I should have clocked the dog bowl.
That is the sentence I keep coming back to, usually at 1am with the vape in my hand and something mindless on the telly, because of course I should have clocked the dog bowl. Big ceramic thing by the kitchen bin. Name painted on in wonky letters. Bertie. You do not get a Bertie by accident. Bertie is a decision. Bertie is a lifestyle. Bertie is a wet nose and a wagging arse and, as it turns out, the single most effective mood killer I have met since that bloke who asked if I had a five year plan during oral.
We had been in the pub after work. Nothing glamorous. The one near the office that smells of gravy and floor polish and has those sticky menus nobody ever wipes. He was the friend of a friend of someone in accounts, which is how half my nights start if I am being honest. Tall enough. Nice mouth. Talked like he knew he was fit but had not quite worked out how to be clever with it. I liked that. I like a bit of confidence I can outrun.
Three drinks in I already knew I was going home with him. Not because he said anything special. Because I wanted to, and I am not in the habit of pretending I do not. He bought the fourth round and I let him, which I do not always, and then we were outside sharing my vape like we had known each other longer than an evening. Mango. Always mango. I told him if he coughed I would take the piss and he coughed anyway, which I respected.
His place was a ten minute walk, which is dangerous information to give a woman who has already decided. New-buildish. Cleaner than my flat, which is not hard when you live with two other girls and a mountain of laundry that has developed its own personality. The second I stepped in I should have seen it. The lead on the hook. The muddy towel. The faint smell of biscuit and damp fur that no candle ever quite covers. I saw the bowl. I clocked the name. And I still took my coat off.
Bertie was in the garden when we got in. Spaniel. Liver and white. The sort of face that looks permanently delighted and slightly stupid, which I usually find charming. He barked once at the back door like he had opinions about my existence. Callum, that was his name, Callum let him in and did the whole voice people do with dogs. Who is a good boy. Who missed daddy. I stood there in my work trousers thinking I should probably go home and not shag a man whose first guest of the evening had four legs and no sense of timing.
I did not go home.
We ended up in the bedroom with the door not quite shut, which I will also be adding to the list of things I should have clocked. Coat on the chair. Shoes kicked under the bed. That lovely stretch of time where you are still a bit smug about how easy it was. He was a good kisser, I will give him that. Hands in the right places. Not in a rush, which I like, because I am in a rush enough at work. I had been thinking about this since the second pint. That itchy, greedy feeling I get when the day has been long and I want someone else’s skin more than I want another episode of whatever I have been half watching.
Clothes came off in that messy way they do when nobody is trying to put on a show and both of you are a bit pissed. I was on him first. Mouth. Hands. The stuff I know I am good at, and I am not going to pretend I am modest about it. He made that low sound men make when they have overestimated how average the night was going to be. I liked that too. I like being right about myself.
Then I turned over.
All fours on his duvet, work hair still up from the office, feeling properly pleased with myself. That is the honest version. Not some soft focus nonsense. I knew how I looked. I knew what I was doing. He was behind me with a hand on my hip and I was already in that greedy little headspace where the rest of the week can do one. The door was still not shut. I heard the collar tag before I understood it.
Clink.
Then weight.
Then a very wet, very cold tongue on the back of my thigh.
I shrieked.
Not a cute shriek. Not a film shriek. The sort of sound you make when something warm and alive and completely uninvited puts its mouth on you in the one place you were not advertising. I shot forward so hard I nearly went off the end of the bed. Bertie, delighted with his contribution, hopped fully up like this was a family activity. Tail going. Ears flapping. That spaniel grin. He licked the air where my leg had been and then tried again, because spaniels are not known for reading a room.
Callum laughed.
That is the part that still makes my skin crawl in a different way. He laughed. He said something like oh my god that is so bad and then, I swear this is true, he said it was kind of hot. Kind of hot. A dog had just tasted my thigh mid-shag and this man, this fully grown employed adult with a named pet and a decent sofa, thought the erotic temperature of the room had gone up.
I grabbed the duvet. Bertie took this as an invitation to sit on it. His tail slapped my calf. I could feel dog on my skin. Not in a sexy way. In a I need bleach and a priest way.
Get him off, I said.
Callum was still behind me, still half in the moment, still holding my hip like we were going to resume after a brief spaniel interlude. I twisted round and looked at him properly. He had the face of a man who thought this might become a funny story they told together in six months. I had the face of a woman calculating the fastest route back to my flat and whether I still had baby wipes in my bag.
Bertie, I said. Off. Now.
He lifted the dog down. Bertie immediately put his front paws back on the mattress and looked at me like I had personally betrayed him. I do not hate dogs. I will not have that put on me. I like dogs. I would die for a dog. I would not, under any circumstances, like a dog to join in. There is a line. The line is fur. The line is a wet nose on the back of a thigh while you are trying to get fucked after a long day of emails and other people’s calendars.
I sat back on my heels. The mood had not dipped. The mood had been shot in the street. Callum reached for me again, softer this time, like we could kiss our way past it. I let him for about three seconds because I am greedy and I am stubborn and part of me still wanted the night I had walked in for. Then Bertie sneezed on the duvet and I felt my soul leave through the window.
I cannot, I said.
You can, he said, which was bold.
I cannot do this with him watching.
He is not watching, Callum said. He is just being friendly.
He licked me.
He licked your leg.
That is my thigh, I said. That is a different postcode.
We both looked at Bertie. Bertie looked at us like we were the entertainment. His tail had not stopped. There was a tennis ball under the radiator I had not noticed until that exact second. Of course there was a tennis ball. This whole flat was a shrine to Bertie and I had taken my knickers off in it.
I got up. Not dramatically. Just the quiet, doomed getting up of a woman who knows the night is over and is already rewriting it into a story she can bear. Bra. Shirt. Trousers that were still warm from the pub. I could feel where the lick had been. Cold. Specific. Branded.
Callum sat on the edge of the bed with his dick out and his dog at his feet and the expression of a man who had not planned for this particular ending. I almost felt bad. Almost. Then I remembered kind of hot and the feeling passed.
I am not mad at the dog, I told him, because I needed that on record. Bertie did not know. Bertie thought we were playing. Bertie is a spaniel. Spaniels think everything is a picnic. You, though. You thought it was a bit.
It was funny, he said.
It was not funny in the moment, I said. It is going to be funny tomorrow. Tonight I want to go home and wash my leg until the skin comes off.
He offered to put Bertie in the garden. He offered tea. He offered to start again like you can just peel a spaniel off a sexual encounter and carry on. I put my shoes on and found my vape in my coat pocket like it was the only adult in the room.
At the front door Bertie tried to come with me. Of course he did. I crouched down despite myself and scratched his ears because I am not a monster and he had done nothing except be a dog with poor boundaries and an owner who needs his head seeing to. Good boy, I told him. Stay. Please, for the love of god, stay.
Callum asked if he could text me. I said he could, which was generous of me, and then I walked back toward the main road with my thigh still tingling in a way that had nothing to do with him.
The fallout was exactly as undignified as you would hope.
I got home and both my housemates were in the living room with a film on and a bag of crisps between them. They took one look at my face and knew. Not the details. Just the shape of a night that had gone wrong in a specifically Cat way. I stood in the doorway, kicked my shoes off, and said his dog licked me.
There was a pause.
Where? one of them asked.
I pointed.
They screamed. Proper screamed. The good kind. The kind that makes it slightly better. I told the whole thing standing up because if I sat down I was going to feel Bertie again. I vaped out the window. I made a cup of tea I did not want. I had a shower so long the boiler started making that noise it makes when it is judging you.
Callum texted twice. First one was sorry about Bertie, with a little dog emoji, which I will admit made me snort. Second one was you looked so good though, which I ignored because I have some standards left and they live in a very small box marked do not compliment me while your pet is sampling my leg.
I told work nothing, obviously. I am a personal assistant. I organise other people’s lives. I do not need accounts asking why I look like I have seen god and not in a sexy way. I did the diary. I answered emails. I thought about Bertie’s face at the worst possible moments, like in the lift, like over a salad, like when my boss said fetch and I had to bite the inside of my cheek.
The funny thing, and there is always a funny thing once the hot water has done its job, is that I was not even angry for long. Embarrassed, yes. Horrified, absolutely. A bit robbed, if I am honest, because I had been having a very good time and I am good at that part of my life. I had been right there, smug, on all fours, doing exactly what I wanted after a dull day, and then a spaniel rewrote the scene.
I keep thinking about Callum saying it was kind of hot. That is the bit I will not forgive quickly. You can laugh. You should laugh. I laugh now. What you cannot do is decide a dog’s tongue is part of the foreplay and look at me like I am the one being uptight. I will do a lot of things. I have done a lot of things. I will not add Bertie to the list.
Would I go back? No. Would I meet him for a drink if Bertie was at his mum’s? I have not decided, which means I probably would, because I am like that. I want what I want and I am not good at pretending a near miss puts me off forever. I just want it without an audience. A closed door. No collar tags. No tennis ball under the radiator watching me like a tiny yellow witness.
I still want a refund on the evening. Not the drinks. The drinks were fine. I want the ten minutes back. The ones where I felt like myself, greedy and sure and a bit arrogant with it, before a liver and white face appeared at the exact height of my dignity and said, in dog, hello, I live here actually.
Poor Bertie. He was only being friendly. I hope he got a treat. I hope Callum washed the duvet. I hope the next girl clocks the bowl on the way in and asks the only question that mattered.
Does he come in the bedroom.
If the answer is yes, she should put her coat back on. I did not. That is on me. I saw Bertie written on ceramic in wonky letters and I still got on my hands and knees like the night belonged to me.
It did not. It belonged to the spaniel. And if I am being honest, which I usually am when it is too late to be useful, that might be the funniest and most insulting part of the whole thing.
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