The following morning, there was another message from the Navy SEAL.

“I’m looking to find it all—love and intimacy—not just sex.  I intend to share my life and my eleven Labrador Retrievers.”

Whoa! Who said I wanted any of the above, especially his eleven canines? Why would anyone have that many large dogs? I knew that guys who become Navy SEALS were slightly different, but this was insanity–like a few chops short of a mixed grill. His message went on:

“I got the impression from your bio that you want a challenge.”

After two cups of coffee, I wrote back to him. This was going to be great fodder for a post. I don’t know who’s profile he was reading or what kind of “challenge” he thought I desired, but I decided to stay the course.

“Good Morning.” I wrote. “ It occurred to me that we’ve written back and forth a few times, and I don’t even know your name.” 

A response came back quickly. Not only did his profile lack a photo—it was missing a name. He was simply “A Zotsky Member.” My friend Mitzi, who’d convinced me to go on Zotsky, suggested I use the screen name Zohara, so I did. At least I had some sort of identity.

“It’s Sven,” he replied. “Is your real name Zohara?” he questioned.

“No,” I told him. “It’s Mimi. Would you like me to send you my phone number? “ I asked. “You seem to have a lot to say, and so do I. Perhaps it would be easier talking on the phone.”

I gave him my phone number—the one from the extra cell phone I got at Walmart just for online dating–my burner phone. He called right away. Sven rambled on for one-and-a-half hours about his life in the Navy, his deceased wife, his mother, and about the sexual abuse he’d endured at the YMCA. It was a lot.

“My mother taught me to swim,” he told me. “She brought me to the YMCA, got me through the preliminaries, then left me there in a class until I learned. A lot happened at the YMCA. But I got through it. When I joined the Navy, and they saw how I could swim, my commanding officer encouraged me to try out to become a SEAL.”

While Sven was talking, I could hear multiple dogs carrying on in the background. Occasionally, he yelled out the names of dogs and gave commands like stop, shut up, lie down…the usual things.

“Why do you have so many dogs?” I asked.

“My wife wanted to breed Labs,” Sven explained. “I just went along with whatever she wanted. She was a great girl. It wasn’t me that asked her to get married. She asked me, you know.” That point seemed essential to him. “Then she got sick. She was a smoker her entire life,” he told me. “It was lung cancer that killed her. I never let her go to a nursing home,” he said. “I took care of her.” He just kept talking. His loneliness was apparent. “I tried to let go of two pups, but I didn’t like the buyers, so I didn’t let them take the puppies. I gave back their money. They were going to neuter them.”

“That’s what most people do, you know,” I said. “So you have the sire, the dam, and all of their puppies?” I asked.

“Yup,” he said, “and I’m keeping all of them. We’re a pack now,” he explained. 

Now I knew where the Alpha fit into his description of himself.

“I have to let them out at different times of the day.”  I could hear him and his dogs scuffling around. It sounded tumultuous. “I won’t have them fixed,” he said, with disgust in his voice. “I don’t believe that’s right.”

“I assume your property is fenced?” I commented. “Siblings shouldn’t  breed.” 

“No fence,” he responded. “I just let them out by gender when they need to go, and there’s always a bucket and mop close by. Sometimes they run off, but there aren’t a lot of cars up around here. I’m in Maine, near the Canadian border. Not many people in these parts.  

 I don’t believe in cutting off anything nature gave us,” he stated. “My mother had the doctor circumcise me when I was born,” Sven growled. “Luckily, the bastard didn’t get it all.”

My brain was having a difficult time taking in all of this information. What was this guy telling me? He’s sporting a turtleneck? I didn’t want to know.

© Miriam Greenberg, and the blog Love In The Time Of Corona, beginning April 2022 to the Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Miriam Greenberg and Love In The Time Of Corona with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.