Loneliness Bites
By Allister Craven
- 1 -
"You should get a dog," Katrina said matter-of-factly, still chewing on the last small bit of the cookie she had ordered, washing it down shortly after with a sip of her latte.
"I should, huh?" Erica answered, deadpan, unimpressed with her friend's suggestion. "I pour my heart out to you about being lonely and frustrated with my dating life, and your answer is 'get a dog'? How is that supposed to help?"
Katrina looked over the rim of her cup at her friend, then set the cup down. She raised her fist, then pulled one finger up. "They're loyal," she remarked, then lifted another finger. "They love you unconditionally," she added. Raising a third finger, she continued, "They don't talk back, they don't try to get in bed with your friends and they keep the bed warm, just to name a few reasons." The friend closed opened her hand and picked up her cup again.
"Yeah, but I can't fuck a dog," Erica replied, raising her fist and lifting her middle finger at her friend. The two stared at each other silently for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"Trust me, Er, go to the Love Store on 5
th
. You can buy a pink friend that'll fuck you way better than any dude could."
The two broke out in a laugh again, then changed topics and finished their coffee.
About twenty minutes later, the two old friends hugged in front of their favorite café and said their goodbyes.
"Er, you're a bad ass, you know that, right? But I think maybe sacrificing your social life to be a bad ass attorney is coming back to haunt you. Don't forget to be you, yeah?" Katrina advised as they broke their embrace. "Love ya, Nerd," she finished. "Love ya too, Slut," Erica replied with a wink.
Erica and Katrina had been roommates their first year of university and became fast friends, despite their completely different personalities and ambitions. Erica had wanted to be a lawyer since she was a small child spending evenings watching legal procedurals on TV with her father. Katrina, on the other hand, went to college because her parents told her to, and she mostly saw it as an excuse to party and socialize, and so their callous nicknames for each other were born.
After they finished their degree programs, Erica went off to law school, passed the bar and joined a reputable law firm in the city straight away. Top firms weren't known for being accommodating to young women's social lives, and this firm was no exception. Erica didn't mind though - she was going to be the best attorney in the city, and everything else could wait.
Now, Erica was a junior partner but had little to show for it on a human-level. Katrina's daughter was now 5 and helped her mom at their family run florist shop, but Erica still lived alone in her small starter home, alone, with nothing but her case load to keep her company.
Her situation hadn't bothered her until now. She had some flings in university, and even had a late night rendezvous in the copy room with another Associate a couple years back, but the loneliness hadn't hit her until now. She was well into her thirties and always thought she'd be married at this point in her life, if not with kids. What happened?
Erica's office wasn't far from the café, and she often walked down to meet her friend for a cup. On the way back this time, she found her gait a little slower than usual. Pausing at a crosswalk, Erica looked left, then right. Her office was to the right.
"Fuck it," she said to no one in particular, then turned left, pulling out her phone to text her paralegal to clear her day.
It wasn't long before Erica was standing in her red-soled Louboutin shoes on cement floors looking down a row of kennels. She looked up and down the path through the thin metal wires keeping back a score of canines of various colors, breeds and temperaments. Fixing her posture, Erica set herself and stepped forward in the same power-pose way she did when she walked into the court room. She wasn't sure why she felt so out of place here. As a child, her family always had dogs. She loved them.
But a voice in the back of her mind was nagging at her, telling her this was silly, irresponsible. *To hell with that voice,* she thought. *It's just a dog. It's not like I'm taking up meth.*
Erica took her time at each kennel, reviewing the usually terrified animal inside. Some barked and jumped at their wire confinements, others cowered in the back corner. For each, she would kneel, wait to see how the little one would respond, then move on to the next.
Towards the end of the row, she drew a double take at a dog quietly laying in its kennel. It neither barked nor cowered, it simply looked back at her, as if it was watching her back, mutually testing her response.
Erica looked up at the sheet of paper hung on the kennel door.
"Alfred," she read, then looked back at the animal. He was beautiful. His coat was silvery gray with streaks of white under his long chin and around his brow and ears. Alfred was large, much larger than many other domestic dogs she'd seen. If anything, he reminded her of a dire wolf from the old fantasy novels she read long ago. She looked back at the sheet of paper. 'Great Dane Mix', it read. She had seen Danes before, but this one seemed large even for one of those.
"I don't abide dumb men, Alfred. But you don't look dumb," she observed. Alfred panted slowly and quietly a moment, then rested his head on his paws.
They continued to regard each other in silence before Erica finally turned and went back to main lobby of the shelter.
"Ah, Miss, did you make a decision?" the young woman behind the long counter asked.
