Let me tell you about my once-upon-a-time lover, Sylvester.

Oh, he was wonderful and filled with sugary words — a master of flattery — and, oh, should I mention, a master in bed. And not to forget, he was very, very, very unfaithful. Yet he was as wild as the wind, as a proper lover should be.

When I first met Sylvester, it was in front of the town’s fountain, while he was breaking up with Joan, the town’s best dancer. A small crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle. Joan stood there, clutching the yellow flower he gave her, silently holding back tears while he spoke.

And oh, were his words sweet — so sweet that it sounded as though he were asking for her hand in marriage, not breaking up with her.

He hugged Joan in a tight embrace and promised to love only her in another life. But for this one, he said he was “a dog cursed to forever have no home.”

That line of his was famous — it was even added to the town’s plays about him. So, the moment I heard it, I knew this was the Sylvester.

Every girl knew about Sylvester, not just from the plays, but from our mothers who warned us about him, and our fathers who cursed him out. Yet, even in this small town, this was the first time I was seeing him.

Yes, he wasn’t bad to look at, but the actors in the theatre were way better looking. So it beguiled me why he was more popular. During the course of their exchange, Joan slapped him — quite hard, might I add — but he didn’t waver in the rubbish he said.

“Quite thick-skinned,” I thought, as I watched him promise eternal love in another life. The plays didn’t do justice to this shameless Casanova.

Joan eventually ran off as her tears began to fall. Poor lass must have really loved him. A pity.

The crowd was beginning to disperse, and I was about to leave when he called out,

“My, oh my! The gods must have taken pity on my heart, so wounded from love, and sent you to me!”

Such shameless flattery. And yet, I’d heard it once before... from a book? Or was it from one of his plays?

“Oh fairest of maidens, gift from the gods, would you take in this wounded dog and let him find comfort in your embrace?”

He continued in such a melodramatic tone that the crowd, who had already started to disperse, began to gather once again, curious to see who the new target was.

Sylvester held out a red rose he had just pulled from his jacket and offered it to me.

Me, of all people.

He either didn’t know my father, or he really had guts.

As the rose pointed to me, I began to hear whispers among the crowd — especially whispers of bets. Some said I would be difficult and take Sylvester two days; others said I might accept right away.

The audacity of these people — it seemed they had all gone mad.

It was all so repulsive; instead of rebuking this shameless man, the crowd was unwittingly encouraging this charade. I received the rose and allowed it to fall to the ground, crushing it beneath my heel.

“Aren’t you being a bit too shameless?” I said, my voice clear and crisp.

“You just broke a girl’s heart right in front of me, and without giving her enough time to grieve, you chase after another — on the grave of her shame.”

The crowd fell silent.

I thought maybe they were beginning to see the shamelessness of the situation. That is — until Sylvester spoke.

“Yes, I am a dirty dog, one who was never shown the right path. So I beg of you, fair maiden...”

He fell to one knee before me and brought out another red rose.

“Take in this dirty dog and clean him with your love.”

His words and actions were overly dramatic — like something from a play — yet they had a certain charm that wasn’t lost on the crowd. They cheered for him; some even took notes.

At that moment, I knew that reason was lost on these people.

For two months, he pursued me fervently, breaking his streak of getting any girl in less than two weeks — and the newspapers were sure to cover this story.

It always bugged me how he knew where I’d be during those two months, but our town was small; everyone knew everything. And for those two months, the story of me and Sylvester was the talk of the town.

One day, after sneaking out of the house in one of my brothers’ clothes, I went to the library — where Sylvester was waiting in front, with a bouquet of wildflowers.

He once said the both of us were like wildflowers — untamed, free, and beautiful.

I did find it creative, but nothing more.

Lowering my head, I snuck past him and went into the library. I didn’t have the energy to deal with a “dog.”

Hours passed, and when I came out, I saw Sylvester still there, with a small group of young lads. The flowers had begun to wither.

“Joan must have been flexible in bed, I presume?” one of the lads said.

“Were her moves in bed as good as on stage?” another chimed in.

Their intentions were all too clear — they needed validation before tarnishing Joan’s reputation. It was utterly repulsive.

I was about to speak up before Sylvester said,

“Joan is a pure flower. She wouldn’t bed a dirty dog like me, and I respect her for it. That was the main reason I ended it with her. I didn’t want people thinking such dirty thoughts.”

He said it in such a serious tone, as though he had to, even though he didn’t want to. His lie was so smooth, so believable — it lacked his regular theatrics, making it all too convincing.

If Joan hadn’t told me herself how wild he was in bed, I’d have been fooled myself.

Then a thought struck me: why were the pure images of the girls he’d been with (and slept with) still preserved?

So I did some digging. I even interrogated my brothers — all seven of them — and realized one thing: from the men’s perspective, all the girls in our town were too proper to bed a “dog” like Sylvester.

A lie, of course, because I knew it wasn’t so.

In all the female gatherings, I’d met and chatted with a few of Sylvester’s old lovers, and oh, how they’d praise his… talent in lovemaking. And that clearly wasn’t a lie.

But the reason the men believed what they did was because Sylvester didn’t say otherwise. He would say things like,

“Sigh… no matter how shamelessly I threw myself on her, she never gave me anything but her heart.”

Throwing away his dignity to preserve the woman in question — and there was no reason for him to lie... or so they thought.

Sylvester was a scoundrel, a dog, a shameless Casanova — but he seemed to value the dignity of his lovers, and I found that… quite noble of him.

After that day, I stopped avoiding Sylvester and allowed him to pursue me freely. A couple of days later, I accepted — privately, of course.

My father, the sheriff, had a nasty temperament, and one wrong move could have Sylvester killed. And although he was tactless, he very much knew this.

And so for a month, Sylvester was my lover — my secret lover. And oh, was he wonderful. He knew what I liked, what I didn’t, and how I liked what I liked.

He had his way with words… and in bed.

Most notably, he — just as I — had no faith in the flimsy notion of love. At least for him, not in this life.

Turns out, if you looked past the dog, there was a somewhat decent human being — which I found much more appealing than the pretentious morons in town, the ones just waiting to tarnish a woman’s reputation.

But a dirty dog is still a dirty dog.

So, when the day came that he handed me a yellow rose — and not a wildflower (in private, of course) — in the darkness of night along the seashore, I placed it in my hair and made love to him like wild lovers do.

I was neither sad nor upset. After all, I had no love to give a dog.

And I guess he preferred it, as he said to me he “had no guilt.”

And so, like he did at the end of every affair, he promised to win my heart and love me properly in another life — while I lay naked in his arms, beneath the moonlight.

Two days later, I heard he had set his sights on Veronica, one of the actresses in the theatre. And so, my tale with Sylvester came to an end.

A few years later, I got married and had kids of my own. And before my father died, his greatest joy was that, no matter how hard Sylvester the dog tried, he could never tempt his daughter — and I could never dare to correct him, now could I?

Last I heard of Sylvester, he got shot in the leg after being caught in bed with a hunter’s wife.

Sometimes, I think of my youth and feel a little tinge in my heart.

Maybe I did love that dirty dog — but whether I admitted it or not, the outcome would have been no different.

Now, I have a husband (from another town) who loves me — and I guess I love him too, considering I never cheated or thought of divorce.

He might not be as wild and reckless as the man from my youth — he’s more reserved and quiet — but lovely in his own way. Especially the part of him that gets jealous, something Sylvester could never be.

Hmm… it’s gotten less lively around here.

Maybe I’ll tell him about Sylvester.

Might be fun.

The End.

RutiX✍️

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