The next day was a Sunday. Dick would tell because nobody went to work on Sunday. The man wanted to show Serene a secret. But it would have to wait, he said. There were chores to be done.

The laundry, the lunch and the baby took up all their time. Dick lay on the armchair and watched disdainfully while the two adults crawled and babbled and wrestled with the baby.

Finally, Serene decided to coax the excited but exhausted baby to take its afternoon nap. As she tugged the baby into its cot, Danny rolled the television rack into the bedroom. From the corner of his eye, Dick could see the man nudging his wife. He whispered something in the ear and she smiled. Her lips twitched in bemused puzzlement as he led her to the bedroom.

Now what were the two up to? Dick thought as he slid from his armchair to follow the couple. As Danny slot a video tape into the video recorder, Dick saw the smile on Serene’s face fade gradually into apprehension. Dick hopped onto her lap.

‘What are you doing?’

‘A video tape. That’s what I want to show you,’ Danny grinned sheepishly.

‘What kind of tape?’ Serene asked suspiciously.

‘A special kind. You’ll see.’

The screen flickered to life. The opening credits were accompanied by some music with a pulsating beat and a tune that kept repeating itself like a jingle.

Danny climbed onto the bed gingerly.

Dick watched the scene unfolding on television. A car rolled to a stop at the car porch. Its Caucasian driver carried a vacuum cleaner to the typical English country house. He could have been a delivery man or a salesman. It did not matter.

The doorbell chimed. An English lady in a miniskirt and high heels led him into the house. She could have been an overdressed housewife or under-dressed housemaid (depending on which part of the anatomy you were looking at). It did not matter.

The man and the woman looked salaciously at each other. Then without further ado, they were tearing the clothes off each other.

Dick grinned. It was comical. The way humans spent so much time covering and uncovering their bodies. But Serene was not amused. He could feel her stiffening. She was sitting with a straight back like a schoolteacher and pouting irritably like a schoolgirl.

The man and the woman rolled about on a king-sized bed. By now, they were in their element. Bare. Wild. And abandoned. Dick watched in astonishment. The woman refused to lie still. She rolled about. She climbed all over her partner. She applied herself to all the different parts of his anatomy. And vice-versa.

Dick was confused. All the bitches he knew were passive. If not, it would be impossible for the dogs to mount them. Dogs had to learn the hundred and one things that dogs do. From the time the dog became enamoured with that special fragrance, to the time when the dog must take command. Be still, and know that I am a dog! That was the command. And the bitches? All they needed to do was to obey that command and be still.

Suddenly, Serene pushed Dick off her lap.

‘This is disgusting.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not going to watch any more of this stuff.’ She marched out of the room.

‘Hey!’ Danny got up quickly to follow her.

But Dick’s eyes were glued to the television set. He shared Serene’s annoyance. The woman refused to behave. If a bitch did not behave, Dick knew what he would do. He would bite her neck! Yes he would. So he could not understand why the man did not bite the woman. In fact, the man seemed to be enjoying himself. The silly man! Dick turned away from the screen just as Danny came marching back into the bedroom. His face was red.

‘You saw that? You saw how she reacted!’ Danny fumed. His feelings were a mixture of anger, disappointment and…

‘She said it was repulsive – I was repulsive!’

… and humiliation.

‘Repulsive! Repulsive?’ Danny repeated to his captive audience. ‘I thought it would be educational.’ Danny threw his head back into his pillow in exasperation. ‘It would have made it easier for us to start talking about our sex life, at least.’

Serene appeared at the doorway. Her face was deathly white. She was stricken with apprehension and… and what?

‘Aren’t you going to switch that damn thing off?’

Dick froze. Such strong language! Serene must be feeling mad.

‘Do you know this is criminal? Watching this tape and having it in our house…’ she pronounced the words “our house” emphatically, ‘… is a crime!’

‘And look at her. Look at that damn bitch!’

Serene pointed accusingly at the woman on the screen. Dick’s ears pricked up. He was affronted. Certainly not. Females in his species did not behave like that!

‘She’s a sex slave. If you wanted a sex slave, you should have married a prostitute!’

And with that, Serene turned her head indignantly and walked away.

There was a long pause in which Danny lay staring at the ceiling while the television moaned and groaned distractingly. Dick looked from the silent man on the bed to the energetic couple on the screen. Danny had lost interest in the video. His eyes were sad and his mind, a thousand miles away.

‘We’re sexually incompatible, aren’t we?’ Danny mumbled to the ceiling. ‘You know it is strange, the way we take so much care in choosing our lifetime partners.’ He shook his head grimly, ‘We take months or even years to match our temperaments, our interests, our attitudes on various major subjects before we translate our physical attraction into love.’ His thoughts tumbled from his lips in trickles, as if it took great effort to organize their incoherent shapes and nuances. ‘Yet we do not experiment sexually before marriage. Or at least not sufficiently to see whether we’re sexually compatible.’ He grimaced at his own short-sightedness.

‘The fact that such tapes are banned in Singapore does not make it any easier, either.’ Danny sighed heavily.

What was it about this country that its women screamed at the sight of sexually explicit material, the Government publicly humiliated its men who watched them, and husbands and wives could not discuss the most intimate and vulnerable moments that they shared?

Danny heaved himself off the bed with an effort and switched off the television. When he saw that the watchful canine was alert to the antics of the couples on screen and off, he ruffled his fur ruefully.

‘It gets boring, anyway. They keep repeating the same things over and over again.’

H