___ Like a Dog

I paused the game and looked down at the Playstation 3 control which I had gotten from Sony a few months before as a 'thank you' for teaching the CEO's daughter how to please a man. Luckily for me she was hot. I didn't want to look over to my $3000 armoir where the letter sat, but I knew eventually I'd have to read it. At one point, the guy who wrote it was one of my closest friends. We had a falling out about eighteen months back as a result of his constant lying, stealing, mooching, and general malfeasance. Among friends I had started calling him Dick, which was short for Dick Nixon, but seemed to fit in a more general manner as well. The thing was, we never really had a falling out per se, I just stopped calling him after I changed the locks to the house and the code to the gate and removed his fingerprint from the scanner's memory at the hand pad four miles down the road where my estate began. I also had him beaten up by my modestly-sized staff of hooligans. I sighed and picked up the envelope, which I was surprised even made it to my house, given that Dick has misspelled my name, my address, and the letter seemed to have been printed in coal on a scrap of old newspaper.

Dear Chris,

the letter began,

I've never really asked you for anything before,

(this was a lie)

but I've got a really tough situation on my hands, and I need advice.

After two months, Patty and I have been getting along really well, and I like her a lot. She's pretty, she's fun, and she's really understanding--a great girl. There's only one problem: every time we start to get it on, I can't get hard. It's not like I'm not attracted to her--just the opposite--but for whatever reason I don't bring anything to the table. Here's the weird part. When we start getting freaky, I can't think of anything else but Jackie. I know she and I broke up a year ago, but I still can't help but feeling like I made a mistake when we split up. What should I do? Should I get some Viagra or something or should I try and get back with Jackie or just suck it up? Help me Christopher Zane, you're my only hope.

Yours,

Dick

Having known Patty in the past (friends of mine had dated her, but not me--she was a classless tramp, as far as I was concerned), I knew that the situation had two answers, and only after both of them were addressed would he be able to slip his old lady the hot beef injection in a meaningful and successful way. I began outlining a letter in my head that centered around the following points as I snacked on a four-foot-tall tray of rare truffles that were rooted up by my pack of keen-nosed hogs:

1. A confounding factor in Dick's wood problem was one I knew about from other sources (those aforementioned friends who had attempted the horizontal mambo in the past). Through a combination of genetic and learned behaviors, Pat, when aroused sexually, began crying. I don't mean that she softly weeps, I mean she moans, wails, groans, and screams as if perhaps she was watching the slow and deliberate death-beating of the cutest puppy in the world, Mr. Buttons. It's a strange thing, because she's really not feeling sad or pained at all, although you wouldn't know it based on the tears and snot that run freely out of the holes in her face. Imagine trying to enjoy yourself sexually when on the other end you hear nothing but sharp and piercing screams that seem to indicate torture or misery. Not an easy task.

2. As was his wont in the other aspects of his life, Dick was dishonest and deceptive towards his ex, Jackie, all the time, and the two parted on less than amicable terms. My thought is that perhaps if he were to square up with her and come clean about his misdeeds that he could put her out of his mind and move on.

3. If he didn't feel like getting into all that, just get the drugs.

I had it all figured out, and was about to start jotting my thoughts down on a page of my eggshell-white stationary, but then I remembered that the guy owed me forty bucks from when I spotted him for a cab ride home four years ago.

"Winston," I called out to my butler, as I re-started the videogame, "have the boys go over to Dick's house and beat him up a little for me, will you?"

"Yes sir," he said.