Bar and Joey Page 4

  * * * *

  Since Mrs. O’Donnell is unseen and unfound, Slender Man serves dinner: a beginning portion of clam chowder with homemade rye bread, thick cubes of beef over noodles, butter-lathered green beans, and a gelatinous French dessert I can’t pronounce but tastes like pistachio.

  Because Aunt Holiday is still asleep in the sitting room, and Kel and Magnum Ride are no-shows for dinner, tucked away in the porn star’s heated bedroom on the second floor, obviously banging the evening away, continuing their passion for each other, conversation at dinner is shared among the colonel, Lady Vampe, myself, and our kind host, Bar Moore. Colonel McCarmichael’s pet, Dash Hound, is present, but he doesn’t sit at the table. Instead, the pet contentedly sits at the colonel’s right side, Indian-style, happily eating on the floor, chained to his owner by golden links.

  Talk flutters among us. Lady Vampe speaks endlessly about her Hollywood roles, dropping famous names left and right, and the parties and events she attends in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and elsewhere. The colonel shares war stories, bragging of his time in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Bar details his trips to Europe, visiting Transylvania and various parts of a haunted Romania. Flatly, I discuss the greeting cards I create, lacking luster during my speak, presenting a wordy and emotional adventurous life to the dinner gatherers. Essentially, it is a becoming dinnertime, I confess, not at all boring, listening to Bar and his overnight guests. We are all so different, yet intrigued by each other, high among the blissful chatter, and unyielding.

  Following dinner, Bar recommends to the present group, “We should retire into the library for an evening cocktail. Come, if you are interested.”

  The lady, colonel, his pet, and I agree. We follow Bar through narrow arches and pass into the library, another small area of the castle. The library is plagued by vintage books with gilded pages and leather spines, overwhelming dust, and four high-back chairs, just enough for the attendees since the colonel’s pet will faithfully and fitfully sit on the floor at his side. The exuberant hearth shines with red-orange light, creating heat within the library’s tomb, filling the area with a cherry and cheery scent.

  Minutes later, Slender Man serves strong hot toddies, and together we sit among the many rare Steinbecks, James Joyce, Homer, and other writers’ works.

  Hereafter, warmed by the fire, Bar stands, raises his toddy, and says, “The snowy and betraying evening is afoot. I do hope we survive the blizzard. To our safety and good health.”

  “Hear hear.” Colonel McCarmichael raises his toddy in agreement.

  “I concur,” Lady Vampe utters, also raising her toddy.

  I follow suit, pleased to be among the group, sheltered from the cold storm.

  * * * *

  I will be the first to admit I have far too much to drink following dinner and inside the library at the castle. Slender Man serves me one hot toddy after the next, leaving me inebriated. As Lady Vampe and her nemesis, the medal-winning Colonel McCarmichael, argue about terrorism in the Middle East, President Trump (Lady Vampe is a huge hater), and school shootings (the colonel believes each teacher should have their own battery of high-powered weapons), Bar hears a window flapping open in one of the downstairs rooms and rushes off to close it.

  What transpires is nothing less than dreamy and inebriated confusion for me. It feels as if Bar has left the library eons before, and the lady and colonel continue to argue for the next decade. Bored, tired, and unsure of my present state, feeling light-headed, surely blitzed, I clumsily make my way out of the library, bumping a hip off a nearby table, a globe, and find escape through the hallways, ending up somehow, someway, and somewhere inside the kitchen area.

  Mrs. O’Donnell comes to my rescue. She cuddles me against her and asks, “Has Bertram gotten you drunk, my dear?”

  I lean against one of the butcher blocks and nod. “I believe so.”

  “Shame on him. He’s always getting our guests drunk. My personal apology. Perhaps a strong cup of coffee will mend you.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “That will only make this condition worse.”

  “Surely so,” she agrees. She walks to a nearby cupboard over the stainless-steel sink.

  I hear laughter in the distance and turn my view to the hallway where I’ve come. Nothing and no one is there. I assume ghosts are in full swing this evening among the castle’s interior, preparing to haunt those who visit.

  Mrs. O’Donnell says something on my left, and I turn my attention towards her at the sink. She is not here, though, proving I’m drunk, unable to hold my alcohol, suffering from blurred vision, a visual mishap.

  I whisper her name and look from left to right.

  Where is she?

  Nowhere.

  Damn.

  When I decide she is not present, I leave the kitchen and go on my merry way, further exploring the castle.

  * * * *

  Unexpectedly, my drunken travels take me on a clumsy, this-way and that-way self-tour that lasts an hour or more. Eventually, I end up at the Princess tower and its room, opposite where I am staying in the Prince tower and its room. I reach the bedroom’s single door outside Kel Foxford’s room, tap on its plane of wood three times, and call out, “Kel, are you in there?”

  Silence. Nothingness.

  Of course, he’s not inside the room. He’s currently between the porn star’s legs on the second floor, busy in act seventeen of his seduction.

  I enter the room.

  Shame on me. What am I thinking? Do I no longer have any manners?

  The room is a mirror image of my own except that everything is various shades of dark and light pinks: bedspread, numerous pillows, square rug on the floor, draperies. The room screams of pink, horrifying me, blinding me. Appalled, feeling my stomach turn, I exit. Again, I walk clumsily through the castle, spiraling downward to the second floor and its narrow hallway. I try each bedroom door, most of which are locked. Two are unlocked, and I enter, clicking on lights. Nothing inside. No luggage. No occupants. No ghosts. I leave. Still dizzy and drunk, unsure of my actions, I come to another door. This one is also unlocked. I quietly and slowly turn its knob, push the door forward, and enter.

  To my surprise, and ignorance, I enter Magnum Ride’s semi-illuminated room. What I see will never be unseen: my naked friend, Kel, is on his back and sports a black leather blinder over his eyes, chains secure his ankles and wrists, leaving him a prisoner on the bed. KeI is bone- and hugely-hard between his legs, obviously excited by the sex-time with his new friend. I study a naked Magnum Ride kneeling over my friend. Magnum toys with his own erection, huffing.

  Within seconds, following a few handy strokes, Magnum Ride fires a load of goo over Kel’s ripped torso and hard cock and whispers, “Take my load on your dick. Take it all.”

  It sounds graphic and something you might hear in private. It sounds like something one might hear (and view) in one of Magnum Ride’s dirty movies. It sounds like…

  I decide to leave the pair alone, quietly step backwards into the hallway, and pull the door closed behind me.

  Safe. Unharmed. Thank God.

  Low and behold, the second floor of the castle soon becomes a freak show. I attempt to open the next bedroom door, but it’s locked. I try the next, but it’s also locked. The last door on the right is unlocked, though. Seeing two door knobs and key locks, drunk beyond drunk, I wobble on my feet and enter the room. Again, what I see will never be unseen: the profile of a chiseled and hairy Colonel McCarmichael inside his pet, holding the gold chain in his right hand; the pet on his hands and knees, taking his dominator’s rough hits to his bottom, one after the next…next…next.

  The muscular pet (gym-tone shoulders, back, and thighs) grits his teeth and groans. He is spanked, thrust into again and again. Rosy-colored welts appear on his bottom. Together, in opposite motion, the two men glide back and forth, obviously hungry for each other.

  I leave the Master and Servant behind, exiting the bedroom as quickly as I arrive. After closing the
door, my attention is drawn to my right and the other end of the second floor’s hallway. It appears Lady Vampe has also had far too much to drink, since she crawls down the hallway on palms and knees, grunting. Once, she tumbles to the floor, almost performing a face-plant. Fortunately, for her sake, she lands on her right side, pushes herself up on all fours, and continues her lowly trek again, perhaps attempting to find her room and calling it quits for the night, turning in after socializing with her nemesis.

  To no avail, Slender Man enters the hallway through a secret panel in the wall. He slides the panel closed behind him, shortens the ten-foot gap between Lady Vampe and himself, and lifts the woman up and off the floor. I watch the servant walk the lady to her room, which sits diagonal to Colonel McCarmichael and his pet’s room. The two vanish inside. I assume Slender Man puts the woman to bed, caring for her in her delicate state of intoxication, or spending the night with her in a freak show of seduction between the actress and his long-limbed frame. I’m not sure what transpires within the room between the paring. I don’t want to be sure.

  Exhausted, inebriated beyond rationale, I decide to turn in for the night and find my room. Awkwardly-footed, I make my way up the spiral staircase, open the door that says Prince, and enter, closing myself off from the rest of the guests, ready for sleep.

  * * * *

  Sleep doesn’t occur, though, at least not yet. I toss, turn, and hear the torrential wind outside as it beats against the castle’s walls. A howling echoes around me within the tower, which sounds more like the three-headed dog, Cerberus, allowing the gates of the underworld to open, helping in the feat of releasing and unleashing evil spirits on the earth.

  Nestled under a sheet and three blankets, believing I’m going to freeze to death during the post-midnight hours, I hear a cracking sound and instantly spring to an upwards position on the bed. Rather suddenly, one of the four tower windows blows open, its wood clanking against the wall. The crack is obnoxious and startling. Cold wind and snow rake through the circular room, blowing this way and that, spiraling, stinging my cheeks.

  One of the Victorian pictures of a young boy along the Seine River blows against the wall, its wooden frame creating a disturbing snapping sound. The small desk chair tumbles over. Wind becomes a tirade of three snaps, swirling around the room in rage. Again, I feel as if I’m in a scene of Frozen, under a cold spell in a very dark fairy tale, blemished from the chill.

  To my surprise, escaping the bed and moving to the window, no glass is shattered upon my inspection of the window. I simply close and lock it, spin around and…

  Mrs. O’Donnell stands within the center of my bedroom. She’s dressed in a long white robe. A bleached-white and cotton bonnet covers most of her face. She swings a bronze lantern in her right hand. The lantern’s interior and glass chamber illuminates the Prince room with an orange-yellow flame. She nods and smiles.

  “I do hope I didn’t startle you, young man.”

  She does, but I shake my head, denying such an action. How does she make her way within the tower room without me hearing her? Where has she come from, and so silently?

  I tell her, “I’m fine. The window blew open from the blizzard.”

  She chuckles. “That never ceases. Such an annoyance. Don’t forget that the castle is foreboding. Such things are expected to occur. Ominous events always happen during the night.”

  I watch her walk slowly to the empty space between the dresser and the bed. Tangled in the lantern’s flickering light, she places her palm against the wall and gives it a short but abrupt press. A door immediately opens inwards and another passageway within the castle.

  Over her right shoulder, she provides her grandmotherly smile at me and instructs, “Don’t just stand there, young man, we have things to see. Follow me.”

  * * * *

  There is a narrow ladder that falls down to the second floor which we carefully take. Experienced, Mrs. O’Donnell leads the way, making a decline from the Prince room, one rung at a time. In doing so, while holding the lantern above her head with one hand, she says up to me, “If you fall, Joey, you’ll die. So, I recommend you be steady with your footing and grip.”

  I listen, following her. Carefully, being meticulous concerning my movement, like her, I take one rung at a time, slowly and surely. Truth is, my footing is deliberate, almost ungainly, and executed with very little skill. Never have I scaled a peak or mountain’s steep side during my greeting card writing years, reaching its rocky apex. Not once have I mastered the peaks in Zion National Park in Utah. And never have I crawled along and over the rocks of Yosemite’s Merced River Canyon in the beautiful state of California. Honestly, I am not one to be that energetic, achieving better greatness and fulfillment with a pen and paper.

  I don’t fall, though. Thank God. Hand over hand, and foot over foot, I carefully execute the decline. Above Mrs. O’Donnell, I cover five…ten…fifteen…twenty…and twenty-five feet before reaching the second floor. Side by side, at the bottom of the ladder, I listen to the secret paneled door above us close on its own, its clicking/shutting sound echoing down the lantern-illuminated shaft.

  Mrs. O’Donnell snickers. “Remember, young man, the castle is alive around us. There is movement and ghosts everywhere.” She grabs my nervous and moist right hand and leads me to the right, down another narrow and board-framed channel, perhaps showing me the way to the center of the castle, its heart.

  * * * *

  There are more spiders and their webs inside this new passageway. Streams of wind in ribbon-like forms wave throughout the walls. It feels warmer here than in the Prince room, protected from the cold, similar to insulation.

  Trusting the older woman, I feel her pull me through the darkness. She whispers for me to be quiet and careful with my footing.

  “We don’t need an accident of any sort, Joey. There’s no way an ambulance is going to be of use on a night like this.”

  In the shards of orange-yellow light offered by the lantern, I see more thumb-size knobs along the walls, obvious peepholes to the castle’s rooms that are the eyes, ears, or mouths in the Edwardian-style oil paintings throughout the establishment.

  She zigzags through the walls. Left. Right. Another left. Yet another left. We move slowly among the passageways, passing sleeping rooms and bathrooms on either side of us. Together, we weave from one end of the castle to the other and…

  Mrs. O’Donnell stops and unleashes her hand from mine. “The end is here,” she whispers. She turns the lantern off and pushes on a part of the wall. A doorway opens. “Go now,” she instructs. “Go.”

  I listen, stepping into complete darkness, a strange room within the castle that smells like musk and masculine sweat. I hear two things: the wind outside strumming against the castle’s walls, and my host, Bar Moore, ask in an alerted tone, “Who’s there? I have a gun, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

  * * * *

  I hear a click in the darkness, knowing he takes the gun’s safety off.

  “Don’t move. I’ll kill you if I have to.”

  My throat becomes instantly dry. My legs tremble. The heart within my chest bangs against my ribcage. I try to breathe but can’t. I try to speak but can’t.

  Bar turns on the bedroom’s light, immediately filling the room with a bronze hue. He stands by his bed with his legs ever so slightly spread, the handgun pointed in my direction. He recognizes me and places the Colt .45 on the night stand to his left. “Joey Redd, what are you doing in here? Did you use one of the secret passageways?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I answer his first question, pause. I add, “I did use the passageway from my tower room.”

  He chuckles. “Are you lost?”

  I can’t help myself and observe his frame: bare-chested and obviously used to the cold since he wears nothing more than a pair of tight, white briefs; thick thighs with very little hair, perfect dents and curves make up his stomach; muscular shoulders. He’s a beautiful man; someone exhilarati
ng to look at, a turn-on for a man-magnet like me. My gawking takes in the cotton briefs, and I begin to study his most private area. The hidden jewels beneath the material look semi-plump and above average in size. A feeling of uncertain bliss jumps inside me, affecting every nerve ending. A rush of excitement and zeal floods through my veins, mixed with my blood.

  Nervously, I clear my throat and lie, “I can’t sleep and wanted to see you, Bar.”

  “Good. I can always use the company. The wind is keeping me awake.”

  I steer my view away from him and take in his bedroom: king-size bed, emerald walls, white trim, two chairs, a flat-screen on top of a large dresser, a sofa against one wall, a writing desk and chair similar to the one in my own room. It looks comfortable and homey, nothing out of the ordinary, unlike the rest of the castle.

  He adds, “Obviously, you’ve been busy with the secret passageways.”

  My eyes consume his good looks again: almost fully naked, firm in all the right areas, not at all an unpleasant sight. “It’s freezing,” I tell him. Truth is, I boil inside, thumping with a high temperature. The area between my legs feels like fire, singeing. “And I should get back to my room. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not a bother. I like your company. Why don’t you stay for a few minutes, get cozy-warm under my sheets, and then you can make your way back to your room?”

  My mind tells me I can’t stay. I won’t stay. But my feet and legs take over my body, and I move forward, closing in on his king-size bed and Bar. As he pulls back the covers for me and instructs me to climb inside their cocoon-like structure.

  I wonder if Mrs. O’Donnell had this planned all along, right from the very start: to cause Bar and I to accidentally meet again, this time in such a bizarre case scenario, both of us semi-clothed, alone, and after dark.

  His right hip grazes against my left hip. “You’re a very good-looking man, Joey. I’m sure there are many men who have called you sexy.”