mannerisms are so similar to hers, even the size and shape of her tongue is almost identical to Shadoe’s. But although Shadoe gave me some very brief tentative kisses during my second visit to Russ’ place in Acton, this is only the first time that Daphanie and I have met, and Daphanie is even more confident and self assured with her kisses than Shadoe was. She was very methodically rubbing my tongue with hers, and although it was small, it was very quick and nimble and I liked that. In fact I loved it. She was starting to turn me on and my dick was starting to get hard underneath my body as her beautiful little tongue started soothing my lips and tongue, leaving behind the stress of the previous week with Russ and Elaine. HOw in the world did Daphanie realize how much I needed this tonight? Who says dogs aren’t smart? Though Daphanie had just met me today, she was taking charge and was giving me exactly what I needed emotionally. It still blew my mind that she could know on some level just exactly what I needed but obviously she did, and she was being just super, so loving and I was loving her tongue and enjoying her love so much. I was envelloped by it, overwhelmed by it to the point that I was beginning to feel like a new man.

Everything that Daphanie did reminded me so much of Shadoe. In fact, she was kissing me so similarly to Shadoe that I actually had to wonder if Shadoe was instructing her what to do from the other side. Her tongue felt so gorgeous and divine as it rubbed across my lips and then met my own waiting tongue. I felt so loved and accepted. If there had been any apprehension about whether Daphanie would be willing to accept me, it had all been kissed away and she had already convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt that she really loved me and somehow thought I was very special. As she kissed and kissed and kissed me, suddenly I began to cry. I was just so over joyed and full of gratitude for what this little angel was doing for me tonight. How could she possibly know that I had been feeling very apprehensive about dogs ever accepting me again after Penny had bitten me? I didn’t know how she could know of these feelings of mine, but one thing was for sure. She was cleansing them away and making me feel so happy and so loved.

Then I began to cry tears of joy, and just like Shadoe had done before, Daphanie began to zero in on my eyes and lick the tears away. She was such a loving dog and was making me feel so much happier and more content than I had felt in weeks.

This was exactly what I had desperately needed, some kind of reassurance from a dog that my feelings of love and excitement for them was still easily readable by man’s best friend. After all, Penny’s negative reaction toward me and fear of meeting me had really shaken me up, and when she bit me, that had made me feel even worse because I had thought I had been getting somewhere with her. So when Daphanie jumped up on my lap and showered my face with kisses within seconds of meeting her, and now she had snuk downstairs and was giving me lavish kisses before bedtime, well, this was the answer to my prayer. I didn’t know how she knew so well that I needed this, but it was obvious that she did. She just kept it up, kissing and kissing me and I kept gently hugging her and whispering “Oh Daphanie darling, I love you girl, you are an angel. I don’t know how you know me so well after knowing me for such a brief time, but you sure do honey and I absolutely love what you’re doing to me, so keep it up baby!”

She kept it up, kissing me quickly and enthusiastically. Her tongue felt much rougher on the top side of it than Shadoe’s but they were about the same size. Her technique too was very similar to Shadoe’s as she slipped her tongue sneakily between my lower lip and my bottom teeth. She loved to get into those crevases and surprise me, and like Shadoe she had a real aggressiveness that I really liked! I couldn’t believe how fond of this dog I was already becoming, and she certainly left no question in my mind that she was extremely fond of me. After all, Gloria had called Daphanie upstairs and instructed her to stay there, and yet at the first opportunity that she got, she had snuk down here to spend time with me, and wow, she was certainly spending much more time with me than I had ever dream she would want to on our very first night together. Five, ten, fifteen minutes went by and still her frantic kisses continued unabated for all that time.

Finally Daphanie left me and returned upstairs after nearly twenty minutes. I was so stunned that she had stayed with meand spent so much time with me, giving me so much love and showering me with frantic loving kisses. How in the world did she know that this was what I needed at this time in my life, and how did she know how vital this out pouring of affection was for me right at this time in my life to make me realize that Penny’s rejection was strictly because of her abuse, and that I hadn’t lost my way with dogs at all. Now I was wide awake, and my body was tingling all over. I felt like I had justgone through a religious experience with Daphanie and I couldn’t help but think that this experience was something very unique between Daphanie and I. I doubted that Daphanie had kissed either Gloria or Ted so much and so franticly as she did me. I seriously doubted that either Gloria or Ted would have let her French them in the same way that she Frenched me. No, these frantic kisses were a gift from Daphanie, they were our special secret, and this had been done late at night when Gloria and Ted had gone upstairs, but Daphanie had purposely come back down to the living room to administer her loving charms on me, and boy had it worked. She was a wonderful nurse dog, an angel, a healer, a psychiatrist all in one, and she didn’t have to say a word to perform her magic. They always say that actions speak louder than words, so even though Daphanie couldn’t say I love you, she could sure show it to me on no uncertain terms, and show me she did! I was indeed lucky to be the object of Daphanie’s incredible love and affection and I was so thankful that she already thoght so much of me after only having met me that day. I began to see that Daphanie and I were definitely on the same wavelength, and she was going to provide me with the doggy love that I’d been missing desperately since Shadoe had been put down. Normally I was close to dogs, but with Daphanie, it was like from the first moment she met me she was able to completely read my mind and she wanted to take the skeptisism and indifference that I had towards her right away, and she wanted to show me on no uncertain terms just how strongly and passionately she loved me even though we had just met. I was simply awe struck by the experience. One thing was obvious, Daphanie had a very good understanding of me, she had figured out my emotional make up unbelievably quickly and she was reading my thoughts telepathically and was doing a good job of it too. This wonderful dog was a very special gift, and I was already beginning to realize that because of Daphanie, this was definitely not going to be my last visit to Gloria and Ted’s. Daphanie was going to make sure that I would be back to see her and them again.

The next morning, Saturday July 16th I decided to try to launch some more audio streams on Gloria’s computer. I was able to play the audio stream of the Cruise, CKRU 980 in Peterborough, and I was also able to play the CBC radio station CFFB from Iqaluit, formerly Frobisher Bay in the Canadian Arctic in the new territory of Nunavut. We had brunch around noon and then Ted had to do some errands, so this gave Daphanie and I another chance to French each other noiselessly on the couch. As soon as I lay down on the couch with a butterscotch candy in my mouth, Daphanie was there immediately to give me quick frantic kisses and share the flavor of those wonderful butterscotch candies with me. It appeared that like Tina, Daphanie loved them as well and that was good. I spent about five minutes with Daphanie on the couch just drinking in her love and affection but I knew I had to be sociable with Gloria. I couldn’t just lye there with Daphanie and ignore my hostess, so reluctantly I pulled away from her and sat up. I had always had this same problem with Tina too. Earlier before brunch, I had been trying to look for Scottish folk songs for Gloria because I knew that she was interested in them. I had found a bunch of folk songs that you could actually download but I had very stupidly not bookmarked that website and now I was trying to find it again. Presently I found one of NPR’s All Songs Considered programs about the current Scottish folk music scene and this program lasted a full hour, so while it was playing I would sometimes steal some quick kisses from Daphanie and she seemed to love doing this just as much as I did. She was certainly generous with her kisses, almost as generous in fact as Tina had been, and though her tongue wasn’t anywhere near as large as Tina’s , it could still do an incredible amount of magic on me. But when I leaned back on the couch, I found myself dozing because this program seemed to have more talking than music in it and I found it a bit boring.

Then Ted came back and he started talking about Winnipeg, because Kathy had told him that it was a very dirty city. So I decided to see if there was a country station in Winnipeg, I figured there had to be, and sure enough, Mike’s Radio World Directed me to CFQX, 104.1. We listened to that station for about a half hour, but then I became restless and wanted to move on, so I decided to move onto Calgary where I figured that they’d be right in the middle of the stampede during that weekend which was indeed the case. Mike’s Radio World directed me to CKRY country 105.1 in Calgary. We listened to that station for about an hour and a half, but not having been able to let Gloria hear much Scottish music that afternoon, I figured that she might like the music that they played on CJYQ in St. John’s Newfoundland, because they specialized in the music of the Province. So I went to their website and we listened to them for about two hours. It was interesting that I could seem to launch most of the Canadian stations that used Windows Media Player, it was just some of the European stations that we seemed to be having problems with. Well, I had bought some beer, so around 8 o’clock that night we shut off the computer and started drinking the beer and listening to my first early sixties MP3 CD. I discovered that Daphanie liked beer, because any time I leaned over toward her, her tongue would frantically probe the inside of my mouth, so obviously she loved the taste of the beer.

When we finally went to bed around 12:30 on Sunday morning the 17th, I felt very relaxed and content. At long last I didn’t have to think about my loneliness, about Elaine and how much she hated me, about Penny’s rejection or about what John had done to me. I was just enjoying myself here at Gloria and Ted’s, getting re=acquainted with them again after nearly three years and also getting used to the fact that Gloria finally had a computer. As I took my clothes off and lay down on the couch, Daphanie was up there with me in an instant. This time she didn’t even go upstairs with Gloria, she seemed to be letting me know on no uncertain terms that she prefered to stay with me down in the living room, and that was certainly alright with me. Again her little tongue came out of her mouth and she began kissing me and it felt like heaven. Though her tongue was small, it could maneuver in ways that a larger dog’s tongue couldn’t do as easily. She seemed to love to get her tongue deep into my mouth, right along my lower gum. As she lazily licked at my gum and lower teeth, it just felt so wonderful and it was so therapeutic. It was like every lick was taking all the sadness and stress that my life had been filled with up until now right away from me. Daphanie was clenzing my soul, and I was truly greatful for her intense and unconditional love. Obviously Daphanie understood me much more than I could have ever hoped for especially in this short a time. It was like she already knew me and she already knew what made me happy and she wanted to do nothing but shower me with kisses and bring me happiness. We lay there together on the couch as she slowly methodically kissed and kissed and kissed me. Suddenly I felt it coming. My breathing quickened and I knew I was going to come. Daphanie seemed triumphant as she realized how happy she had made me, and I whispered in her ear, “Oh Daphanie, you are certainly a wonderful little girl. Yes you are a wonderful little girl with a very big heart, and I love you so much already. Daphanie, Gloria used to have a great big black lab guide dog named Tina, and we had a very close relationship and she kissed me a lot too. I had always feared that Tina was going to be a hard act to follow but it seems as though you have risen to the challenge and you have already drawn me into your heart and have put me under your spell. Oh Daphanie, I could lye with you like this forever. Oh yes, life would be so sweet if we could be this close to each other forever. Daphanie, I never want to let you go. You are truly an angel Daphanie, I love you baby, I truly do love you!” It was true, with the warmth of her body envelloping me and her tongue buried in my mouth, I didn’t want this moment to ever end as I felt my dick responding to the warmth of her kisses. Why couldn’t human beings be this warm and loving toward me? Why couldn’t I find a woman like this? It didn’t even matter, I prefered a dog anyway because their love was so unconditional with no strings attached at all. Daphanie was such a beautiful individual and still she wouldn’t quit. She kept showering me with kisses and suddenly I felt tears of joy filling my eyes. It was the same feeling that Shadoe had given me during her most precious moments. This was the beautiful thing about dogs. They were not content until they had completely filled my heart with happiness and joy, and that was truly wonderful. Dogs were so loving, so giving, so unselfish unlike selfish humans who didn’t really know or understand the real meaning of love like dogs did.

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Part Ten – Disappointments And Small Triumphs

Well, one thing was for sure. Daphanie had surpassed my wildest expectations. Perhaps that was because I had had no expectations at all about what would happen when I met her since she was a small dog, and I generally prefered large breeds. Of course, Shadoe had completely changed my mind about that, but then again, she had taken it upon herself to become my lover, and not many small breed dogs normally did that. But as much as I had enjoyed Daphanie’s love and affection, I couldn’t help but wonder if Penny might have missed me just a little bit. After all, before the heat wave had started on Monday July 11th I had spent time really trying to get to know her, trying to figure out what made her happy and how I could make her feel more relaxed in her new surroundings. Because Russ and Roger both pretty much ignored her because they believed that she wanted to be left alone, she would be pretty much alone all day until Elaine came home from work. Although I certainly wasn’t expecting any kisses, I wondered if when Penny realized that I was back home, if she’d give me some sign that she had missed me during the five days I’d been gone. On Tuesday July 19th I headed back home to Georgetown, to the cheerless house tht I’d been living in for eight years now. I just couldn’t believe how quickly the five days that I had spent at Gloria and Ted’s had flown by, and best of all, Ted had even been in a good mood for a change. I had enjoyed messing around on Gloria’s computer and Daphanie had been much more loving and caring toward me than I would have ever dreamed possible during our first meeting. But what about Penny? As I walked into the house and put my canvis travel bag on my bed, I ran outside and sat on one of the chairs in the back yard just waiting to see what would happen. Suddenly Penny came up to me and gave me the once over. She sniffed at me quickly a couple of times and then she was gone, and she disappeared elsewhere into our big 80 by 80 back yard. “Oh well” I thought, “I shouldn’t have expected anything more than this from her. I guess that Penny really didn’t miss me at all then. Penny had been the only reason that I had looked forward at all to coming home. I hadn’t been expecting much from her, but I thought I might have received a somewhat more enthusiastic greeting than that, and when I didn’t, I suddenly began to bum out royallly. I knew that it was wrong of me to expect or even hope that Penny could meet my emotional needs because she had enough emotional baggage of her own. She just wasn’t a normal dog and had definitely suffered from some sort of abuse. But I was counting so much on the fact that if I was patient and kept spending time with her, kept working with her, eventually Penny might be the only being in that house that would learn to love me, and that would certainly be beautiful. The reality of Penny’s behavior had certainly been a disappointment.

The next morning I got up and got dressed, and I sat in one of the chairs in the back living room, a room where Russ’s computer had been until he moved it into his bedroom. I was just sitting there relaxing when suddenly I felt a big nose on my hand. It was Penny and she had actually come over to see me on her own. This was very significant. It meant that slowly Penny was beginning to realize that she did indeed have the run of the house. She’d not have to constantly stay in Elaine’s area of the house. She could go wherever she felt like it and it was good to see her starting to feel relaxed enough to explore the entire house on her own. Suddenly I heard a voice, and it was Jamie talking to me. “Ah ha” I thought, “Jamie’s here, so that’s why Penny seems a bit more confident than usual.” As long as either Russ or Jamie were around, Penny seemed to be somewhat more confident. But if Penny and I were alone, then she just didn’t seem to have that confidence that she showed with either Russ or Jamie around. We walked back into Elaine’s area and I sat down in one of the chairs. Penny came right up to me and buried her nose in my crotch and started sniffing there. She had never done that to me before, and I wondered what Jamie would think about her doing that to me because he undoubedly saw her do it. We talked about my visit to Gloria and Ted’s and about my meeting Daphanie. Naturally I didn’t say anything to James about how intimate Daphanie and I had ended up being even though it had only been our first meeting. When James left, instead of going to the easy chair that she normally spent so much time in, she flopped down on Elaine’s bed, and I followed her there. It was wonderful to be able to lye down beside her although I didn’t want to get too close to her because I didn’t want to make her feel at all confined. For this reason I didn’t put either of my arms around her or try to snuggle up close to her as much as I wanted to. In fact I didn’t even try to get Penny to lick my hands or face, and I didn’t put any butterscotch candies into my mouth. I just lay there as still as I possibly could, trying to send nice loving relaxing thoughts to Penny and I knew that she knew that I was right there with her but at the same time I wasn’t trying to intrude on her thoughts. With my dick underneath my body, it turned me on even more when Penny grabbed my hand in her mouth as we lay together on Elaine’s bed. I said to her “Oh Penny you doll, I’ve really missed you while I was at my frends Gloria and Ted’s place. It’s nice to get away for a visit but it’s always nice to come home, and do you know what baby? You are the one that I was the most happy to come home to, Penny. It was you more than anyone else in this house that I honestly wanted to see. I know that you don’t realize this yet, but perhaps one day you will Penny, and you’ll realize just how much I love you, and just how much I want and need your love.” I lay there with a much wider space between the two of us than I had wanted, but since Penny still wasn’t growling at me, I figured that Penny was at least being tollerant of the distance I was keeping from her on the bed. Naturally my heart felt that we should be lying much closer to each other on Elaine’s bed but the one thing I realized about Penny, is that in order to keep her feeling comfortable I was going to have to take things much more slowly than I had ever been used to, than I had ever had to do with any other dog I’d known because Penny had been abused, and she worked at her own pace and no one else’s. As much attention as I had been paying to Penny over the last three weeks, I was still not seeing any clear sign that anything I was doing had any effect on Penny at all. She still seems completely indifferent about the attention I was giving her which frustrated me and made me very sad. But everyone that I had talked to about this had advised me that I was simply going to have to be very patient, because after all, Penny had been abused and none of us really knew what she had actually gone through. Jamie seemed to have heard bits and pieces but that was all. She definitely didn’t seem to like her paws being licked and she never licked them herself. Jamie thought he had heard that the boyfriend of the woman that had owned her might have beaten Penny with a stick, and we had no idea of how young Penny had been when this had started nor how often this revolting behavior from this man had occured. Jamie also seemed to have the knowledge that Penny had grown very quickly and had been forced to spend a lot of time in a crate that probably got too small for her in a hurry. This would certainly explain why Penny didn’t like to be hugged much at all, or why she didn’t like the feeling of confinement. I wondered if I would ever be able to win Penny over, or was this going to be a hopeless battle? The next morning I found Penny again in her favorite chair but later she migrated to the bed and I joined her there and continued patting her and talking to her softly and soothingly. I hoped so much that somehow she could feel the love I had for her. I was hoping that perhaps she might pick it up telepathically but so far there were no indications that she was. The following day, Friday July 22 I was dismayed to see that Elaine hadn’t gone to work, so with her at home I wasn’t going to be able to wander into the living room for my usual visit with Penny. I wasn’t going to get to see much of Penny at all during that weekend unless she just happened to either wander outside or in the back living room where there was a couch and several chairs as well. The next day, Saturday July 23, Russ really surprised me around 5 o’clock that evening. I was just sitting in one of the rocking chairs in the back living room when he suddenly came out of his room and asked me how I’d like to see the movie Ray which he was renting on DVD. I had heard amazing things about this movie and was anxious to see it since I was a fan of Ray Charles Swing-Time and Atlantic label material. I didn’t care so much for Rays later material but I had sure loved his songs like Mess Around, It Should’ve Been Me, I’ve Got A Woman and This Little Girl Of Mine. Russ led me into his room and immediately produced a joint to prepare us for the movie. Normally I am not much into movies because for so many of them, you really need to be able to see in order to figure out what’s going on. So many movies are filled with lots of shooting or high speed car chases that just seem to go on and on forever as far as I’m concerned, and when you’re only listening to a car chase and not watching it, believe me it can get pretty boring pretty quickly. But this movie just grabbed me and I was totally into it. Suddenly I felt Penny head toward me, and she got up onto the couch that I was sitting on and she lay next to me for a while. Then she decided to get off the couch, but before she did she suddenly flopped her huge body onto my lap and planted a nice wet kiss on my lips. Why had she done this? She certainly couldn’t still be apologizing for the fact that she had bitten me back on June 30th could she? I didn’t know, but now I was really beginning to see that Penny was willing to be somewhat affectionate with me as long as Russ was around. I found that very interesting because Russ was a much more tough and insensitive person than I was, and yet Penny had taken to him immediately. But I on the other hand absolutely loved dogs, and yet it seemed that Penny had some problems with me for some reason. Was it really all about my body language and the fact that I was blind? I wished so much that I knew an animal communicator that would be willing to give me a consultation for free because I really didn’t have the money to spend on such a thing as much as I wanted to.

We continued watching the movie, and every once in a while with no warning, Penny would come up to me ans swipe that huge tongue against my lips and I was so tempted to open my mouth and let her tongue wander inside. But I wasn’t sure that I trusted her that much yet, after all, this dog is the only large dog that had ever bitten me, and not only did Penny not trust me, but I wasn’t totally sure I could trust her yet either. Because I was high, the thrill of Penny’s kiss was magnified and I found myself thinking and thinking about it a lot over the next couple of days. I hoed with all my heart that since she’d kissed me three separate times on Saturday, that eventually even when we were alone, she might start kissing me, and if she did, that would be absolute heaven.

The next day was Sunday July 24th, and whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to pick up all the items of mine that I had left at John’s. His room mate Norm brought as much of the material over to my place as he could manage, but he couldn’t carry all of it so I was unfortunately going to have to go back there later. John was very friendly and outgoing and believe it or not, he acted like nothing had ever happened at all. He kept telling me “I sure hope they find the asshole that stole your money, because I’ll tell you one thing, it wasn’t me.” I said to him “Give it up John, you know you did it, and you know that I know you did it because you’re the only person that had either of my pen numbers John.” “No I wasn’t,” he said. “OK John” I replied, “name one other person that had either of my pen numbers besides you.” Naturally he couldn’t, so he realized that I had him there, but he was still absolutely denying that he would have ever done a thing like that to me and it made me sick. So around 10 o’clock that evening I headed home and as I stepped from the rug of the living room to the cool floor of the hall, I stepped on one of Penny’s paws because she was sleeping right there in the middle of the hallway. I couldn’t blame her for that because the hall floor was cooler than the carpeted floors. She didn’t yelp when I stepped on her paw but she jumped up and I patted her and told her in a soft soothing voice that I was really sorry and that I hadn’t meant to do that. I half expected her to start growling again but she didn’t. I think because of that incident, a light started to go on in Penny’s mind, and perhaps for the first time ever, she was actually beginning to comprehend that I was blind and couldn’t see

The next week was much cooler, and this seemed to make Penny a bit more active. She was still not what you’d call your active dog. She didn’t spend much time chasing things or people. She was a very mellow dog that just seemed content to lye around and sleep most of the time. The vet had told Russ that because she had been confined to the crate so much, her hamstring muscles still weren’t fully developed so that’s why she walked with a bit of a limp. He said he figured it would take six months of good solid exercise for her to build up those hamstring muscles and get her walking normally again. But Russ was a cab driver and he worked 72 hours a week and sometimes more. So he simply wasn’t going to have the time to do that which was really most unfortunate. Monday night July 25 was actually a rather cool evening and there was even dew on the grass. I went outside and I had the feeling that Penny was around so I brought some treats out for her. When I called Penny and asked her where she was, I could hear the sound of a rock rattling around in her mouth. She was going through the teething stage, and for some reason she liked to have rocks in her mouth. Jamie and I were both concerned that she’d really try to chew on one of these rocks one day and end up breaking one of her teeth. We sure didn’t want to see that happen, because a broken tooth would be very painful for her, and would mean a trip to the vet, and also putting her under anesthetic to get it fixed. I followed the rattling sound and there was Penny lying on the grass, chewing on a rock. I lay beside her and suddenly she did something that she had never done to me before. She placed one of her big front paws around my shoulder and gave me a nice big hug. The feeling was indescribable. I felt like wave after wave of depression was just starting to leave my body but then she dropped her paw and the spell was broken. I told Penny what a good girl she had been and I rewarded her with a treat. We spent about a half hour outside that night, and several times I called her name and she came right to me which I thought was a good sign. Of course Penny knew that I had some treats for her but still, if she didn’t want to come to me, she certainly didn’t have to. Nobody was forcing her to that’s for sure.

Two nights later Penny was outside and Russ called her to come in. Suddenly I heard Russ exclaiming, “Penny, what the hell are you doing? No no no, we don’t want this rosebush in the house you silly girl!” She had dug up one of the rosebushes from out in the yard, and she decided to just bring it into the house. She was such a huge dog that she could actually accomplish this with no problem. Because it wasn’t as hot now as it had been earlier in the month, I began to spendmore time with her outside in the back yard. Now whenever penny came anywhere near me instead of just brushing past me, she made a definite effort to put her nose on my hand to let me know she was there. This was perhaps another sign from Penny that she was finally beginning to understand my blindness and how she was going to have to relate to me. I continued giving her many treats until one day Russ saw me giving her one and he said, “Christ Sam how many treats are you giving her anyway? She’s really starting to put on weight” so I realized that I was going to have to cool it a bit with giving Penny treats because the last thing I wanted to see was Penny waddling around, and she was a very large boned large framed dog.

Another thing that I began to notice was that sometimes Penny was now spending time in the back living room of the house so she was not spending all of her time in Elaine’s area any more. Now she seemed to understand that the entire house was hers to wander through although she had never stepped foot into my room yet but then my bedroom was so small. She would get into this easy chair and sit so tall and proud, and like when she was in Elaine’s area I would pat her there and occasionally give her a butterscotch candy to lick from my hand. But I did this much more infrequently now. NOw all I wanted to do was get Penny to feel completely comfortable with me anywhere in or out of the house. I loved that girl so much. Sometimes I’d be sitting on the couch in that back living room and she didn’t do this right away, but about a week later, she began to actually join me on that couch and I took this also as a very encouraging sign.

The End