I first met the man of my dreams by accident — and much of the rest of this tale was also by accident. Well, maybe it wasn't completely by accident. Maybe there were other powers at work. Maybe all this tale was just meant to be.

I am a country boy at heart, and even though I live in Vancouver these days, in fact, right in the heart of the gay village, I am not one for the various clubs that spring up, become trendy, and then die a quick death when a new scene takes the forefront. Nor am I into bars that much, although I will visit a pub every now and then, but when the "beautiful people" invade, I am out of there like a shot. I have to deal with them enough as it is. I bar-tend at a very trendy piano-bar and restaurant in the West End, and lots of "trendies" –gay and straight – come there to eat, drink, and most of all, to be seen. It's maybe not the ideal job for a prairie farm boy, but the pay-rate is acceptable, and the tips are good. It pays my rent and more.

I do like the Village, however, with its gaggles of guys just like myself – gay! It's just that I am basically shy and have trouble meeting the guys I really like. I just don't know how to get started, how to approach them. And if one of them starts it, approaches me, I usually get so tongue-tied I make a complete fool of myself.

But with Jake, it was different. He is a handsome man, ten years my senior, although he really doesn't look forty, maybe thirty-five at the most. Our first meeting, a Saturday, over a year ago, was at a street front cafeteria/coffee shop on Denman, one of those places that move out onto the sidewalk in summer, erecting a temporary fence around part of the sidewalk and claiming it as their territory.

I was already seated and had just been delivered of my iced coffee, grilled ham and cheese, and a glass or water, when a strikingly handsome man approached my table.

"Would you mind if I join you?" he asked. "There are no other outside tables available."

"Not at all," I said. "Grab a seat." The man was a real hottie. I was glad to have him ask to sit with me. His reddish-brown hair was cut fairly short, and a fashionable, carefully cultivated stubble clothed his chin. Although he was ruggedly masculine, I wondered whether he, too, was gay. Maybe he had chosen to sit with me because he guessed I was?

It was only when he pulled out a chair to sit that I noticed he had something concealed in his shirt. And it was wriggling! It was alive!

The man saw the concern on my face and reached into his shirt to withdraw his burden. It was a puppy - a little white-ish puppy with darker tips. It was not much bigger than his fist, but wriggled furiously trying to see everything around. It licked at his hands and licked at his cheek when he brought it up to his face.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "That's so cute. What sort of dog is it?"

"I'm not really sure," the man replied. "A woman was giving the puppies away outside the liquor store. She said they were part Cairn Terrier, but she didn't know what the father was. I just couldn't resist this little miss."

Hm, I thought, a man who can't resist a cute puppy! He's got to be gay. Maybe this was my lucky day! But then the man added:

"My daughter will just love her!"

Damn! His daughter? He must be married. He must be straight.

"She's already costing me a mint," he told me. "The Sands Best Western is charging me twenty-five dollars a night to have her in the room, and Air Canada wants another fifty to fly her back to Montreal. At least they are letting me take her in the cabin without a cage."

The puppy was now wriggling and squirming in his lap, trying to see all around her.

At that point, the waiter arrived back at the table. He addressed the man with the puppy.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'll have to ask you to leave. We can't have dogs inside the restaurant."

"But she's just a tiny puppy," the man objected.

"I know," sympathized the waiter, "but it's a public health issue. We could lose our license."

"I understand," the dog-owner, said. "I guess I'll have to find a drink for her somewhere else. We just wanted a little water. She's thirsty."

"Goodbye," he said to me. "It was nice to meet you." My heart sank to think that he was leaving so soon. He left the table, carrying his puppy, and slipped out through the opening in the temporary fence enclosing the café out into the flow of passers-by.

"Wait!" I called after him. He came back to the low fence beside my table, but still outside on the street.

"Yes?" he asked, as if he expected me to say something important.

I mumbled, "I just thought I could give your pup some of my water." I poured some water from my glass into the cupped palm of my hand. He held the puppy to it. She lapped like crazy. She was definitely thirsty. Most of the water dribbled away onto the pavement, but I added more until she was satisfied.

"Thank you," the man said. "You're very kind ... I'm sorry, I don't know your name. What shall I call you?"

"You can call me Robert," I told him, "or Robby, if you prefer. I answer to both." I really wanted to say "You can call me any time!" but I didn't.

"And you can call me Jake," he told me. Jake grinned broadly and stuck out his free hand for me to shake. His other firmly clutched his little bundle of fluff, which was squirming wildly. "I'd better take this little one down the lawns on the waterfront. I think she might want to pee. I hope we'll run into each other again sometime," he said, then turned and headed down to the beachfront a couple of hundred yards down the hill. I hoped so, too.

I finished my lunch and coffee as fast as I could, paid my bill, and hurried down the hill after Jake and the puppy, but when I got there there was no sign of them. I cursed my own reticence. I could have said, "Wait a minute. I'll come with you," but I didn't. Once more I had let an opportunity slip by.

I walked back to the Sands Best Western. Jake had said he was staying there. I asked at the desk whether they had a guest named Jake who had a small puppy. I was told they were not allowed to divulge such information.

That night, in the depressing room I rented by the week in one of the older buildings in the West End, I bemoaned my fate - a gay, single man, alone in the heart of the Gay Village in Vancouver. Here I was, fantasizing over a handsome straight man I had met only for a couple of minutes. I needed to get my head straight. I also needed to find myself a better place to live, now that I had a steady job with a reasonable income. I had been on the lookout for a small apartment for ages, but they were all so expensive, unreasonably so for someone on a reasonable income. Those asking reasonable rates were snapped up before I even woke up in the morning!

The next day, still thinking about Jake, I prowled the beachfront area close to Denman and Davie, close to the Sands Best Western, where Jake had said he was staying. I walked back and forth along the paved beach path, hoping to find Jake and his puppy somewhere along here. I had no such luck. I even went back to the same sidewalk café for lunch, thinking maybe he would stroll by once more. That, of course, was rather a long shot, considering he had been asked to leave the previous day.

Towards evening I bought some take-out Chinese food and headed home to my lowly room. I had never felt so alone since I left the farm. There, at least, there was always Davey, the hired-hand, an older man who had first introduced me to the joys of man-sex when I was still just a teenager. I could always count on him for a hot time.

Sick of myself and my own company, I decided to venture out and hook up, if not with company, at least with some guaranteed sex. I headed for the Vesuvius Baths — not the most "in" baths in town, but rarely crowded, and never with those guys who just come there to show off their naked bodies pumped up with steroids. This was usually an older crowd, or younger men, like myself, who avoided the trendy scenes.

I had discovered this place soon after I arrived in Vancouver, and a had often used it for a quick hook-up ever since. I had even taken out a membership – fairly expensive, but a great saving over the daily (or nightly) rates.

Having signed in, I stripped off, put my gear in a locker, and wrapped in a towel, went to prowl. There was hardly anyone here this Sunday night. In the viewing room, a couple of guys in towels were watching a porn movie on the fifty-inch screen. One was obviously playing with himself under his towel and the other was watching out of the corner of his eye. I figure these two would soon be getting it on together.

I wandered upstairs to the private rooms area where there were ten small rooms available to rent by the hour or by the night. A couple of them had the doors ajar but were empty, probably recently vacated; but all the other doors were closed and locked, either occupied or unrented. I wandered back downstairs and headed for the basement pool.

When I entered, there was only one other person in the pool area, a man already in the water. He had his back to me, but my heart leapt when I saw him. He looked just like Jake! Hearing me come in, the man turned, and his beautiful baby-blue eyes went as wide as I'm sure mine must have been. It was Jake!

He stared up at me from where he stood in the crystal clear water. I could see his large cock waving slowly back and forth underwater. My own began to rise under the concealment of my towel.

"Oh, my God!" he exclaimed. "Robby, it's you! I never thought I'd see you again, let alone … well… here!"

I gave him my biggest smile ever.

"I thought you must be … well, you are married, aren't you?" I said lamely. I could see his cock more clearly now. It was growing noticeably. So was mine. It was beginning to tent out my towel.

"So you thought I was straight? Well, so did I once upon a time — or at least I tried to convince myself I was. That was probably the main reason I got married – to prove to myself I wasn't gay. But it didn't work. I still love my wife and daughter, but I'm afraid of what will happen when she finds out!

"But enough about me," he continued. "Are you coming in, or are you just going to stand there looking stupid?"

I laughed and dropped my towel, revealing my full-grown hard, stepped off the tiled edge, and plopped into the waist-deep water beside him. Jake wasted no time. As I landed he wrapped his arms around my waist and drew me to him. Our cocks met under water and rubbed tantalizingly together before they were crushed between our wet, naked bodies. He thrust his mouth toward me, and I opened mine to meet his. We kissed hungrily, trying to devour each other, our tongues pushing into each other's mouths, our teeth nibbling at the other's tongues, sucking, exchanging spit.

I could feel his hard cock pressing against me. I wanted it in my mouth. I broke free from his clutching arms and slipped blow the surface. I easily found his swollen prick bobbing away there below the surface and sucked on it eagerly.

But soon I had to come up for air, and when I did, Jake was there to hug and kiss me once more, grasping at my cock under the water.

"I knew I wanted wanted you the moment I saw you sitting there in the outdoor café," he whispered. "I didn't ask to sit with you just by chance," he confessed. "I knew I wasn't going to get served with the puppy, but it was an excuse to meet you."

"Why didn't you say something?" I asked, kissing him back.

"I was too shy," he admitted.

"I was hoping you would say something." I told him.

"Why didn't you say something?" he asked, between kisses.

"I was too shy," I told him, and we both laughed.

"But I'm not shy now," I added, and began kissing him all over – his mouth, his cheeks, his neck, his nipples, and heading south. I was almost to water level when he stopped me.

"Let's go into the sauna," he suggested. "At least we can lay down in there." He began to clamber out of the pool, practically poking me in the face with his rosebud hole as he did so. I couldn't resist. I stuck my hand between his legs and grasped his wet, thick pole.

"Say right there," I ordered, and he sort of hung there, kneeling on the tiles at poolside, his ass suspended over the water, his hole hanging there invitingly, right at my face level. Spreading his cheeks with my free hand I probed his hot hole with my hungry tongue.

"Oh, my God!" he cried. "That is soooo hot!" I lapped at his rosebud like a puppy at water, like his little pooch had done to the water in my hand. "I love it," he told me, "but this tile is so hard on the knees. He grasped my towel from where I had dropped it, and wriggled and jiggled enough to spread the towel under himself while I continued to grasp his cock and lick both it and his rectum in turn.

"You're driving me crazy," Jake told me. I inserted one of my wet finger into his spit-wet hole and I thought he was going to hit the roof.

"Ow-ooooh!" he cried. It sounded like he was in pain.

"Am I hurting you?" I asked, concerned.

The doors to the a sauna were right there in the pool room. We didn't have to go far. Like the pool area, the sauna was empty at this hour on a Sunday night. I vaguely wondered where people were. At church? Watching a softball game? Enjoying the last of the day's sunshine on the beach. Whatever it was, we had the place to ourselves. I grabbed a couple of extra towels from the rack just outside the sauna doors in case we needed them. I didn't bother with the free condoms or mini-lubes in the containers by the towels. I knew there were more inside the sauna area, if we needed them.

But we didn't even wait to spread the towels before we were entwined on the polished cement floor and surrounded by polished aluminum walls which vaguely reflected our every move.

Jake was on top of me as I lay on my back on the cement, in this room which was already steamy without adding two horny, over-sexed men to it. Jake's hard cock was pressing against me as he dry-humped me and I pressed up against him, feeling my own hard cock rubbing against his. Like mine, his cock was long, thick and bare-headed.

"You're not going to believe me, I know," he whispered, "because we hardly know each other, but I do know you are the man I've been looking for all my life."

"I know just how you feel," I whispered back, as he sought for my lips again. "I feel the same way." Our mouths met and we kissed and sucked and writhed together, slippery and wet, like mating eels.

"I want to fuck you," Jake whispered.

"Yes," I agreed, and began to turn over.

"No!" Jake objected. "Like this. We can do it. Just spread your legs."

I didn't notice until now, but when we entered the sauna he must have grabbed a couple of the tiny tubes of lube that were waiting by the door. He broke the top off one of these now, and squeezed the contents into the palm of his hand. He smeared much of it along his cock and the rest of it into the crack of my ass, probing into my hole with his slippery finger. It was a prelude of what was to come. I can hardly express how much I wanted this man inside me at that moment!

He didn't use one of the freely available condoms, and if he had tried to put one on, I would have told him not to. I wanted him raw inside me. I wanted his whole cock and all his cum deep in me.

I soon got what I wanted. I felt the pressure of his swollen apricot of a cock-head against my anus. I felt my rectal muscles relaxing and distending. I felt him slowly entering me. I felt a little pop as the ridge of his cockhead slipped past the outer ring of my asshole, then it was sliding slowly further in, forcing its way, followed by his thick, rock-hard shaft. Then the second muscle ring, and more resistance, more distension, and then a further rush, and his cock-head was all the way in and going further and further into me. I could feel it forcing its way deeper and deeper into my soul.

Jake was in a 'push-up' position now, supporting himself with his arms while thrusting his pelvis against me, his knees supporting his lower body. He bent his elbows and lowered his face down to mine to kiss once more. We began a slow grind as we kissed again and again during one of slowest, longest fucks I had ever experienced.

When he finally came inside me, in an explosion of sexual passion for both of us, he lay there exhausted on top of me for some time, while we kissed again and again. Eventually he withdrew, and I rolled onto my back, still hard. Jake immediately took me into his mouth, and while he sucked and licked my knob, he masturbated my shaft with a free hand. The other was fingering my hole. The combination of hand and mouth and fingers was enough to bring me to orgasm too, and Jake sucked down my cum as it poured out of me in wave after wave.

When we were finished, spent, we dressed at the lockers, and I walked back with him to his hotel.

"I have to go up," he told me. "I left the puppy all alone for far too long. Do you want to come up and stay the night?"

"I'd love to," I told him, "But I'm working a twelve hour shift tomorrow – midday to midnight. I need to get some sleep."

"Then how about meeting me for breakfast tomorrow morning, right here in the coffee shop?"

"That sounds good to me," I told him. "How about nine a.m.?"

"Perfect," Jake agreed. "I'll see you then. Now I'd better get upstairs to my little poochie. I hope she hasn't whined all night and gotten me kicked out of the hotel." With that, Jake entered the lobby, and I walked home, elated.

As much as I needed sleep, I didn't get much that night. I could not stop replaying in my head my sexual encounter with the hottest man I had ever met. And to think he felt much the same about me!

By nine I was already seated at a table in the hotel coffee shop, waiting for Jake. I accepted the coffee the waitress offered, but told her I would wait to order when my friend arrived. By nine-thirty, I was getting worried, and the waitress had asked me several times whether I was ready to order. I finally gave in, and ordered good ol' bacon and eggs, but when it came I ate without much relish for it.

By the time ten o'clock came, I couldn't just sit there any longer. I paid my tab went to the lobby desk. Again I asked about a man named Jake who had a small dog. I fully expected to get turned away again, but instead the clerk asked, "Are you Robby?"

When I told the man I was Robby, he informed me,"Your friend checked out very late last night. He asked us to give you this note." With that, the clerk handed me a folded piece of hotel stationery. I opened it to read:

I was devastated. How would I ever see him again? Even if he came back to Vancouver, how would he find me? He didn't know my full name, where I lived, where I worked, not even my telephone number or email address. How would he ever find me again? And what about him? What did I know about Jake? Just that his name was Jake and he had a wife and daughter and that he came from Montreal. We had been nothing more than two men in an anonymous tryst. But surely there had been more to our sex-making than that?

I went to work that day in a lousy mood, feeling betrayed by life. I somehow managed through that shift, and the next day's shift, and the day after that, and the string of days which followed.

It was the nights which were the hardest. Alone in my room, I would think of Jake and the opportunity I had missed because of some family emergency in Montreal. I would sit by the window of my dingy room and finger myself and masturbate thinking of Jake and his hard, taut body and beautiful face and throbbing penis.

I sank into a bout of depression, worsened when winter came on. Somehow I dragged myself through that winter, occasionally eating in the Sands coffee shop, or making a visit to the Vesuvius Baths, hoping against hope to run in Jake again at one or the other. I didn't of course, but at least at the baths I usually got my rocks off. There was always some horny guy or another eager to give me a blow job, or more. I responded, of course, but my heart just wasn't in it.

Eventually spring rolled around. It helped me to pull out of my doldrums. It even inspired me to try to find a better place to live. However, just as last year, there were few desirable places at an acceptable price, and I was always too late. But my turn did eventually come.

Spring turned into summer, and I was passing one of the few remaining old two-storey, single-family brick houses in the West End, just a little way along the street from where I lived. An older man was trying to manhandle a couple of sheets of gyproc from his pick-up to the house. They are not easy things for any one man to move, so I offered to give him a hand. He gladly accepted my help.

He also had a bunch of other building supplies in the truck, and as I helped him lug them all into his house he explained what he was doing.

"This place is just to big for me now my wife has passed on and all my kids are out on their own. Figured I'd make it into a duplex and rent out the other half. Already got all the permits and done most of the work. Should be all ready to rent by the end of the month. You're not looking for a cheap place to rent, by any chance, are you?"

My spirits leapt! Was my luck changing?

"I sure am," I told him. "But everything round here is gone before I even get a bid in."

"Well, this duplex has two large bedrooms upstairs, and a full bathroom, and downstairs a decent-sized living room, and I'm just finishing putting in a large kitchen and a small laundry. And a small washroom with toilet and handbasin. I converted a downstairs master bedroom to make those."

"Well, I don't really need two bedrooms," I said, "but if the price is right, I'll take it anyway!"

The old man, who told me his name was Tom Brown, quoted me a price which was ridiculously low compared to what I had been looking at. "And if that's too much for you, I don't mind if you rent out the other bedroom, as long as I get to approve the feller first." He thought a minute, then added:

"And I can also knock a few more dollars off the rent if you're prepared to help me a bit with yard work and such once in a while," he added. "You have any pets?" he asked.

"No," I told him

"Well if you do get a hankering for a dog, or even a cat, to keep you company, I won't mind. There's a nice big yard for them to run in, and it's fully fenced."

Tom Brown and I settled the deal over a beer he offered me in the kitchen of his half of the house. I agreed to give him a hand on my days off to finish up the renovations so the place would be fully finished for me to move in on the first of the coming month, June.

We actually got all the work completed early enough for me to moved in at the end of the third week in May. Tom threw in those days in May as a freebie for helping him with the construction work.

I soon got the place fixed up to my liking, with some furniture Tom gave me, and some more that I bought from the local Goodwill store. It was nothing fancy, but it was comfortable and not nearly so depressing as the one room I had previously lived in.

That didn't stop me thinking about Jake, however – the man who got away. I would never forget the look of surprise and pleasure when he turned in the pool and saw it was me standing there - as if I was all he had ever wanted!

I still occasionally ate breakfast at the Sands, still visited the Vesuvius Baths with the hope that somehow Jake would miraculously appear, but of course, he never did.

It was a cool morning in early June when I decided to enjoy the spring, and take a long walk in Stanley Park. I had already been for a wake-up jog along the waterfront, and knew the air was a bit cold for my liking. Summer was going to be late coming this year. I dug out a sweater my Saskatchewan grandmother had knitted for me – one of those pseudo-Indian ones with a moose and fir trees across the front, and almost too small for me now. It was so out of fashion it was "in", and I'm such a solid, burly fellow, no-one was likely to laugh at it anyway!

It was a beautiful morning, if a little cold, and I enjoyed the sights along the walk – people out speed-walking, or strolling more leisurely, some with their dogs along, even a cat on a leash; the occasional squirrel, looking for handouts; a couple of eagles soaring overhead, and seagulls squawking noisily trying to drive the predators away.

It was when I was on my way back that Poochie came into my life. She came trotting up to me and looked at me expectantly, as if she had known me all her life and that I should know by now what she wanted.

"Hey, girl!"

She wagged her little curled tail furiously, running right up to me, then backing off and wagging some more.

I looked around to see if I could find her owner, but although there were several people in sight, none seemed to be interested in her or in claiming her. I tried to shoo her away, but she would only go a few feet off, then wag furiously again. I tried ignoring her, setting off for home once more, but every time I looked back she was just a few feet behind, never taking her eyes off me, and wagging that little tail every time I looked at her.

By the time I reached the edge of the park and the English Bay area where I lived, she was still following me. I couldn't just leave here there, so I called her to me.

"Here, Poochie," I cried, for want of a better name, and she responded immediately. She came trotting up to me and did not resist in any way when I bent and lifted her into my arms. She snuggled up against me and licked my cheek.

"I guess I'm taking you home for the night," I told her. She licked my cheek again in response.

I checked to see if there was any sort of identification on her, but I could find no tattoo makings, and she had no dog tags. The only thing that set her apart was her collar. It was a real leather collar, bright red, with a series of shiny silver studs set around it.

When I got her into my duplex, I gave her water and she lapped thirstily. She also gobbled down half a can of Spam I had stowed away in a cupboard for emergency use only. I also made her a bed from a cardboard box I had used while moving and a couple of old towels. I put Poochie in the box, and she appeared to be quite happy with it, but when I turned round, she was gone. I found her upstairs, sitting up on my unmade bed, as if that was where she belonged. After putting her back in the box a couple more times, only to have her back on the bed, I gave up and let her have her own way. I guessed I would not be sleeping alone that night. Once she had settled that that was where she wanted to sleep, she was content to come back downstairs and follow me around wherever I went.

After lunch, I introduced her to Tom, and asked him to keep an eye on her while I went out to buy a little dog food, and a leash, and to put a few notices up around the area. I had taken a picture of Poochie, minus her collar, with my iPhone, and I used my computer to write up and print off a few one page posters of Poochie. They featured a picture of her on my bed, and the text below:

I didn't include my address or telephone number because I didn't want people pounding on my door at all hours or phoning me any time of day or night. With emails, at least I could choose when to answer them. And everyone has access to email these days.

I posted copies on a couple of power poles in the area, and on the bulletin boards in the liquor store, both supermarkets in the area, the two drugstores, the Vesuvius Baths, and Little Sister's Bookstore. I knew all of sorts of people read those boards eagerly. I hoped the owner of Poochie would be one of them.

I bought some dog supplies – food, treats, a squeaky toy, a pack of poop-bags, and a leash, and went back home to find Poochie and Tom sitting together contentedly on the front steps. When Poochie saw me enter the gate, she just about wagged herself to bits as she ran up to greet me.

When I took her for a walk along the English Bay waterfront in the evening I was partly dreaded that at any moment some distraught owner would rush up and claim her, calling me a dognapper or some such scenario, but the most that happened was the elderly lady stopping to admire my "cute doggie."

That night, as I expected, she came upstairs to bed with me, and after nuzzling me to pet her for a little, she curled up beside me and went off to sleep, staying there right through the night. I was a bit worried about her making a mess in the house, but as soon as I got up and pulled on some pants, she indicated she wanted something and preceded me downstairs. She led me straight to the back door, and when I opened it went out and did her business in the back corner of the back lawn. I picked up after her and popped the bag into one of our garbage bins by the back gate. She was obviously already trained.

I checked the emails in my inbox, but there were none claiming Poochie. Nor were there any by the time I left for dayshift that morning or when I returned home to find Tom playing fetch with Poochie that afternoon. I took her for a walk before supper and again before bed that evening, and felt comfortable and right when I went to sleep with her cuddled beside me that night.

It wasn't until the fourth evening that I got a response to my posters. By that time I had really become accustomed to having Poochie around, so it with great regret that I read the message:

It was with even more regret that I typed and sent my reply:

The owner's answer came almost immediately:

With a heavy heart to be losing my new-found little friend, I sent off my reply, giving the owner my address and informing him that I would be home all evening. He replied again almost immediately saying he was nearby and would be here within half an hour.

I sat in the living room with Poochie listening for a car to pull up outside to signal the start of our goodbyes, but heard nothing. The first sign I got was when Poochie's ears pricked up and she leapt off my lap and rushed to the front door excitedly. At almost the same instant I heard footsteps on the front porch and then the rat-a-tat of the knocker. Poochie was very excited as I opened the front door reluctantly.

I looked at my caller in shock!

"Robby?" he gasped. It was Jake!

"Jake?" I cried in astonishment. I hadn't yet connected him as the dog-owner. "How did you find me?" I really was in shock, and the fact that Poochie was jumping for joy against his leg didn't sink in.

"Find you? You just sent me your address – but I didn't know it was you who found my dog." At that moment it all sank in.

"But your email said your name was Pierre Jacques …" I began.

"Yes," he explained, "Jake is my nickname. The kids at the English-speaking school called me that: 'Jake' Jacques. It stuck. Nobody calls me Pierre anymore – just Jake or PJ."

By now Jake had lifted Poochie up and she was licking his cheek lovingly.

"Well, I sure didn't know it was your dog. She looks nothing like she did a year ago. She was just a tiny pup them. But I can see Poochie is very glad to see you."

We were still standing in the doorway, both of us still in a state of shock, I think.

"How did you know her name is Poochie?" Jake asked, astonished.

Just as surprised, I replied, "I didn't. You referred to your puppy as poochie in the note you left for me, and I guess it just stuck in my mind."

"And they say there's no such thing as coincidence! I never got round to giving her a real name. I just kept on calling her Poochie," he marvelled. "Well, are you going to ask me in?"

"Of course," I said, getting hornier and hornier every moment, overjoyed to see Jake again. And he must have felt the same way, because no sooner had we closed the door behind us than he put down Poochie, took me in his arms and we kissed for the first time in a year.

When we came up for air, I told him, "I've been looking out for you every day since we parted. What was the emergency that took you away?"

"Yes, I'm sorry about that. My daughter phoned me to say my wife was taking them both off to live in Toronto with her parents, my in-laws, who have always hated me because I'm French. I went rushing back there to find out why, because my wife wouldn't speak to me on the phone. It turned out someone had seen me at a gay bar in Montreal with another man. She had long suspected I was attracted to men. She demanded a divorce. She wouldn't allow my daughter to keep Poochie, because she said it was a bribe for my daughter's love. But that's all in the past now.

I smiled at him and kissed him again. "I think both your searches are over. I have plenty of room. How would you and Poochie like to live here with me?"

"Like it? I'd love it!" he replied. "It's been my fantasy for the last year!"

So I led him upstairs to my bedroom - our bedroom - shedding our clothes as we went, and with Poochie standing guard outside the door, we fucked each other's brains out.

We went at it passionately, powerfully, greedily, almost violently, as if making up for our lost year. By the time we were spent and done, we had left our seed in each other, almost as a promise, a sign of planting ourselves in each other for the years we knew we would have together.

And when we had finished with all that, we let Poochie in to join us in the bed. Through the night, Jake and I would wake a couple more times, not for violent, passionate sex as earlier, but for gentle loving sex, careful not to disturb Poochie at the end of the bed – but I suspect she had a doggy grin on her face to see her two masters so happy.

Pleaase tell me what you thought of my story: