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Recently in Salon Health & Body

Urge
To work and to love
I escaped to my lover's lips and then took a trip to Freud's couch.
By Tracy Quan
[10/25/99]

Urge: Naughty Bits
Sexpert Bright sues Virginia!
Last July, a Virginia law began banning any Internet content it deemed "harmful for juveniles." Now free-speechers and cybersex gurus are fighting back.
By Hank Hyena
[10/25/99]

Urge
Gift of the flower
After drug-addiction and homelessness, a hopeless man rediscovers the healing potential of his childhood fascination.
By Tom Wolbarst
[10/23/99]

Column
Flush of the future
Tokyo's Toto makes toilets that do everything -- whether you want them to or not.
By Mary Roach
[10/22/99]

Urge: Naughty Bits
The changing fates of working girls
Germany greenlights its red-lighters, but Zambia says hookers mean trouble.
By Hank Hyena
[10/22/99]

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I should have known better. When our mutual friend Christina had first set us up, she'd described Lina in an e-mail: smart and serious, had family in Colombia, graduate student in history, was fond of whiskey and lived with an energetic, somewhat unpredictable dog named Violet. Without elaboration Christina added: "Lina's in denial about her dog." At the time, I took this to mean that Lina and Violet had a relationship that Christina didn't understand. I never thought about what it would mean for us.

As one date turned into two, three, four, I gradually learned about Lina's strong attachments to her dog, whom she described in such glowing, loving terms I imagined Violet as a Lassie; on dates five and six, I finally met an obviously cunning dog, the kind who'll let you starve in the collapsed mineshaft for your foolish curiosity. After seven dates, I figured out that Violet's love for Lina was a jealous love. Lina admitted she felt guilty for spending too many nights out away from Violet, who sometimes misbehaved when she didn't get enough attention. Lina also admitted she'd never been as strict as she could have been, never provided the kind of Alpha dog leadership that socializes a dog for human households. At that point, it occurred to me that Violet seemed less like a dog and more like a spoiled chimpanzee that knows where the keys and petty cash are.

One night after a movie, Lina and I made out on the dewy grass of the university quad and told each other secrets from our romantic pasts. I found out she'd gotten Violet as a puppy from a Chilean soccer player who discovered too many times the hard way that his pretty, red puppy liked to chase down soccer balls, tackle them and chew them until they exploded in her astonished face. On and on it continued: The more intimate we became, the more I learned about Violet. By the time we were sleeping together, Lina confessed that Violet had once bitten a child in the face, and Lina was afraid she'd have to euthanize her dog.

By that point, Violet had spread trash throughout the house while Lina and I were out; she also disappeared a five-pound bag of dried beans. I'd also seen her bristle and charge other dogs, barking ferociously as if she were protecting her territory, even when we were in the park. Sometimes while chasing a Frisbee, her ears flattened, her eyes widened in devil-dog fashion and her lips curled berserkly. Great, I thought, my girlfriend's dog is Cerberus. And when Violet chewed my credit card up into tiny slivers of gray plastic and chewed off the buttons of my jeans, I remembered what Christina had said: Lina was in denial about Violet.

In the context of this emotional triangle, sex started to get strange. Once when Lina and I were having sex, Violet circled shark-like at the edges of the bed. To be fair, Violet was used to getting a walk every morning at 7:30 and recently it had been as late as 11. The inevitable result was that increasingly we found ourselves having sex with the dog.

Next page | Up close and personal with the canine