"So, you up for some fun tonight?" asked Heather breathily into her phone. She was twirling her blonde hair, and feeling a bit horny.
"Sure," replied Carol, "I just got back from a shit day at work and could really do with a drink and some entertainment. But give me an hour to recover. How about that place in the City, the one with the glass dome, about 8?"
"Great, see you there,"
Frank Van Olden was depressed. Once again his perpetual shaky financial circumstances dictated that he had to spend another long year as a Resident Assistant in the dorms at Concordia College. He was not looking forward to it. His experiences over the past three years on this duty had been a never ending parade of dealing with vomiting drunks, three am fist fights and combating the perpetual stink that only young men can create when living away from home for the first time and having no concept of what a trash can is used for.
"I am really going to do this...Really?!" I say to myself as I am close to pressing the 'Enter' button on the totally black and low tech looking website. The website looks as if it hasn't been updated since the late 90's, but it has written postings from just yesterday. There are no photos except of a brightly colored red door with a curly whip knocker. The picture looks so kitschy that I wonder if it is actually from an artist's imagination and drawn in ink, but no it is a photo.
Editor's note: this story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.
*****
Reader note Tess O'Meter -- Red.
I am naked.
My wrists and ankles are stretched painful away from my body, muscles starting to quiver from the strain.
I don't know how long I have been here; it seems like all day.
It's all a bit blurry really.
Last night, as I was walking back to my hotel, I passed some local guy who smiled at me.
We were nearing the Christmas break. Everyone in the orchestra was exhausted from the ridiculous season that the new conductor had foisted upon us, with scant regard for the physical effort required in churning out program after program of major works. If it wasn't Shostakovitch, it was Strauss, or some hellish piece of contemporary music that only the composer's mother or a member of the local deaf association would tolerate. Either way, more and more friends and colleagues were suffering from back pain and tendinitis, and the physios were raking it in.
I had not heard from Barb since we broke up 5 years ago. I had moved, she decided not to move with me, and the long distance relationship didn't work for either of us. Barb called a few weeks before a trip that I had planned back in town. We agreed to meet for lunch while I was in town.
At lunch, we talked about what we had been up to; family, work, and friends.