“Oh my God! She’ll love it!”

Women were always so strange.

Janie would ask for trips across the globe, longingly thumb through stacks of “Architectural Digest” then take them on house hunting expeditions, touring through mansions lavish enough to scare “The Donald”, and even, gulp, dream incessantly of the “B” word.

So how could this make her so happy?

“Baby!” She blissfully threw her arms around him. “How did you know?”

I didn’t but thank God, Stewart thought, admitting to himself that he didn’t even remember it was a she. Now, what was her name again? His thoughts were on fire behind his dumb smile as she looked into his eyes.

Oh the way she grabbed the back of his strong neck to use him for support. How utterly feminine. Her hair brushed against his cheek as she kissed his lips. The hand on his shoulder glided down his back on a wisp of air on its way to his butt. She held it reminiscent of the way they made love.

An invitation?

God, it had been too long. How could he have let all the external crap come between them? It was just money, right? Look how easy it was to make her happy. Not houses or cars or jewels but just a three dollar pink plastic globe for… what was her name…?

“Manhattan!” Janie called out as she bounced to her furry little white hamster’s cage. “It’s a whole new world, baby! Now you can tour the whole house!”

A hamster ball. Amazing. Sometimes he got lucky with the perfect gift for Janie and it never had to do with how expensive it was. Why did he always forget that about her?

She opened the top of the cage and took Manny out who was quite domesticated and instantly curled herself into a small white powder-puff as she nuzzled against her mommies chest. So trusting - so small in a world of giants.

Giant footsteps caused the ground to rumble as mommy walked her towards the strange smelling plastic toy. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Mommy’s heartbeat so strong. The deep basso of their voices - of hers even as she laughed.

Then she was dropped into the small pink globe. The little hamster instinctively put her arms and legs out trying to maintain composure as she slid and rolled into the strange spherical world, finally coming to a disoriented stop at the bottom of the bowl.

Her head craned back. Her eyes dilated yearning for the one clear disk in the sky above. And, her nose stuck straight up. A toxic volatile hydrocarbon bounced off the dome walls and concentrated magnifying their intensity on the sphere’s foci and flooded into her little nostrils which twitched uncomfortably.

She squirmed but tried to remain calm despite her rapidly beating heart and her short choppy breaths. She wondered if this indeed was the end as she steadily became dizzy from the noxious gas.

The toy bore scratches that nobody would notice except the creature for whom it was intended; after it was molded from low grade PVC that out gassed dioxin at rates thousands of times higher than EPA acceptable standards, the unskilled factory worker in China tossed it into a formaldehyde sealed lead-paint box to be shipped overseas.

As the top was lowered, the lone clear sky turned into clouded plastic to complete the homogeneity of the structure, turning it into a perfect pink orb. Is this really it? Is this the end?

“Oh look! She’s frightened.” said Janie and she stroked Manny’s head to make her feel better. “Don’t worry baby. Everything will be fine. Don’t be a worrier like your daddy.”

“Thanks” said Stewart.

Again, the big plastic dome came down and was screwed on and, at a loss, Manny helplessly pushed her paws against the plastic walls and looked out.

“Don’t worry, sexy” her deep basso continued this time coaxing Stewart as she turned to her man and drew him in. She grabbed his butt again. This was far more than an implied invitation. The hand on his chest moved down and brushed against his cock as if by accident.

He was already hard and ready. He moaned and the rumble shook the plastic universe as Manny watched the two climb into bed and shed clothing. They seemed so much more naked than she.

Mommy’s deep voice trembled for daddy to wait and not to move a muscle but after her hairless body slinked out of the room daddy quickly scrimmaged around under the bed for a dog eared book. He quickly read a page while touching and squeezing his protruding part below his bellybutton while mommy cooed to him in echoing rumbles from the other room.

But right when the waterfall sound started with a booming WOOSH he jumped with a startle and quickly threw the book into the night stand and hopped back into bed under the sheets as if he had never moved at all.

It was so sad because mommy and daddy didn’t really have any fun except for when one of them would put their head on the other ones tummy just below their belly button.

At least she had her wheel, Manny considered.

Daddy especially liked that furry part and seemed to focus all of his attention on it. He would go back to it again and again and touch it again and again patting it like his pet. Then he made a finger or two disappear as he put his head against it to give it a kiss with his tongue.

“She’s watching us!” said Janie.

“Huh?”

“She’s watching us do it! I better put her away.”

“She’ll be fine!”

There was no way a hamster was going to come between him and trying out the “Stinging Scorpion”. Why in the hell would she want to have a baby if even a little rodent could get in the way of an appropriately executed scorpion?

“She’s safe in the ball!” Stewart reassured as he preemptively somersaulted over her to get to Manny first.

“Do you know I had to go to three pet stores before I could find a buddy sphere with the right specs for our Minnie?” he said playfully, though she wasn’t smiling.

“This thing was scientifically designed by a team of skilled technicians and approved by Caesar Milan. You watch. She’ll be fine. Go along little one. Go along and play, Minnie.”

“Manny!”

“Right, Manny” his voiced rumbled.

Daddy’s mammoth hand grew grotesque caused by cheap plastic spherical aberrations as it closed in and jerked the ball to a roll. Like it or not, Manny was forced into motion, forced to walk so as not to tumble.

And, despite the utterly putrid smell and blurred cataract vision, moving in this world felt absolutely amazing. It felt absolutely amazing to be so free in her new round world as the ball ran her across the old wooden floor.

And when she came to a wobbly stop at the foot of the bed she was ready for more.

More! More! She begged banging on the wall with her front paws which caused the plastic to vibrate. She looked up at the two shadowy creatures that moved together on the bed but didn’t give audience to her longing glances.

Well, this sucked. This was just like being back in her old square cage. Even worse. In here there was no endless fountain of water. No endless bowl of nuts. And, no round track on which if she could run just fast enough she was sure she could make it to the top.

She never thought, though, what would happen when she did actually reach the top. Until right then. Nothing. Nothing would happen. Thin white bars covered the top too.

No, this world was better! At least in this world she was out!

She looked up again but this time she saw that her parents were so buried in their own world under blankets they couldn’t possibly see her anymore.

This was completely useless. She turned around, disappointed, and lay down using the plastic globe like a hammock. Her snout jetted into the foci and again toxic dioxin flooded into her nostrils.

Then a crazy thought came. Maybe it was from the poisonous gas or maybe it was her tiny eyes opening just a bit more. But whatever way, she thought: maybe if the world had run her, then, just maybe,…

At first she took it slow. She didn’t know if she was crazy or not. Shifts of consciousness sometimes feel crazy.

She stood up on all fours and tentatively pushed on the wall with her front paw. And an amazing thing happened. The ball tilted forward, ever so slightly. In fact there were these micro fine treads on the inside that only a hamster would notice which caught her paw perfectly as she stepped.

It may have been made of toxic plastic unfit for human use but at least it was functional. If she would die in a year of some mysterious ailment like stomach cancer at least the ball worked. Plus, how could anyone really attribute it to a toxic out-gassing of dioxin from non-EPA compliant PVC3? Hamsters didn’t live that long and no one ever did an MRI on rodents anyway.

She gingerly pushed left then right and her ball gingerly heaved left and right, and then left again. Her tentative stepping rolled the ball in fits of starts and stops and wasn’t helped by the uneven old wooden planks and random debris.

Under the bed she picked up speed as she ran faster and faster up the sides of her globe. In her past she may not have encountered a dog or cat but if she did now it wouldn’t have mattered because in her plastic out-gassing world she was safe to run free.

She weaved in lefts and rights but this time the left was to lunge around incoming dust bunny and then the quick hard right to dodge the fierce a metal bed post which was coming up astonishingly fast.

She gloated at the rickety post as she flew by it. That was nothing! Her confidence soared and as she sailed by the other post in a sweeping curve and then flew under the bedside table leg in an acute arc as if pulled by a mysterious centripetal force like a meteor around a planet. No, no, more like a comet around the solar system. She was good.

She was that good.

And nothing could stop her until a harsh rusty creaking sent rapid shrill reverberations through her plastic comet and rocketed her to a vibrating gallop which jettisoned her from under the bed and across the room.

Safely away, she watched the bed springs heave up and down creating what could have been sound cues from a cheap slasher flick. She heaved a sigh of relief. Nothing to worry about. It was just mommy and daddy above. The scorpion was stinging.

She was glad that at least they could be happy even if it was only when they were touching each others furry parts. Their basso moans filled the room.

Nothing to fear. What a wonderful world she thought as she lunged forward and rolled around in circles! This was easy! This was fun!

Only three feet above her on the bed things were indeed getting serious. Stewart was amazed at how Janie ripped and pulled at him tearing at his back with her nails grinding against him and begging to be penetrated.

He knew from reading an eastern sex manual called “The Tao of Love and Sex” by an Asian guy named Chang that this was a sign that she just might be entering Panda energy. He wasn’t exactly sure of the specific signposts. He slowed the scorpion and paused to arch back like a cobra to look into her eyes.

She growled at him fiercely and wrapped her legs around his back then threw her arms around his neck and pinned him down. Then, almost chocking him, she voraciously stuck her tongue deep into his mouth.

Very probable, Panda energy. He knew that he’d better quickly continue and he would have if it weren’t for the damn condom.

It’s just that he wasn’t wearing one.

He reached over with his right hand to the bedside table drawer for the familiar plastic square.

“What’s wrong?!?” she asked. “Just put it in!”

“One sec… One sec…”

He rifled through used condom wrapper after used condom wrapper. Then other junk. Some cards. A pair of headphones. His old mp3 player he didn’t use anymore mostly because it couldn’t plug into their car radio. The battery had to be dead by now and probably far beyond a decent recharge, anyway. And besides that, half of his music wasn’t even on it. So maybe there wasn’t even a use. Still, he wouldn’t throw it away.

Oh look, wow, the old gold ring his dad gave him. He didn’t know that was in here. For a long time he feared it was lost. It belonged to his grandfather and his dad had given it to him and engraved his initials into the ring a year before he died. Wow. Finding the old relic made him instantly happy.

“Do it, already!” she roared, hissing at him.

Definite Panda energy. He knew he’d better be careful. What was he doing again? Right. “Found one!”

Through her plastic world Manny joyously zoomed out the bedroom door and into the hallway leaving a contrail of invisible dioxin gas in her wake. The dark wood paneled walls and floor whizzed by her as she careened towards the kitchen of the ancient apartment.

The place was an old house adapted into a four-plex ages ago and had been neglected by the current apartment association for the last several years. That was fine by Stewart who thanked God for rent control and dreaded the prospect of it being torn down one day in favor of the shiny new condos being built down the street - the ones which Janie liked so much.

“Oh forget it!” she said, exasperated, her Panda energy waning into Sloth. Sloth energy was a dangerous way to leave a woman. This was because it so frequently could devolve into Hyena resurgence which everyone knew, as explained in the book, was a negative characteristic that ultimately created feelings of resentment and which in turn could produce a uniquely feminine type of covert revenge. It was all really very complicated.

“One sec!” he pleaded as he stood on the bed completely nude desperately fumbling to get on the stubborn condom.

“Why didn’t you buy lubricated ones?”

“These one were on sale!” he said as he pinched himself with the powdered dry prophylactic and cried out in pain.

Manny careened into the kitchen along the white iron tank of the stove awed by the beauty of the grease stalactites and outcroppings of forgotten petrified food which it hid from everyone but her. Then over the smooth floor which somehow changed colors from black to white as she rolled. Then onto another floor, of wood, which was even more neglected and bore deep groves and loosened nails that tracked her plastic globe like a slot car.

As she roared down her slot she pushed hard left which bounced her over her grove to yet another track that took her around the curve and through a doorway.

She was getting serious now. This was not just fun anymore.

Standing on his bed, Stewart was having a hell of a time but Janie was somehow grinning ear to ear, which she tried to cover. She put her hand over her mouth and looked at him with eyes that were starting to tear.

“What? What!?” he asked fearing she was going to blow and still desperately fidgeting with the stubborn condom. Pulling the stubborn thing off. Blowing it up. Trying to get it on thinking somehow being filled with air will help, somehow.

“Nothing” she said pulling the blanket up to conceal her eyes using all of her willpower not to explode when the old rubber, full of air, flew off his erect penis and across the room in a whirly path like a renegade balloon.

He cried out in utter frustration as he dove into the drawer to get another.

“You know what?”

“What he asked”, afraid to look up, afraid to admit that they were out of his rubbers.

“You’re sexy.”

“What?” He asked rhetorically, in his own world. No wait! There was one more rubber! He ripped it open to quickly put it on.

Wait a minute. She wasn’t mad. He looked at her again. “What did you say?”

“You’re sexy” she said again in a wonderful mix of love and flirtation. Then she exploded into laughter pointed down to his half-erect member which wagged exaggeratedly like a tail augmented by the condom that was not quite halfway on.

He looked down and smiled despite himself. And, as she pulled him down on top of her and kissed him very deeply he let go of everything as very slowly, and very gently she guided him inside of her.

Bash! The speeding globe bounced onto a new track. Courtesy of a broom it slid against the makeshift rail and into the pantry. Then the ball rolled to an abrupt stop.

Utter darkness lay ahead.

The lights weren’t on but to a hamster’s acute nocturnal vision it was still an amazing site to behold. Manny stood atop the precipice amazed at what she saw. She looked out and had the feeling that something wonderful awaited her.

It may have been just a crummy flight of stairs bounded on both sides by neglected walls lined with ancient wallpaper which descended into a dank basement. The treads may have been worn made of rotting wood and had boxes stacked along their sides. At the base because of a slow leaking water pipe there may have been toxic black mold which constantly threatened to overtake the entire structure.

But to Manny they were something altogether different.

To Janie, it was just a symbol of why she hated the place. It gave her continual reason to move out and find something more clean and plastic and sanitary and safe.

And to Stewart it was symbolic of why he loved it. Old and neglected and run down kept the rent cheap which made him feel safe.

But to Manny it was the beginning of to her new life, her next adventure, her freedom.

She pushed towards the edge but as the bump on the threshold floor pushed back she heard a deep rumble.

Janie shot up in bed, seconds before she was about to come. She pushed Stewart off her, “Where’s Manny! Where’s Manny!”

“What, what. Now? No!” he moaned. But too late. She bounded out of bed and he threw a sheet over himself and cursed his hard-on. “Fuck!”

“Stewart!”

He ambled after and followed her voice to the other end of the apartment.

At the top of the basement stairs Janie saved the little creatures from the edge with her foot then fumbled to find the light. She picked up her baby’s plastic womb, unscrewed the lid and cuddled the furry creature who was so happy to be with mommy again.

So happy at the return of her deeply pounding heart and warm basso tones that she curled up on her mommy’s chest in the nook between her arm and breast.

And, after the lights flipped off but in the instant before Janie turned away to put her back into the white square cage with the endless food and water and exercise wheel that she would no longer use anymore she popped her head up and looked out with powerful nocturnal rodent vision over the great abyss.

To Manny it was the greatest hamster hole ever.

“Baby!” She blissfully threw her arms around him. “How did you know?”

I didn’t but thank God, Stewart thought, admitting to himself that he didn’t even remember it was a she. Now, what was her name again? His thoughts were on fire behind his dumb smile as she looked into his eyes.

Oh the way she grabbed the back of his strong neck to use him for support. How utterly feminine. Her hair brushed against his cheek as she kissed his lips. The hand on his shoulder glided down his back on a wisp of air on its way to his butt. She held it reminiscent of the way they made love.

An invitation?

God, it had been too long. How could he have let all the external crap come between them? It was just money, right? Look how easy it was to make her happy. Not houses or cars or jewels but just a three dollar pink plastic globe for… what was her name…?

“Manhattan!” Janie called out as she bounced to her furry little white hamster’s cage. “It’s a whole new world, baby! Now you can tour the whole house!”

A hamster ball. Amazing. Sometimes he got lucky with the perfect gift for Janie and it never had to do with how expensive it was. Why did he always forget that about her?

She opened the top of the cage and took Manny out who was quite domesticated and instantly curled herself into a small white powder-puff as she nuzzled against her mommies chest. So trusting – so small in a world of giants.

Giant footsteps caused the ground to rumble as mommy walked her towards the strange smelling plastic toy. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Mommy’s heartbeat so strong. The deep basso of their voices – of hers even as she laughed.

Then she was dropped into the small pink globe. The little hamster instinctively put her arms and legs out trying to maintain composure as she slid and rolled into the strange spherical world, finally coming to a disoriented stop at the bottom of the bowl.

Her head craned back. Her eyes dilated yearning for the one clear disk in the sky above. And, her nose stuck straight up. A toxic volatile hydrocarbon bounced off the dome walls and concentrated magnifying their intensity on the sphere’s foci and flooded into her little nostrils which twitched uncomfortably.

She squirmed but tried to remain calm despite her rapidly beating heart and her short choppy breaths. She wondered if this indeed was the end as she steadily became dizzy from the noxious gas.

The toy bore scratches that nobody would notice except the creature for whom it was intended; after it was molded from low grade PVC that out gassed dioxin at rates thousands of times higher than EPA acceptable standards, the unskilled factory worker in China tossed it into a formaldehyde sealed lead-paint box to be shipped overseas.

As the top was lowered, the lone clear sky turned into clouded plastic to complete the homogeneity of the structure, turning it into a perfect pink orb. Is this really it? Is this the end?

“Oh look! She’s frightened.” said Janie and she stroked Manny’s head to make her feel better. “Don’t worry baby. Everything will be fine. Don’t be a worrier like your daddy.”

“Thanks” said Stewart.

Again, the big plastic dome came down and was screwed on and, at a loss, Manny helplessly pushed her paws against the plastic walls and looked out.

“Don’t worry, sexy” her deep basso continued this time coaxing Stewart as she turned to her man and drew him in. She grabbed his butt again. This was far more than an implied invitation. The hand on his chest moved down and brushed against his cock as if by accident.

He was already hard and ready. He moaned and the rumble shook the plastic universe as Manny watched the two climb into bed and shed clothing. They seemed so much more naked than she.

Mommy’s deep voice trembled for daddy to wait and not to move a muscle but after her hairless body slinked out of the room daddy quickly scrimmaged around under the bed for a dog eared book. He quickly read a page while touching and squeezing his protruding part below his bellybutton while mommy cooed to him in echoing rumbles from the other room.

But right when the waterfall sound started with a booming WOOSH he jumped with a startle and quickly threw the book into the night stand and hopped back into bed under the sheets as if he had never moved at all.

It was so sad because mommy and daddy didn’t really have any fun except for when one of them would put their head on the other ones tummy just below their belly button.

At least she had her wheel, Manny considered.

Daddy especially liked that furry part and seemed to focus all of his attention on it. He would go back to it again and again and touch it again and again patting it like his pet. Then he made a finger or two disappear as he put his head against it to give it a kiss with his tongue.

“She’s watching us!” said Janie.

“Huh?”

“She’s watching us do it! I better put her away.”

“She’ll be fine!”

There was no way a hamster was going to come between him and trying out the “Stinging Scorpion”. Why in the hell would she want to have a baby if even a little rodent could get in the way of an appropriately executed scorpion?

“She’s safe in the ball!” Stewart reassured as he preemptively somersaulted over her to get to Manny first.

“Do you know I had to go to three pet stores before I could find a buddy sphere with the right specs for our Minnie?” he said playfully, though she wasn’t smiling.

“This thing was scientifically designed by a team of skilled technicians and approved by Caesar Milan. You watch. She’ll be fine. Go along little one. Go along and play, Minnie.”

“Manny!”

“Right, Manny” his voiced rumbled.

Daddy’s mammoth hand grew grotesque caused by cheap plastic spherical aberrations as it closed in and jerked the ball to a roll. Like it or not, Manny was forced into motion, forced to walk so as not to tumble.

And, despite the utterly putrid smell and blurred cataract vision, moving in this world felt absolutely amazing. It felt absolutely amazing to be so free in her new round world as the ball ran her across the old wooden floor.

And when she came to a wobbly stop at the foot of the bed she was ready for more.

More! More! She begged banging on the wall with her front paws which caused the plastic to vibrate. She looked up at the two shadowy creatures that moved together on the bed but didn’t give audience to her longing glances.

Well, this sucked. This was just like being back in her old square cage. Even worse. In here there was no endless fountain of water. No endless bowl of nuts. And, no round track on which if she could run just fast enough she was sure she could make it to the top.

She never thought, though, what would happen when she did actually reach the top. Until right then. Nothing. Nothing would happen. Thin white bars covered the top too.

No, this world was better! At least in this world she was out!

She looked up again but this time she saw that her parents were so buried in their own world under blankets they couldn’t possibly see her anymore.

This was completely useless. She turned around, disappointed, and lay down using the plastic globe like a hammock. Her snout jetted into the foci and again toxic dioxin flooded into her nostrils.

Then a crazy thought came. Maybe it was from the poisonous gas or maybe it was her tiny eyes opening just a bit more. But whatever way, she thought: maybe if the world had run her, then, just maybe,…

At first she took it slow. She didn’t know if she was crazy or not. Shifts of consciousness sometimes feel crazy.

She stood up on all fours and tentatively pushed on the wall with her front paw. And an amazing thing happened. The ball tilted forward, ever so slightly. In fact there were these micro fine treads on the inside that only a hamster would notice which caught her paw perfectly as she stepped.

It may have been made of toxic plastic unfit for human use but at least it was functional. If she would die in a year of some mysterious ailment like stomach cancer at least the ball worked. Plus, how could anyone really attribute it to a toxic out-gassing of dioxin from non-EPA compliant PVC3? Hamsters didn’t live that long and no one ever did an MRI on rodents anyway.

She gingerly pushed left then right and her ball gingerly heaved left and right, and then left again. Her tentative stepping rolled the ball in fits of starts and stops and wasn’t helped by the uneven old wooden planks and random debris.

Under the bed she picked up speed as she ran faster and faster up the sides of her globe. In her past she may not have encountered a dog or cat but if she did now it wouldn’t have mattered because in her plastic out-gassing world she was safe to run free.

She weaved in lefts and rights but this time the left was to lunge around incoming dust bunny and then the quick hard right to dodge the fierce a metal bed post which was coming up astonishingly fast.

She gloated at the rickety post as she flew by it. That was nothing! Her confidence soared and as she sailed by the other post in a sweeping curve and then flew under the bedside table leg in an acute arc as if pulled by a mysterious centripetal force like a meteor around a planet. No, no, more like a comet around the solar system. She was good.

She was that good.

And nothing could stop her until a harsh rusty creaking sent rapid shrill reverberations through her plastic comet and rocketed her to a vibrating gallop which jettisoned her from under the bed and across the room.

Safely away, she watched the bed springs heave up and down creating what could have been sound cues from a cheap slasher flick. She heaved a sigh of relief. Nothing to worry about. It was just mommy and daddy above. The scorpion was stinging.

She was glad that at least they could be happy even if it was only when they were touching each others furry parts. Their basso moans filled the room.

Nothing to fear. What a wonderful world she thought as she lunged forward and rolled around in circles! This was easy! This was fun!

Only three feet above her on the bed things were indeed getting serious. Stewart was amazed at how Janie ripped and pulled at him tearing at his back with her nails grinding against him and begging to be penetrated.

He knew from reading an eastern sex manual called “The Tao of Love and Sex” by an Asian guy named Chang that this was a sign that she just might be entering Panda energy. He wasn’t exactly sure of the specific signposts. He slowed the scorpion and paused to arch back like a cobra to look into her eyes.

She growled at him fiercely and wrapped her legs around his back then threw her arms around his neck and pinned him down. Then, almost chocking him, she voraciously stuck her tongue deep into his mouth.

Very probable, Panda energy. He knew that he’d better quickly continue and he would have if it weren’t for the damn condom.

It’s just that he wasn’t wearing one.

He reached over with his right hand to the bedside table drawer for the familiar plastic square.

“What’s wrong?!?” she asked. “Just put it in!”

“One sec… One sec…”

He rifled through used condom wrapper after used condom wrapper. Then other junk. Some cards. A pair of headphones. His old mp3 player he didn’t use anymore mostly because it couldn’t plug into their car radio. The battery had to be dead by now and probably far beyond a decent recharge, anyway. And besides that, half of his music wasn’t even on it. So maybe there wasn’t even a use. Still, he wouldn’t throw it away.

Oh look, wow, the old gold ring his dad gave him. He didn’t know that was in here. For a long time he feared it was lost. It belonged to his grandfather and his dad had given it to him and engraved his initials into the ring a year before he died. Wow. Finding the old relic made him instantly happy.

“Do it, already!” she roared, hissing at him.

Definite Panda energy. He knew he’d better be careful. What was he doing again? Right. “Found one!”

Through her plastic world Manny joyously zoomed out the bedroom door and into the hallway leaving a contrail of invisible dioxin gas in her wake. The dark wood paneled walls and floor whizzed by her as she careened towards the kitchen of the ancient apartment.

The place was an old house adapted into a four-plex ages ago and had been neglected by the current apartment association for the last several years. That was fine by Stewart who thanked God for rent control and dreaded the prospect of it being torn down one day in favor of the shiny new condos being built down the street – the ones which Janie liked so much.

“Oh forget it!” she said, exasperated, her Panda energy waning into Sloth. Sloth energy was a dangerous way to leave a woman. This was because it so frequently could devolve into Hyena resurgence which everyone knew, as explained in the book, was a negative characteristic that ultimately created feelings of resentment and which in turn could produce a uniquely feminine type of covert revenge. It was all really very complicated.

“One sec!” he pleaded as he stood on the bed completely nude desperately fumbling to get on the stubborn condom.

“Why didn’t you buy lubricated ones?”

“These one were on sale!” he said as he pinched himself with the powdered dry prophylactic and cried out in pain.

Manny careened into the kitchen along the white iron tank of the stove awed by the beauty of the grease stalactites and outcroppings of forgotten petrified food which it hid from everyone but her. Then over the smooth floor which somehow changed colors from black to white as she rolled. Then onto another floor, of wood, which was even more neglected and bore deep groves and loosened nails that tracked her plastic globe like a slot car.

As she roared down her slot she pushed hard left which bounced her over her grove to yet another track that took her around the curve and through a doorway.

She was getting serious now. This was not just fun anymore.

Standing on his bed, Stewart was having a hell of a time but Janie was somehow grinning ear to ear, which she tried to cover. She put her hand over her mouth and looked at him with eyes that were starting to tear.

“What? What!?” he asked fearing she was going to blow and still desperately fidgeting with the stubborn condom. Pulling the stubborn thing off. Blowing it up. Trying to get it on thinking somehow being filled with air will help, somehow.

“Nothing” she said pulling the blanket up to conceal her eyes using all of her willpower not to explode when the old rubber, full of air, flew off his erect penis and across the room in a whirly path like a renegade balloon.

He cried out in utter frustration as he dove into the drawer to get another.

“You know what?”

“What he asked”, afraid to look up, afraid to admit that they were out of his rubbers.

“You’re sexy.”

“What?” He asked rhetorically, in his own world. No wait! There was one more rubber! He ripped it open to quickly put it on.

Wait a minute. She wasn’t mad. He looked at her again. “What did you say?”

“You’re sexy” she said again in a wonderful mix of love and flirtation. Then she exploded into laughter pointed down to his half-erect member which wagged exaggeratedly like a tail augmented by the condom that was not quite halfway on.

He looked down and smiled despite himself. And, as she pulled him down on top of her and kissed him very deeply he let go of everything as very slowly, and very gently she guided him inside of her.

Bash! The speeding globe bounced onto a new track. Courtesy of a broom it slid against the makeshift rail and into the pantry. Then the ball rolled to an abrupt stop.

Utter darkness lay ahead.

The lights weren’t on but to a hamster’s acute nocturnal vision it was still an amazing site to behold. Manny stood atop the precipice amazed at what she saw. She looked out and had the feeling that something wonderful awaited her.

It may have been just a crummy flight of stairs bounded on both sides by neglected walls lined with ancient wallpaper which descended into a dank basement. The treads may have been worn made of rotting wood and had boxes stacked along their sides. At the base because of a slow leaking water pipe there may have been toxic black mold which constantly threatened to overtake the entire structure.

But to Manny they were something altogether different.

To Janie, it was just a symbol of why she hated the place. It gave her continual reason to move out and find something more clean and plastic and sanitary and safe.

And to Stewart it was symbolic of why he loved it. Old and neglected and run down kept the rent cheap which made him feel safe.

But to Manny it was the beginning of to her new life, her next adventure, her freedom.

She pushed towards the edge but as the bump on the threshold floor pushed back she heard a deep rumble.

Janie shot up in bed, seconds before she was about to come. She pushed Stewart off her, “Where’s Manny! Where’s Manny!”

“What, what. Now? No!” he moaned. But too late. She bounded out of bed and he threw a sheet over himself and cursed his hard-on. “Fuck!”

“Stewart!”

He ambled after and followed her voice to the other end of the apartment.

At the top of the basement stairs Janie saved the little creatures from the edge with her foot then fumbled to find the light. She picked up her baby’s plastic womb, unscrewed the lid and cuddled the furry creature who was so happy to be with mommy again.

So happy at the return of her deeply pounding heart and warm basso tones that she curled up on her mommy’s chest in the nook between her arm and breast.

And, after the lights flipped off but in the instant before Janie turned away to put her back into the white square cage with the endless food and water and exercise wheel that she would no longer use anymore she popped her head up and looked out with powerful nocturnal rodent vision over the great abyss.

To Manny it was the greatest hamster hole ever.< >< >

< >< ><-->

There was darkness then bright, bright light.

Stewart flipped his hands to protect his eyes from the illumination that streamed in from above.

He strained forward but a thick tight belt across his shoulder and one equally imposing across his waist kept him firmly locked into place.

It didn’t help matters that he felt logy from lack of sleep yet hyped up on bad coffee.

It only made matters worse that his head was spinning and he was a bit sick to his stomach.

He was recovering from the past horrific night and to be frank was a bit pissed that he was being interrogated in this manner.

He kept his mouth shut. Times like these demanded that kind of tact and decorum.

“More coffee?” a probing voice across from him asked, sensing Stewart’s apprehension.

The plump thumb of a stocky hand twisted the top off a thermos while the remaining ape fingers easily palmed the large bottle in place then prepared to pour.

Stewart shook his head, no. He felt numb.

“Did you say anything to him? Did the two of you talk?” the authoritative voice reverberated.

He thought hard but it was even harder to think than to feel. He came up blank and shrugged his shoulders.

“You don’t know?”

He was blank.

“Don’t know or can’t remember? Which one is it?”

“I don’t know - I mean I can’t remember.” Stewart said.

“And you’re very sure of that? Not a word?”

“No wait! I said I needed him.”

“Interesting. Why, do you suppose?”

“Well, not to fuck my wife!”

“Did you know some women while getting raped have had orgasms during the attack?” asked the older man.

“So you don’t think I’m crazy?”

“Women are complicated romantic beings.”

“So that’s all?”

“Maybe it isn’t anything more than you trying to understand her.”

“I guess so,” Stewart heaved with a sigh.

They heaved to a stop and the blinding light was mechanically extinguished by a sunroof which glided home after a button was pressed.

“Sorry about that,” said the driver as he looked at the bags under his eyes in the rear view mirror. “I need my vitamin D and it’s the only sun I have time to get these days.”

The elderly more distinguished man was Paul, an old family friend and almost a father figure to Stewart.

“You know, I’ve always been fascinated by dreams. Always had a bit of a knack at interpreting them.”

“So what do you think?”

“A complete and utter mystery.”

“Thanks,” Stewart said, sarcastically, who though again regretted forgetting his sunglasses was glad that the jerky ride was over and hopeful his car sickness would too soon be.

They walked towards a line of people which snaked around a large building.

“How did Janie take it?”

“She was shook up. She did a Google search and thinks I have night terrors but still wants me to go to the doctor. She said when she looked into my eyes it was like I wasn’t there.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound that bad.”

“Seems I was loud too.” Stewart continued. “The neighbors complained. The Russians. Which is why the cops came. Seems I was hitting things.”

Stewart suddenly felt very uncomfortable at his painfully honest revelation even if it was to Paul, a man he had known all of his life. He diverted: “I never knew you were into that stuff.”

“Yeah, well…, you can see how good I am at it.”

“Sure” he said a bit too sardonically. He hoped Paul wouldn’t detect his tone.

But the old man hadn’t. He was back to the task on hand.

“Business, though, is in the dumper. We can’t get a decent line of credit. And, our old one wasn’t extended. And, this was a line I’ve had for the last twenty years, mind you. Other than that things are great.”

Stewart smiled at the joke, not knowing it wasn’t intended. He didn’t have the heart to tell him he should keep his day job.

“Sorry about this,” said Paul referring to the long line which wove its way around the mammoth savings and loan.

Stewart grimaced less at the wait than at the procession of naïve faces who could have been medieval peasants on their way to church to receive sacrament. In their own way just as ignorant. In their own way just as needy of salvation.

Paul and Stewart became two more parishioners as the men, each glum for their own reason, walked up and stood at the end of the line.

They weren’t alone. Everyone in line shared somber tone, though looking at the inspiring altar gave them hope. They all prayed for help - or at least their money back.

For the same reasons the cathedrals were erected the way they were in the dark ages, modern banks were built to impress and inspire confidence. This one looked straight out of ancient Greece with Doric columns and Corinthian entablatures. It was a mismatch of ancient structures from different cultures and times. But no matter, nobody cared either way as long as the ATM crammed into the Roman arch belched out cash on demand.

Despite the forged heritage of a heterogeneous hunt-and-peck pedigree this bank, like the whole banking system, was threatening to fail. It was a time reminiscent of the Great Depression as massive deregulation led way to rampant business corruption. Banks were overextended with bad home loans that were sold in common stocks and bonds.

The whole resulting massive economic expansion was a house of cards which started to crumble when people, who couldn’t possibly afford their variable rate loans in the first place, started to default. Since loans were granted on “stated income” alone, suddenly, anyone could pull their broken down beater into a palatial new car port. Suddenly, everyone could be a “G” like the ones on “MTV Cribs”.

It didn’t matter because in the great game of passing the buck, after official paperwork was submitted, nobody would check. That also meant that not just the bank sector but the stock market as a whole would tumble in a vicious cycle after cash and credit dried up. And it wasn’t just a psychological reaction. Legitimately good businesses were really hurt in the process. Suddenly, being a “G” was more real than ever before

MBA students fresh out of grad school wanted to be a “G” too. They repackaged bad home loans into bonds and fraudulently made them desirable by intentionally messaging math to create an “AAA” rating instead of their deserved “BBB-” stamp. These wrongly labeled bonds were then sold to Asian Markets who would gobble up anything “AAA” because they were supposed to be safe. Suddenly it became a world problem.

People who had no idea in hell what a “G” was were becoming “G”s.

The whole system ran with the blind eye of Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan who the nation and the world, in fact, trusted and thought could do no wrong. Little did they know he was a near-sighted captain. Little did they know there was a ship running out of control.

Alan Greenspan’s main remorseful defense when he addressed congress was that he thought more people in homes would provide greater national stability and of course continue the economic boom which was undeniably good for the nation. And, he admitted he was wrong.

He was too busy looking out the eyeglass in reverse to see a world more and more full of glorified “G”s.

Little did he know the ship would soon run aground. Little did he know the banks would soon go bust.

Stewart and Paul watched an old lady who started beating on one of the outdoor ATM machines. Any other day and people would have thought she had lost her mind as she bashed the state of the art touch screen with the hook of her cane. Today all that changed.

“Crooks! Crooks!” she screamed out as the fat manager bobbled out to reason with her.

The crowd applauded as she thrust and parry with her wooden foil to keep him at bay. Then, they laughed as she augmented her vehemence by squawking expletive spiced approbations accented by     syncopated purse strikes. Ultimately, though, their laughter darkened sliding into distress at the tragic comedy of the symbolic revenge on the system, ever so slight as it may be.

But, when the manger grabbed the old woman by a tattered sweater sleeve, and pulled her cane away, which caused her to cry out in pain, the crowd quickly denigrated into a mob who wouldn’t settle for mere symbolism anymore. They chased the bloated junior exec back into his mismatched castle which though designed by its very nature to keep bad people out now did the reverse.

The metal security gate draw bridge slammed down. The doors locked with a steely master lock click. And, the fluorescent lights uneasily flickered off effectively transporting the fat manager and his minimum wage serfs inside back to the dark ages.

“Well, this is no use.” said Paul as he started walking back towards his car with Stewart in tow. “They don’t want to hear about my credit issues. They’ve got problems of their own.”

“Will you be alright?”

“Oh sure. Maybe now I’ll finally just be forced to follow my bliss.”

“The dream stuff?”

“Right”, he said as they got in the Beemer.

Paul dropped the clutch and brought her to speed. As they roared passed the bank he opened the sunroof Stewart shielded his eyes, again.

But, then through his narrow slits Stewart felt the intense force of a glistening silver Mercedes AMG S65 which was so new and so mercilessly shiny that it may have well as sent two suns cruelly beaming directly into his eyes. He was forced to re-double his squint.

The car tore out of what could have been The Bat Cave but was actually the executive parking for the bank’s president. It ripped past them as if they were still horse and buggy and burned its way onto the freeway, chirruping its tires as the driver shifted into fifth.

It may have been the bank president inside but no human could possibly tell with having to see through the impossible 80% window tint and overcome the motion blur that went beyond the shutter capacity of the normal human eye; the car was just way too fast. And for anyone who wondered why an old business fossil could possibly need a twelve cylinder sports sedan fully equipped with twin-turbos, F1-inspired manual shifters and 604hp which would easily rocket the car to 62mph in well under five seconds… This was probably the reason.

To get away.

“Those guys always get away,” chirped Stewart.

“Look,” said Paul hopefully, as his Beemer, lumbering to follow the silver streak onto the freeway, was passed by flashing blue and red lights.

A siren roared as the highway patrol cruiser pulled up on the tail of the AMG. Behind the Benz, the police chopper aggressively wove back and forth but then at the last moment let him go with a flash of his brights and the sad cry of a dying siren. A black glove gave a thumbs up out the window over the surveillance light.

As the police car turned off its lights and slowly rolled to a stop on the shoulder the AMG S65 went supersonic.

Stewart shook his head at the officers as Paul’s Beemer passed them. “They’re letting him go?”

“11-99 plates. If you’re rich enough you can buy your way out of anything. When you have that kind of money avoiding a speeding ticket is a convenience issue, not an economic one.”

“That’s fucked.”

“Yeah, life’s a shit sandwich. Welcome to our world.”

“Huh?” said Stewart revisiting yet another bad dream.

“Buy something nice for Janie. You know?”

Paul’s voice trailed off as the loping rumble of the engine eased Stewart into a day-dream like the heart beat of a mother sooths a child.

He thought about what it meant to be very rich. To have so much money that even getting a new car or yacht or house, or anything, becomes boring.

He dreamt about living a pampering life protected by padded cushions everywhere.

“Padded coffins” he said aloud.

“Huh?” Paul said as he downshifted and rolled to a stop at the bottom of the off ramp.

“Most people only dream of living as padded a life as they’re getting on their way out.”

“Now you’ve got me” said Paul.

“Nothing. Sorry.”

Still he wanted that padded life. It made perfect sense to him and everyone was doing it from the hamsters he just saw in their cages with Janie who stuffed their cheeks with food to people like Bernie Madoff, who were beyond rich, yet still created Ponzi schemes to become even richer. Too much was never enough when it came to padding. When it came to self-protection. When it came to being safe.

A fragment of the dream from last night flashed back into his mind: ‘be the protector but still feel protected’.

When they were almost at Stewart’s he turned to Paul: “Got time for a field trip?”

“That’s my boy!” Paul bounced back for once intuiting the moment with perfection. He pulled the car over and waited for further directions.

As Stewart relayed their destination, he, for that one all to brief moment, felt very safe by being called ’son’ by his old mentor who was indeed very much a father figure.

After they arrived, he got out and turned to Paul, then said with a smile on his face: “Hey, when you do finally go into this new-age dream interpretation stuff it may be best if you don’t throw around phrases around like ’shit sandwich’. You know?”

“Be good” Paul smiled back as he dropped the clutch and drove off.

Stewart found himself back inside his old Petco. This time he was the one oblivious to the whispers of the cashier girls who recounted and doubled the extent of his crazy angry tirade the last time he was in the store with Janie.

Oblivious to it all he went up to the cashier and asked: “Have anything… hamster related?”

It didn’t help matters that he felt logy from lack of sleep yet hyped up on bad coffee.

It only made matters worse that his head was spinning and he was a bit sick to his stomach.

He was recovering from the past horrific night and to be frank was a bit pissed that he was being interrogated in this manner.

He kept his mouth shut. Times like these demanded that kind of tact and decorum.

“More coffee?” a probing voice across from him asked, sensing Stewart’s apprehension.

The plump thumb of a stocky hand twisted the top off a thermos while the remaining ape fingers easily palmed the large bottle in place then prepared to pour.

Stewart shook his head, no. He felt numb.

“Did you say anything to him? Did the two of you talk?” the authoritative voice reverberated.

He thought hard but it was even harder to think than to feel. He came up blank and shrugged his shoulders.

“You don’t know?”

He was blank.

“Don’t know or can’t remember? Which one is it?”

“I don’t know – I mean I can’t remember.” Stewart said.

“And you’re very sure of that? Not a word?”

“No wait! I said I needed him.”

“Interesting. Why, do you suppose?”

“Well, not to fuck my wife!”

“Did you know some women while getting raped have had orgasms during the attack?” asked the older man.

“So you don’t think I’m crazy?”

“Women are complicated romantic beings.”

“So that’s all?”

“Maybe it isn’t anything more than you trying to understand her.”

“I guess so,” Stewart heaved with a sigh.

They heaved to a stop and the blinding light was mechanically extinguished by a sunroof which glided home after a button was pressed.

“Sorry about that,” said the driver as he looked at the bags under his eyes in the rear view mirror. “I need my vitamin D and it’s the only sun I have time to get these days.”

The elderly more distinguished man was Paul, an old family friend and almost a father figure to Stewart.

“You know, I’ve always been fascinated by dreams. Always had a bit of a knack at interpreting them.”

“So what do you think?”

“A complete and utter mystery.”

“Thanks,” Stewart said, sarcastically, who though again regretted forgetting his sunglasses was glad that the jerky ride was over and hopeful his car sickness would too soon be.

They walked towards a line of people which snaked around a large building.

“How did Janie take it?”

“She was shook up. She did a Google search and thinks I have night terrors but still wants me to go to the doctor. She said when she looked into my eyes it was like I wasn’t there.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound that bad.”

“Seems I was loud too.” Stewart continued. “The neighbors complained. The Russians. Which is why the cops came. Seems I was hitting things.”

Stewart suddenly felt very uncomfortable at his painfully honest revelation even if it was to Paul, a man he had known all of his life. He diverted: “I never knew you were into that stuff.”

“Yeah, well…, you can see how good I am at it.”

“Sure” he said a bit too sardonically. He hoped Paul wouldn’t detect his tone.

But the old man hadn’t. He was back to the task on hand.

“Business, though, is in the dumper. We can’t get a decent line of credit. And, our old one wasn’t extended. And, this was a line I’ve had for the last twenty years, mind you. Other than that things are great.”

Stewart smiled at the joke, not knowing it wasn’t intended. He didn’t have the heart to tell him he should keep his day job.

“Sorry about this,” said Paul referring to the long line which wove its way around the mammoth savings and loan.

Stewart grimaced less at the wait than at the procession of naïve faces who could have been medieval peasants on their way to church to receive sacrament. In their own way just as ignorant. In their own way just as needy of salvation.

Paul and Stewart became two more parishioners as the men, each glum for their own reason, walked up and stood at the end of the line.

They weren’t alone. Everyone in line shared somber tone, though looking at the inspiring altar gave them hope. They all prayed for help – or at least their money back.

For the same reasons the cathedrals were erected the way they were in the dark ages, modern banks were built to impress and inspire confidence. This one looked straight out of ancient Greece with Doric columns and Corinthian entablatures. It was a mismatch of ancient structures from different cultures and times. But no matter, nobody cared either way as long as the ATM crammed into the Roman arch belched out cash on demand.

Despite the forged heritage of a heterogeneous hunt-and-peck pedigree this bank, like the whole banking system, was threatening to fail. It was a time reminiscent of the Great Depression as massive deregulation led way to rampant business corruption. Banks were overextended with bad home loans that were sold in common stocks and bonds.

The whole resulting massive economic expansion was a house of cards which started to crumble when people, who couldn’t possibly afford their variable rate loans in the first place, started to default. Since loans were granted on “stated income” alone, suddenly, anyone could pull their broken-down beater into a palatial new car port. Suddenly, everyone could be a “G” like the ones on “MTV Cribs”.

It didn’t matter because in the great game of passing the buck, after official paperwork was submitted, nobody would check. That also meant that not just the bank sector but the stock market as a whole would tumble in a vicious cycle after cash and credit dried up. And it wasn’t just a psychological reaction. Legitimately good businesses were really hurt in the process. Suddenly, being a “G” was more real than ever before.

MBA students fresh out of grad school wanted to be a “G” too. They repackaged bad home loans into bonds and fraudulently made them desirable by intentionally messaging math to create an “AAA” rating instead of their deserved “BBB-” stamp. These wrongly labeled bonds were then sold to Asian Markets who would gobble up anything “AAA” because they were supposed to be safe. Suddenly it became a world problem.

People who had no idea in hell what a “G” was were becoming “G”s.

The whole system ran with the blind eye of Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan who the nation and the world, in fact, trusted and thought could do no wrong. Little did they know he was a near-sighted captain. Little did they know there was a ship running out of control.

Alan Greenspan’s main remorseful defense when he addressed congress was that he thought more people in homes would provide greater national stability and of course continue the economic boom which was undeniably good for the nation. And, he admitted he was wrong.

He was too busy looking out the eyeglass in reverse to see a world more and more full of glorified “G”s.

Little did he know the ship would soon run aground. Little did he know the banks would soon go bust.

Stewart and Paul watched an old lady who started beating on one of the outdoor ATM machines. Any other day and people would have thought she had lost her mind as she bashed the state of the art touch screen with the hook of her cane. Today all that changed.

“Crooks! Crooks!” she screamed out as the fat manager bobbled out to reason with her.

The crowd applauded as she thrust and parry with her wooden foil to keep him at bay. Then, they laughed as she augmented her vehemence by squawking expletive spiced approbations accented by syncopated purse strikes. Ultimately, though, their laughter darkened sliding into distress at the tragic comedy of the symbolic revenge on the system, ever so slight as it may be.

But, when the manger grabbed the old woman by a tattered sweater sleeve, and pulled her cane away, which caused her to cry out in pain, the crowd quickly denigrated into a mob who wouldn’t settle for mere symbolism anymore. They chased the bloated junior exec back into his mismatched castle which though designed by its very nature to keep bad people out now did the reverse.

The metal security gate draw bridge slammed down. The doors locked with a steely master lock click. And, the fluorescent lights uneasily flickered off effectively transporting the fat manager and his minimum wage serfs inside back to the dark ages.

“Well, this is no use.” said Paul as he started walking back towards his car with Stewart in tow. “They don’t want to hear about my credit issues. They’ve got problems of their own.”

“Will you be alright?”

“Oh sure. Maybe now I’ll finally just be forced to follow my bliss.”

“The dream stuff?”

“Right”, he said as they got in the Beemer.

Paul dropped the clutch and brought her to speed. As they roared passed the bank he opened the sunroof Stewart shielded his eyes, again.

But, then through his narrow slits Stewart felt the intense force of a glistening silver Mercedes AMG S65 which was so new and so mercilessly shiny that it may have well as sent two suns cruelly beaming directly into his eyes. He was forced to re-double his squint.

The car tore out of what could have been The Bat Cave but was actually the executive parking for the bank’s president. It ripped past them as if they were still horse and buggy and burned its way onto the freeway, chirruping its tires as the driver shifted into fifth.

It may have been the bank president inside but no human could possibly tell with having to see through the impossible 80% window tint and overcome the motion blur that went beyond the shutter capacity of the normal human eye; the car was just way too fast. And for anyone who wondered why an old business fossil could possibly need a twelve cylinder sports sedan fully equipped with twin-turbos, F1-inspired manual shifters and 604hp which would easily rocket the car to 62mph in well under five seconds… This was probably the reason.

To get away.

“Those guys always get away,” chirped Stewart.

“Look,” said Paul hopefully, as his Beemer, lumbering to follow the silver streak onto the freeway, was passed by flashing blue and red lights.

A siren roared as the highway patrol cruiser pulled up on the tail of the AMG. Behind the Benz, the police chopper aggressively wove back and forth but then at the last moment let him go with a flash of his brights and the sad cry of a dying siren. A black glove gave a thumbs up out the window over the surveillance light.

As the police car turned off its lights and slowly rolled to a stop on the shoulder the AMG S65 went supersonic.

Stewart shook his head at the officers as Paul’s Beemer passed them. “They’re letting him go?”

“11-99 plates. If you’re rich enough you can buy your way out of anything. When you have that kind of money avoiding a speeding ticket is a convenience issue, not an economic one.”

“That’s fucked.”

“Yeah, life’s a shit sandwich. Welcome to our world.”

“Huh?” said Stewart revisiting yet another bad dream.

“Buy something nice for Janie. You know?”

Paul’s voice trailed off as the loping rumble of the engine eased Stewart into a day-dream like the heart beat of a mother sooths a child.

He thought about what it meant to be very rich. To have so much money that even getting a new car or yacht or house, or anything, becomes boring.

He dreamt about living a pampering life protected by padded cushions everywhere.

“Padded coffins” he said aloud.

“Huh?” Paul said as he downshifted and rolled to a stop at the bottom of the off ramp.

“Most people only dream of living as padded a life as they’re getting on their way out.”

“Now you’ve got me” said Paul.

“Nothing. Sorry.”

Still he wanted that padded life. It made perfect sense to him and everyone was doing it from the hamsters he just saw in their cages with Janie who stuffed their cheeks with food to people like Bernie Madoff, who were beyond rich, yet still created Ponzi schemes to become even richer. Too much was never enough when it came to padding. When it came to self-protection. When it came to being safe.

A fragment of the dream from last night flashed back into his mind: ‘be the protector but still feel protected’.

When they were almost at Stewart’s he turned to Paul: “Got time for a field trip?”

“That’s my boy!” Paul bounced back for once intuiting the moment with perfection. He pulled the car over and waited for further directions.

As Stewart relayed their destination, he, for that one all to brief moment, felt very safe by being called ‘son’ by his old mentor who was indeed very much a father figure.

After they arrived, he got out and turned to Paul, then said with a smile on his face: “Hey, when you do finally go into this new-age dream interpretation stuff it may be best if you don’t throw around phrases around like ‘shit sandwich’. You know?”

“Be good” Paul smiled back as he dropped the clutch and drove off.

Stewart found himself back inside his old Petco. This time he was the one oblivious to the whispers of the cashier girls who recounted and doubled the extent of his crazy angry tirade the last time he was in the store with Janie.

Oblivious to it all he went up to the cashier and asked: “Have anything… hamster related?”< >< ><-->

They were doing it like old times. Their fight from earlier that day dissolved into a distant memory, like a bad dream. And, Stewart was glad.

Slowly, in and out, their bodies heaved and grinded lubricated by dripping sweat and licking tongues.

Her wetness enveloped his piston in a perfect slick layer and made a sucking sound from the vacuum it created, like a crying plea, for the shaft to return upon withdrawal. She moaned as he pushed deeper to fill her completely and against her cervix. Which he felt move.

Wet. It felt so amazing to actually feel her wet supple moist folds. Her wetness ran down from in her in tiny little rivers between his butt cheeks and gathered in an aqueous glob held together by surface tension on his hole. She made him wet now. And, if she chose, his body was ready for her to take him. Giving him the chance to feel like her.

He wondered if she would take it.

Wet. It felt so amazing to feel her warmth when he was inside. Funny. He realized he wasn’t wearing a condom. Funny. That was strange.

He rolled on top to continue but was suddenly distracted.

He was pretty sure both hadn’t come yet which meant he’d have to focus like crazy to make her come while focusing like crazy not to. This was hard as hell because her cervix hitting the head of his penis along with her walls which held his member in a vice grip made him want to let go on every stroke.

Living life as a woman may have been a complicated affair but having sex as a man was schizophrenic. It wasn’t easy like it was for women who could just lie back and enjoy the ride. There was all this duality of purpose: wear the feathers of the peacock but be the pursuer, be strong but also be gentle, spread the seed but only with one girl. And, of course, time your orgasm to perfectly match with hers. Plus if he did come he’d have to worry about quickly getting hard so he could start fucking again before she lost her steam.

It didn’t help matters that every girl was different. A guy could be a sex God with one and a complete tool with another.

Another schizophrenic duality: fuck when you don’t feel like fucking anymore. How could it ever make sense that he wanted to do it with her so badly and then after he came it was the last thing in the world he wanted?

All these things flashed through Stewart’s mind as he made love to her. That and… Jesus! Had he expelled any pre-come? He pulled it out to check. He looked down at his member but it was impossible to tell if the juices on the tip were hers or his.

“Come back. Come back” she said as she pulled him closer.

Why wasn’t he wearing his condom? He always wore his condom. But, no matter, he didn’t want to think about that now as he reentered her.

Yet, another crazy thing: The world could be crumbling around him. He could have just lost his dog, his mom, his job. The girl in bed next to him could be a ageing whore with herpes simplex 1 on her lip and probably worse downstairs, but once the act started nothing, none of it, mattered anymore. Stewart knew Janie didn’t play by those rules. No woman did.

“Harder” she whispered.

The bed creaked and the bedpost hit the wall with a thump as he obliged. Squish was the sound when he entered her.

Thump! Squish! Creak!

Thump! Squish! Creak! … Thrash!… Thrash!

Thrash? It was a faint familiar sound. Stewart hadn’t noticed before but this time it curiously beat to the rhythm of their lovemaking, beating as an ephemeral echo in the distance.

He paused, then penetrated again to verify.

Thump! Squish! Creak! Thrash!

It did!

“Don’t stop. Come back. Come back” Janie exhaled in passionate calling whispers on the edge of orgasm.

He had no idea how close she was when he stopped and walked out of room, so drawn by the sound he strangely didn’t care about her pleasure anymore. That was another odd thing about being a guy; you had to be a mind reader to know where your girl was. And, truth be told, girls were the mind readers, not the guys. If an intuitive girl ever did read her partner’s mind during sex she’d probably see the same one universal thing: he was trying not to let it blow.

He walked into the living room and looked out window.

It was the Troll.

Stewart impotently started watching the bum he named “Troll” a few weeks after he moved into the park adjacent to their four-plex apartment. Sometimes the homeless guy aimlessly broke tree branches and bushes on meaningless tirades. Other times he’d throw rocks and junk into the wash. One time it was a shopping cart. Another it was a bicycle. All the while Stewart stood back and impotently watched.

Some days Janie would come right back in after leaving for work and he’d have to walk her past the Troll who looked drunk as he sprawled, making the park his vacation home - as if lying on his resort beach in the tropics waiting for his Mai Tai arrive. It was a party of one as the vagrant carried on several simultaneous conversations with several internal characters in several nonsensical languages which included interspersed moans, grunts, and groans.

One of those characters in one of those languages may have ordered the Mai Tai but one thing was for certain: the waiter would never come.

Troll was quite a tailor. Quite a bad one, that is. His clothes were a nonsensical mix unfashionably tied together only by the dirt and grime which stained them to oily dark grays. Oily dark grays which matched his face, his hair, and beard that camouflaged him to such an extent that if he happened to step inside a rubbish bin he would become nearly invisible. Everywhere else, and to everyone else, though, he stood out like useless trash.

Troll was quite a talker. Quite an incomprehensible one. All the air through his larynx was devoted to miscommunication. While chucking his rocks or breaking his bushes or flogging his fence he always chucked or broke or flogged with an accompanying incomprehensible chant, repeating it over and over again, like a mantra.

This time it was with his belt, which to Stewart’s looked like a giant phallus, that he used to rhythmatically flog the fence against their beat, interrupting their lovemaking and coming between him and Janie.

Stewart had been impotent in the past. He would not be anymore.

Wet. This time with rivers of sweat streaming down his face. He found himself outside in the park running at full clip directly at Troll who stood at the fence, dumbly entranced, chanting his mantra with a rhythm that now complimented Steward’s footfalls and panting breaths.

He skidded to a hockey stop which sent a dust plume over Troll who looked at him and complained: “Hey!”

Stewart shouted back: “Hey! I need you!”

Then he found himself in the sprint again. This time, chasing Troll who, like him, ran spasmodically with robotic arms and powerful sprinters legs down the wash lined path.

Stewart had never noticed the sheer hilliness of the path before. How it heaved up like Janie’s beautiful perfect breasts then down like the small of her back. Then how it forked like her curvaceous thighs with a gushing water fountain of Venus at her would-be vagina apex.

He sprinted after Troll, through the fountain, their arms and steps in perfect unison like their lovemaking had been to the fence flogging. Together, as their powerful appendages shed Venus’s wetness, they sailed in and out of the fog banks and deeper into a forest Stewart had never seen before.

Neither gaining nor losing ground, he chased Troll through thickening vegetation, over rocks and streams, and along a line of eucalyptus trees. At the end of which, there was a dilapidated shack which was shaded, almost guarded, by a giant paper tree which shed untold countless seasons of leaves and rolls upon rolls of bark over the rotten wood structure.

Into which, without pause, Troll disappeared.

“Got ya!” Stewart joyfully exclaimed as he skipped off a rock and sprinted for the door.

He bust in, throwing his body in the air like a pro linebacker, but after the flimsy door gave way and splintered he hit the floor with an off balance hard thud. His body twisted awkwardly as he rolled across the broken wood floor and knocked his head hard, and saw stars and bright lights.

Instinctively he put up his hands in a defensive posture to ward off attacking blows but when he regained sight he realized it was just him there. Alone. He was alone in the small room covered with layer upon layer of notepaper and scribble that lined the walls. Which the walls seemed to shed like the giant paper tree outside.

Troll forgotten, he ripped a ragged note off the wall and tried to make sense of it, but couldn’t. Like the oral mantras, the written ones were equally unfathomable.

With sheer frustration he pulled off several sheets to get to deeper layers of understanding but could comprehend none of it. Most of the notes were written in completely different languages using foreign letters and symbols. Or, if he could recognize the alphabet the letters made words that were nonsensical, like words with no vowels or words with numbers or letters upside down or spun around.

Faster and faster, he spun furiously ripping meaningless pieces of paper off the walls to get to deeper layers, grasping for a meaning, any meaning. But, none could be found.

Then, from out of nowhere, he heard the sound of a faint thump.

The foul bum instantly flashed back into his mind and he immediately turned back to search for the Troll. He furiously thrashed paper off the walls now to find his rival, looking under the only place there was to hide in the small shack. So determined was he to find him that he manically returned again and again to the fruitless search for a large object in a place much too small to ever possibly contain it.

He felt dizzy. He felt sick to his stomach. Then uncontrollably claustrophobic. He looked for the door but couldn’t find it amongst the piles of shredded paper. He panicked thinking: what if there never even was a door? Then, adding terror on top of his emotional hot fudge sundae, he ripped armfuls of paper off the walls searching for an exit, pounding and kicking the walls and floor, desperately clawing at the rotten wood which buried deep splinters into his fingers and under his nails.

Then, utterly exhausted, bruised, and bleeding, he collapsed. And, as the paper notes gently sailed down all around him and quietly buried him, he put his head down and cried.

squish…

Wait a minute. He knew that sound.

Thump. Squish.

He looked up. He was in his bedroom at the foot of his bed.

Thump. Squish. Creak.

He watched the leg of his bed creep across the floor by a millimeter, answering to the thump.

Thump. Squish. Creak….. Groan. Janie?!?

Thump! Slowly he rose to his knees and saw his own butt arching up then down in a graceful arc. Creak! He saw the bottom of the old inherited bed the springs, weighed heavy, chanting in creaks.

Thump! He watched mesmerized at the thought of seeing himself do it with Janie. He was awed by their steady erotic rhythm mixed with the purity he saw in her eyes and the way she touched him.

It amazed him that he never realized how beautiful the two of them looked making love. How happy they were together. So perfect as they moved as one in their carnal dance. He always thought of it as such a logical thing, lovemaking. As a series of moves and positions. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all. It was a dance! They were dancing on waves of passion and emotion that went far beyond the scope of any sex guide.

Why were men so mundane in how they physicalized lovemaking? Just by how she touched him he understood there was far more to it than that.

Sure women could be difficult sometimes but with this new perspective he saw for the first time how purely she really loved him. Look at how she touched him. So gracefully, almost spiritually. And, she had always loved only him. She never wavered about that. So what if sometimes she could be nagging and demanding. All women were nagging and demanding. This one truly loved him. When she made love to him she never had his thoughts of annoyance or effort. She never compared him to or thought of anyone else, like he did. She loved only him. Purely.

He could see that now.

And suddenly his heart sunk feeling heavy and his eyes welled up with tears of gratitude for her. He was thankful to be able to witness her making love to him. So thankful for the unique vantage point and the reminder of how she truly felt about him.

Until he realized it wasn’t him.

Just as suddenly, He froze, simultaneously excited and repulsed. His heart that was pounding hard in his chest now rose into his throat. Making it hard for him to swallow. Making it hard for him to breathe.

It wasn’t him! It was the Troll!

It wasn’t him! How could he think that it was him? It was the Troll fucking Janie! The dirty Troll with his dread lock hair. With his rotten food encrusted beard, and black tongue, and rotten teeth, and bleeding gums kissing her. His hairy arms, his grease covered hands holding her, stroking her. His misshapen lanky body on top of her. Grinding against her. Penetrating her.

Frozen, he stood there. But why the hell was he waiting? Why was he just standing there watching his wife being tortured?

In a flash he formulated his plan of attack instantly envisioning and formulating where to grab him and what bones to break. The tibia or fibula. The radius or ulna.

He had to move in. He had to bust in as he did into the shed and he was ready to pounce but something strange made him take pause. Yet, she was groaning! He was hurting her! She was in pain!

Then he realized the cause of his hesitation. He realized why he waited. They weren’t moans of pain.

They were moans of pleasure!

Of pleasure! With Troll, Janie cried out such songs of ecstasy. Such songs of such desire and passion. Songs of lust from Janie that Stewart never heard before. Sounds that she never made with him.

Frozen, he stood there, a cuckold at the foot of his own bed, watching. The two were too swept away with passion to even notice him.

With glazed over eyes he watched Troll touched her in ways she would never even let him. Lovemaking with her may have always been full of thorns but this filthy bum effectively opened her reluctant flower; the flower that had always been so hesitant with him unfolded sublimely with Troll. Opened magnificently.

Janie heaved and sighed. She moved faster grinding against the creature. Then she made a different sound. A sound Steward knew though maybe not as well as he would have liked; he knew the meaning of that carnal moan even though he didn’t hear it every time they made love. She was about to come. And, not like with him but just so easily. So effortlessly. And, he could tell that the Troll couldn’t care less. That he wasn’t even trying.

If anything, that’s what really killed him. That’s what really propelled him into motion as he threw himself onto the bed in the final act of their ménage à trois. To execute his plan to perfection.

He ripped Troll off her not caring that with this worthless vagrant Janie was finally so opened and realized as a woman. He tore into him not caring he was tearing her away from her perfect lover. His only desire was to bring the plan to quick fruition and vanquish his enemy. The creek was replaced with the snap of bones shattering. The thump turned into an elbow into a solar plexus, of a pinkie snapping off backwards at the knuckle, of two fingers penetrating into the valley of a throat, of the snap of ears pulled off, of the tear of a nose grabbed at the base and cartridge ripped up to the forehead, of the pop-pop of a jaw hyper-extended and yanked out of joint.

Stewart attacked, blinded with rage, until his opponent no longer moved, no longer gasped, no longer could breathe but just lay there so mutilated and mangled and thoroughly destroyed, as not to be recognizable anymore.

He heaved a sigh and dropped his head, exhausted.

Janie had been silent the whole time. Her perfect lover never even fought back. Would she jump on his back and beat on him for so easily besting her beloved Don Juan? It was strange that throughout it all they both were so quiet. She hadn’t uttered a word. He not a single chant.

Stewart couldn’t tell if he loved her or hated her anymore. He didn’t know how they would go on or if they would. But he had to see her before he dealt with the repercussions of this.

He looked up from the bloody carnage.

And, there he saw Troll staring back at him dumbly and mute for the first time. He was nude with his belt swinging between his legs where his penis should have been.

Afraid to look down then compelled to, Stewart peaked out of the corner of his eye and threw his eyelashes saw what looked like a fork in the road.

He slammed his eyes shut and willed his hands to reach down as he looked away and his mouth opened in a silent scream of anguish. He felt what he could only guess to be gushy brain matter. He felt intestine. He touched something that heaved up like the path when he chased after Troll. Heaved up like a breast.

Then a slaughterhouse stench filled his nose and he started to gag. He couldn’t take it anymore. In mad desperation his eyes popped open and dilated. Like a madman he threw up the mounds and mounds of sinew and tissue which stained the room crimson and rained down in a torrent of red.

Down, among the pool of bile, among the many pools of blood, and under chunks of skull, of tissue, of parts not even identifiable anymore. Down under the mess and next to a perforated larynx and covered in blood, he saw a face. He saw-

“Janie” said the Troll.

Looking back, the old days always seemed safer.

Disturbances were always resolved and the omnipresent red tide of death or despair or destruction always receded into a greater and happier time of prosperity. And in those olden days the people would always forget so easily the last flurry of tough times and continue about in their fancy fun free lives.

In those olden days tough times could even seem quaint and romantic.

It was that way even in the not-so-olden days when people were afraid to fly, people were afraid of anthrax in the mail, people were afraid of dirty bombs after the terrorist strike on 9-11. The DOW Jones Industrial now wasn’t even as low as it dropped in the summer of 2002 when people were so afraid they thought twice about going to shopping malls for fear of unknown attack. Then it took just a year for the market to bounce back and only a few years to reach an all-time high, as people slowly regained their courage.

Stewart kept repeating that to himself over and over again. Problem was, he just couldn’t get it to stick.

The fact of the matter was after his one-day stint at SecureCo, the job market dried up so fast that even with government promises of corporate bail-outs that didn’t help his employment situation.  To make things worse, he didn’t even qualify for unemployment. Having not finished orientation or a properly filled out W-2 ‘his record could not be found anywhere in the SecureCo system’.

At least that was the corporate line Joan Shields’ assistant gave him when he called after the company was made liquid again by the mighty hand of Uncle Sam.  He protested that he had an offer letter, but couldn’t get a meeting much less a personal phone call with Joan. The place, where he dreaded working, now became an impenetrable fortress to him as he clawed to reinstate his job then found himself fighting for some kind, any kind of recognition of his existence.

“You want in. Then you want out. Then you want back in again. Such is the crazy nature of man”, his wife, Janie said as she looked over to him and seemingly read his thoughts as she downshifted the car to second.

He didn’t want to acknowledge the comment even if she might be right. To Stewart, the good days were over and tough times were present and everywhere.  Thank God they had waited on having children. Or more precisely, thank God he had put her off and convinced her to stay on the pill until things got better.

They had been together three years and in that time they had done a bit of role reversal. Even though she had him hooked on the first date with feelings of new love that made him want to jump out of his skin he couldn’t tell if it was a mutual thing. Sitting on a bench with her on that summer night he looked into her eyes with wild thoughts of reckless love and grandiose plans of a perfect future. At the time she was more reserved and coquettish as she grazed his knee with her finger tips.

He had no idea it was calculated.

She was calculated then. And, though she was falling for him too, at the time she never would have admitted it as she administered the taciturn expression on her face. He wasn’t the guy who was part of her grand plan, though she would never dream of telling him so. But then he with his wild boyishness and reckless abandon had to come along and throw a monkey wrench into the rationally elegant Swiss Clock machinery of her mind which somehow made things better.

Somehow, things made sense despite the stripped gears and bent springs.

He looked at her as she stopped for a red light. One thing didn’t change. He still could never tell what she was thinking. But she was thinking something. That’s for sure.

“What?” he asked.

“Jill’s having a baby shower. Spouses invited.”

“So you want me to go?”

“Forget it,” she said.

He gladly let it go as she put it in first as the light turned green.

“Easy. Easy!” he complained, smelling the burning clutch.

That wasn’t going to be cheap to fix. How could she possibly be so crazy as to even want a baby when they were driving around with a bum clutch?

He didn’t even much like the idea of Manny, the hamster, he felt forced to agree to, as a consolation prize.  Not that the white little furry creature wasn’t a battle too. He was scared what the landlord would do if he found out they had a pet which could damage their decidedly pet unfriendly building.

“Damage this broken down dilapidated place?” her retort struck back as he replayed the argument. “Do you think anyone would even notice the damage a little hamster could cause?  Do you think anyone would even care?”

“Beside the point,” he fired back. “We have rent control.”

He was desperately afraid of having to move and losing their great cheap rent. Yes the place was a dilapidated house build two hundred years ago but it had character. It was historic. He prayed all the time for them not to tear it down in favor of a multi-unit building. “And anyway, it deserved to be kept as such and not to be chewed to shards by a wild animal with razor sharp teeth,” he recalled the old argument which played back again in his head. Ok, maybe that was a bit overboard.

“Don’t worry, baby,” she said as delicately as she could muster.

Janie then pounded the horn and screamed at the car ahead of them to redirect her frustration: “Move it! Grow some balls weenie!”

“I don’t worry! I never worry!” he retorted, instantly knowing it was a lie. Nothing scared him when he met her, that is. That was then, this is now. But what happened to the girl who was afraid to touch his knee on their first date? What happened to the girl who was so reserved and quiet? She had changed too. Sometimes he thought she was crazy. She seemed totally oblivious of the worsening economic crisis that was putting a strangle- hold on the economy. How could she be oblivious of the banks threatening to fail all around her?

Despite it all, she would make bold and brash statements: “let’s go to Europe for vacation!” or “wanna go house hunting?” or of course the persistent reoccurring baby hints.

Still, she was beautiful and he loved her. He looked over at her as she pulled into the Petco parking lot and yank the parking break.

“That’s a Dreamer Axiom!” she said instantly fascinated by the baby stroller. “Britney Spears uses that one!”

“Baby” he said trying to slow her.

But she was already bounding out of the car.

“I didn’t know it could hold twins!” she said as she bounced around to the passenger side and gave him a playful smile then kissed him on the lips. “Meet you inside.”

She sprang to the store entrance, walking in with the mother as she cooed at the baby.

“Nothing,” he said, defeated, with many deep layers of mixed emotions. Why were we so distant? Why could we never be on the same page? Are we growing apart? More and more fears.

God, she was so oblivious, so fearless. None of his specialties.

“Hey, they have kittens!” she yelled back at him as she opened the Petco door and stuck her head out to inform him. “Maybe a kitty would be a good playmate for Manhattan.”

“Sure and while you’re at it why don’t you buy a bazooka for our baby as well. Everyone knows how well cats and little furry rodents get along!”

But she didn’t hear. She had already gone in and he was still sitting in the passenger seat pondering distant future babies and very near future hamsters named Manhattan. Manhattan would be the hamster Manny’s full given name that she came up with weeks ago when he finally conceded. Manhattan.

Janie was at the rodent cages pointing to a hamster when he walked in. The attendant handed it to her and she cooed and smiled at Stewart.

“I got the one with good table manners”, she joked, noting that Manny was the only hamster who hadn’t stuffed her cheeks full of food.

He complained to her ear in a whisper as she walked up to the checkout line. “A cat?”

“No silly.” She purred, playing. “A kitty.”

“Um, yes but a kitty is a baby which grows up to be a cat.”

“Over time. Don’t you think they’d make nice playmates? We could raise them together.” she teased.

“Are you crazy” he hissed. “Not at all.” Then he stopped dead in his tracks. Of course she was playing with him. What was wrong with him.

“It was a joke! Okay! Do you think I’m dumb! Do you think I would actually get a cat! Why do you have to be so God damn serious all the time. It’s a little hamster. It’s not going to hurt anything. We’re not going to let anything hurt it. Life will proceed. Life will go on.”

She stormed out in a flurry, Manhattan under her arm in a cardboard box. The vapor trail of hushed silence filled her wake. Then as he stood there, frozen, feeling like every eye in the entire store was watching his every move, the cashier put out her hand.

“Cash or credit?”

“Welcome to our world,” she said as she guided him through the mammoth industrial complex of brushed aluminum and cold slate tile. “We keep you safe. That’s what we do.”

They walked up the quad to one of the many ultra modern buildings, all sleek with post-modern austerity. All gigantic and woven with steel between glass. He tried to get the door for her with an awkward tug, but she stopped him with a quick draw of her badge.

“We’ll get you yours at the end of orientation. Until then,” she continued, “please keep your name tag on.”

Earlier, he had applied the name tag in the bathroom and had strained to get it level. It read: Stewart Kitchen.

There was a whole procedure to getting the door open. She explained to him that his hand shouldn’t be on the handle when he waved the badge in front of the infrared detector. Then there would be two beeps, prompting one to enter their personalized code. If you waited too long and the third beep rang, then that meant that your badge would be locked out of the system for five minutes. Security would be notified and put on orange alert.

“Orange alert?” he asked.

She went on that orange alert wasn’t such a big deal and that security would just do a few system checks. “Now teal alerts… different story entirely,” she said with a flash of her whitened teeth and toss of her blond perfect hair.

“Teal alerts?”

But she was focused and waited for the second beep, blocking off the keypad with her arm to prevent him from sneaking a peek at her code, as if they were still in school. Then she punched in a series of numbers and the door made a sad sound as it clicked open. “Tada!”

He smiled uncomfortably and stared out of the glass wall as she led him down a long glass hallway and up an escalator. He saw three security guards wrestling with a man who very well could have been homeless. “They have batons.”

“And guns,” she muttered as they dragged the man into the back of a black car and drove off. “Don’t let it get to you. It happens all the time. Look. If we can’t keep ourselves safe then how could we possibly guarantee that very same promise to our customers?”

He felt uneasy but tried his best to hide it.

“Don’t worry. You’re one of us, now.”

She led him up a sweeping glass staircase, which opened to an atrium enclosed with two arcs of more steel-framed glass. Lots of shiny glass and steel… and grey suits! He hadn’t realized until just now but everyone wore grey suits. Grey suits with sad checkered ties.  And, as the suits passed him and his host walking him through with the quick clip-clops of her heels against the milky white tiles, the suits never made eye contact with either of them. They moved expressionlessly like ants in this great colony of see through walls.

Stewart was one of them now - grey suits and blank stares. Worker ants on their mission to serve the colony - to serve the queen or whomever ran this huge conglomerate of corporations. He thought of Janie, his fiancée, and felt like a prisoner as the woman walked him up the marble stairs and into the glass atrium on the way to wherever it is they might be going.

Orientation. On the very first day he already felt like a prisoner being led to an unknown destination and an unknown fate to meet those who he had nothing in common with other than the fate of working for the same place. She talked on and on about the merits of their fringe benefits and vacation packages, but all he could see was the forced friendships he’d have to make and whittling the days away by taking recurrent trips to the water cooler to partake in meaningless conversation while all the while dreaming the day away.

He had several urges to bolt and run out the front door, but the desire to take care of Janie stopped every one of them with the resounding promise that was built into the reinforced hardened steel of the security doors, as much as it was built into the slogan of this company, as much as it was part of the implicit corporate culture of every company - ‘to keep you safe’.

Besides, he didn’t know if he could even find the front doors… and what kind of alert would running through them create?

She led him into an impressive reception area and into the grand ballroom, festooned with a giant crystal candelabra hanging from the center of the parabolic ceiling. Directly across from where they stood was a stage that ran nearly the entire width of the room and was framed by two huge oil portraits. The one on the right was of President George W. Bush.

Turning to him, she saw he was impressed: “We revolve that portrait out whenever a new president comes into office… as long as he’s not a jackass.”

“What if he’s a democrat?” he asked.

“Then our guy gets four more years.” she said. “By the way, that one on the left is our president, Wilson M. Price the Third. He never gets revolved out. You’re quick. I like that.”

The janitors folding up chairs and rolling out the round tables caused the first hint of negative emotion he saw on her face. “I have to apologize for this. We usually have chairs setup for lecture when we do orientation but we just had our fourth quarter celebration soiree. It was an amazing fourth quarter, by the way,” she proclaimed with a plastic smile.

She planted him at the table in the middle of the room and ushered the janitors out. Before she could return from across the cavernous room, he quietly asked almost to himself, “Am I the only one?”

But his question easily bounced off the parabolic dome ceiling and reflected to her and every table. “This session, yes,” she responded, adding: “you’re lucky to have gotten this job.”

It was an ugly unspoken truth that SecureCo Insurance had to lay off thousands employees to have had the fabulous quarter of which she spoke. That was the way many corporations managed to find black ink on their statement and drive stock prices up. It also didn’t hurt that the company just received a huge government bailout.

He knew nothing about SecureCo before the presentation other than their famous slogan: “We keep you safe. That’s what we do.” But he was soon to find out. The lights dimmed, and the impressive curtains swept open to reveal an Imax screen. A 70mm projector began flashing images onto it from the back of the room. “Welcome to SecureCo”… “An IMAX film by Michael Bay.”

SecureCo billed itself in this orientation film as the next step and natural evolution of the insurance industry. They planned to broaden and expand how the world would view insurance in the future. “Fact is”, the president of SecureCo declared in an intoxicated Texan accent as he sipped a Mai Tai on a tropical cabaña set “SecureCo covers everything.” Then he toasted the camera, “welcome to the good life. So welcome. Welcome all of you,” his voice echoed, bouncing off of the prefect parabolic ceiling.

Stewart looked around. It was just him alone there in the ballroom. Just he and the presidents.

SecureCo did cover everything one could think of, as promised. The Michael Bay film showed that in beautiful action packed jerky cuts the road to safety that SecureCo paved. Un-meritous law suit? No problem. Legit claim? You’re covered. Health? Of course. Pre-existing conditions? SecureCo will be there for you. Accidental injury? No doubt. Premeditated? SecureCo is committed to you.

He watched as the film promised to protect virtually every fate and terrible malady of the human condition. It promised the safety of covering anything and everything that could ever happen to you, and it did an unexpected thing to him.

It worked.

He started to see himself as a part of this safe world. He envisioned his wardrobe of grey suits with little rebellious outbursts. A red tie maybe. Or pink handkerchief. Maybe if he wore yellow socks or he didn’t know maybe he could retain his sense of self by jacking off in the private lavatory or smoking pot with the janitors. He thought of Janie. He could do this for her. Steady money…and if they covered base jumping in their base plans, their maternity policy must be amazing. Welcome to the good life indeed!

He could get into that. And if this place was anything, it was safe and rich and powerful. Imagine the money and power it would take to hire Michael Bay to direct their in-house presentation! What could be next?

What was next on the IMAX screen was the Rolling Stones playing their hit “Sympathy for the Devil.” Mick Jagger shared the stage with Wilson Price as the two sang alternate verses and playfully did choruses wagging their butts and grinding in to each other. Thump! Thump! The shot craned wide. Thump! Thump! Then via helicopter pass which synched with a musical segue he watched in awe as all were backed up by the USC marching band.  Thump. Thump! Went the drums. Whoo! Whoo! Went the horns!

Thumping their way to the good safe life - Thump! Thump! Whoo! Whoo! He was indeed lucky to have landed this job in these hard economic times. She was so right.

Thump! Thump!

Whoo! Whoo!

What a sound system! The chairs rattled. The crystal candelabra vibrated as it swayed.

BANG! BANG!

The band played on. USC drummers through the subwoofers made the walls feel like they were going to collapse.

He toasted as the president pitched again “to the good life” when he noticed something strange. His portrait, adjacent to his flickering celluloid image was slanted. And, the slant was increasing as the drums beat on and as the sirens roared on.

SIRENS!?!

Those were sirens he heard as the president’s oversize picture toppled from its mount and cart wheeled across the room and into a smoke glass wall which shattered like confetti into millions of tiny fragments.

Now the violence and sirens overshadowed USC and The Stones which pounded triumphantly on. The cries of anger caused a wave of panic to flow through him as he bolted for the newly-made glass doorway. He wondered if this indeed was the teal alert.

Out and into the reception area, he watched people rush to get out. The escalator was overcrowded as the once meek ants now scrambled to escape. At the security doors they frantically tried to escape the steel and glass web which only groaned the repeated orange alert warning: “Not Authorized.” The idea of being locked in against the ear piercing alarm sirens only served to redouble the panic. Grey suits cried out in pain as they were crushed and trampled.

Then someone grabbed his hand! It was the HR lady who brought him here. What was her name again? Her pantyhose may have been ripped but she carried herself with the air of a New England waspy socialite.

“Come with Joan” she said as she pulled him aside and down a hallway that lead to a hidden door. She flipped her badge, waited the count, punched the numbers, and outside they were in the free cool air under a large portico.

“Was that the teal alert?” he asked.

Before she could answer they watched a black Maybach Exelero fly by and heard someone scream: “that’s him!” Others chanted: “get him!”

“Who?” Stewart asked Joan, as she started to chase the Maybach as well.

Mid-sprint, she broke a heel and now had to take the time to pull her shoes off. Joan turned and yelled at him: “That’s Mr. Price, that’s our president, you heathen. He needs us!” Then she took off running in her pencil skirt and bare feet as fast as she could.

He watched as the employees swarmed the 2 ton ultra-luxury sedan, using their bodies as a barricade and forcing it to a stop from over forty miles per hour. Nothing made them stop. Not the blood of lost comrades. Nothing. Not even Joan who was hoisted kicking and screaming as they threw her off of the man she was trying to protect like an invading bug. They were ants again. This time turned against the cancerous nest.

They pulled the door off of the car and pulled the man out before they realized what he saw. In the opposite direction another identical black Maybach Exelero, this one still shiny from the fresh coat of polymer wax that was applied that very morning was headed out of the complex.

By the time it turned onto the highway onramp already traveling well in excess of one hundred miles per hour.

The ants all stopped and watched in unison as the real Wilson M. Price the Third drove away.

“What did he do? What did he do?” Stewart asked.

“Him? He took all of our money.”