David Rivers was thirsty, too thirsty…

He awakened suddenly from a tortured sleep and tried to get his bearings.  Blinking rapidly, trying to focus his steely gray eyes, he realized he was blindfolded.  His mouth felt like cotton and his throat was dry.  He desperately needed a drink of water.  His thoughts turned to the night before and the party.  What a blast!  The champagne had flowed like a never-ending fountain. 

Not one prone to hangovers, a night of drinking should not have produced this fog.    His body felt achy and tight as he attempted to remove the blindfold.  After repeated attempts at movement he realized he was tied down.  Panic welled in his throat and crying out only produced a raspy whisper.   He was bound face down and spread eagled with what appeared to be heavy velvet ropes, similar to drapery tiebacks.  Now, if he could only figure out where he was, how he got here and what nut case tied him up.

          Still under the influence of the champagne, he drifted off.  His reverie was disturbed by the sound of a rich contralto voice stating very matter of factly, “you will pay for what you have done!”  Before he had a chance to process the new information he heard a sharp crack and felt the intense stinging pain of a lash on his bare buttocks simultaneously.  The feel of soft fur being dragged across his now aching posterior followed this.  He squirmed against the tethers as the fur criss-crossed over and over again.

          Several minutes passed and David thought he was alone once more.  His senses were reeling as his mind tried to clear and focus on the events at hand.  At this point he feared the worse, whatever that was was yet to be.

“Is someone there?”  His squeaky voice was buried in the mattress and barely audible.

          “Pay attention!  I am not finished with you yet!  You will pay for what you have done.  Make no mistake about that!”

          Lying there bare-assed and exposed to the world, David tried as hard as he could to remember anything he could have said or done that would have pissed someone off enough to kidnap him and hurt him this way.    The sound of another crack and the stinging pain of the lash once again meeting his tender flesh interrupted his thoughts.  His muffled cries were somewhat soothed by the soft sensual feel of the fur.  Confusion began to assert itself like an unwanted guest who refused to leave.  As intense as the pain was, so sensual and pleasurable was the soft stroking with the fur.    What method of torture was this?

          David began to lose track of time.  He was also drifting in and out of consciousness. 

          Robert Chambers sat in his favorite chair in front of a silent television and thought.  The house was quiet except for the occasional and expected chiming of the grandfather clock in the foyer.  Like most things in his life, the sound the old clock made was a constant; it was anticipated.  He liked things that way.  To some it would seem as if he was extremely naïve; after all wasn’t life about being adventurous and taking chances?   He sat there in his favorite chair, in his favorite room sipping his favorite scotch. 

          The large cardboard pouch remained unopened.  He knew who it was from and he had a good idea of the contents.  He turned it over a few times and thought.  He thought about what a good and patient person he was.  He thought about how kind and selfless he was and he thought about the envelope.  He knew he should have ripped it open like a child at Christmas who can’t wait to see what is inside the fancy wrapping paper.  There was nothing fancy about the envelope.  It was the standard FedEx pouch, the kind every recipient had to sign for in order to make the exchange with the courier.  He took another sip of the scotch.  He had a headache and heartache and at this point it was difficult to tell which was the more painful of the two.   He placed the envelope on his lap, folded his hands and thought.

          The light of the day was fading as was the warmth, and he knew it would be dark soon.  It would be time to prepare dinner and eventually he supposed it would be time to open the pouch.  The noise emanating from his gut determined his priority in the matter, and he stood up from his favorite chair, downed the last of the scotch and placed the pouch on the seat of the chair. 

          Robert Chambers walked the few feet to the kitchen and began preparing dinner.  Tonight would be easy since he would be dining alone.  He would prepare a man’s meal – rare red meat, one half of a baked potato and a salad, a real salad; the kind of salad where you rubbed the bowl with a clove of garlic and then lightly tossed real greens - radicchio, endive, baby spinach with a few baby portabella mushrooms and a handful of grape tomatoes added to  complete the vegetable medley.  He would top it with the dressing of his choice without the noise of feminine protestation.

          The dining room table was filled with things that belonged elsewhere, and he casually pushed them aside to make room for his dinner plate and salad bowl.  The food quelled the symphony in his stomach but did little to alleviate his other pains.  That would come later.  For now he was intent on enjoying the meal.

     Everywhere Josef Hickerson went these days he was confronted by Christmas.  If it wasn’t the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of the begging bell ringers, it was the incessant playing of carols.  Suddenly nothing else in the world seemed to matter except the plans and generosity of some overweight man wearing an outdated red suit and ridiculous black boots, and whose personal toilet left a lot to be desired.  He seemed to always be in need of a haircut and beard trim.  His brothers in kind seemed to subscribe to the same grooming philosophy.  What the fascination was with some old coot who claimed he could shimmy down non-existent chimneys and kept reindeer as pets was beyond all comprehension.  By Josef’s calculations, the man raked in more money in two months than most working stiffs made in two years.  Whatever the draw, Josef  refused to buy into it. 

     The fat man himself had never presented a problem for Josef;  it was his runners - those damn pesky little people who delivered the stuff for the man.   They seemed to be the ones who kept the lists of who was deserving and who wasn’t.   These elves had become the bane of his existence and every year he was reminded of how they ruined Christmas forever for him.

           Sam Chandler wore many hats, among them were caterer extraordinaire, novice mechanic and appliance repairperson.  All of the various uniforms were kept at the ready in the trunk of the car along with the various implements needed for each job.  There was an assortment of gloves, caps, shoes etc., all neatly organized in garment bags.  Today was Monday, which meant covering the on-call shift for appliance service calls.  People were so strange.  No one seemed to believe in routine maintenance anymore. 

          Having received no calls all day, it was now after 5 p.m. and Sam felt comfortable going to dinner.   The reservation was for 6:30 p.m. and with rush hour winding down, the trip should only take twenty minutes at the most.  As soon as the engine turned over, the cell phone rang; a service call in the opposite direction – some guy having problems with his dryer.  So much for dinner.    The address was easy to find, the neighbor was a different story.  The guy seemed to be having second thoughts about letting a stranger into his friend’s house, but if Greg felt comfortable with it, who was he not let the repairman in.  He turned on the lights and pointed in the direction of the basement.

          The first thing Sam did was to remove the clothing and place a towel on the surface of the dryer.   After checking the controls, and removing the faceplate, the problem became obvious.  It was also obvious that it was going to take at least an hour to repair, thereby nullifying any possibility of making it to the restaurant.  Turning on the iPOD and plugging in the earphones the work got underway.

          Greg always appreciated the fact that Sun Li always had his order ready when he arrived at the restaurant.  He wondered if the repairman had arrived and he also wondered what kind of bill he was facing.  When Carol was there the appliances always seemed to work just fine.  No matter how hard he tried to banish all thoughts of his ex-wife she seemed to keep popping into his head.  He supposed it was only natural but it found it quite irritating.  Carol had been very matter of fact about her intention to move on and “get a life”. 

          The short drive home gave Greg too much time to think.  The split had been the best thing for both of them but truth be told there were those times when he missed her.  The fact that they had become “intimate partners” only was another axe Greg had to grind.  During their marriage the sex sucked.  He and Carol had never been sexually compatible.  She was pretty to look at and that was it.  Everything else was robotic.