THE TOUR

First, it was the telephone, which he ignored, repeatedly. Then, it was the doorbell which brought what he was doing to a temporary halt. Finally, the soft knocking on the front door- that quickly turned into a determined pounding- was the proverbial “final straw“ that made him- Alex- get up and go see what was going on.

As he made his way down the stairs, the possibilities sprinted through his mind.

“Who would pound?” was the first question he asked himself.

“One of the neighbors, maybe an emergency. Not the Jehovah’s Witnesses- they wouldn’t pound. Who else?” he continued to ask, now whittling down the likelihoods.

Yet, all the while, as he descended the stairs and got closer to the door, the list of candidates continued to get smaller.

At the bottom, he was traversing the few feet of the dining room to the three stairs that would take him into the foyer and to the door.

“The cops!” he concluded as he reached the door. “Somebody called the cops for something or other,” was his last thought before unlocking the door and pulling it open.

And, what did he find?

A four-foot eleven, ninety-five pound- if soaking wet- “her!”

Yes, “her!”

So, you ask- who is “her?”

“Her” is “she,” better known as someone he had interacted, worked with and spent almost seven months together trying to get to the bottom of an issue about three years ago- “her” is Amanda.

Yes, Amanda- tiny, smart, with a great body- Amanda.

“Hi!” she said almost joyfully with that quirky- “I know exactly what’s happening”- kind of smile that, more often than not, was on her face.

He looked her up and down, then past her out toward the drive, before turning back to her.

“Hi, to you, too,” he said, then paused before adding, “and to what do I owe the honor of a visit from you?”

She, then, in her own way, looked past him into the house, before taking a step forward and asking with that ever present smile on her face, “Are you going to ask me in?”

It was right there, after she asked that he got a very distinct sense of a game being played, an old game they had played before.

“Aren’t you afraid?” he inquired with a line from the past.

She took another step closer to him.

“If I was afraid, I wouldn’t be here at this hour- in the dark- now, would I?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know, maybe you want to play dangerously,” he told her.

She stepped a little closer to him.

“It takes two people to play anything, dangerous or not,” she informed him with a sense of complete confidence.

She paused for the briefest of a moment.

“Have you ever played dangerously?” she asked.

Again, he nodded in response to the question.

“Sure, back in the day. I’ve played dangerously.”

“So we both know how the game is played? Right?” she replied, rhetorically. “Now, are you going to invite me in or not?”

He stepped back, then aside and with a sweeping of his arm, he said to her, “By all means, do come in.”

“Why thank-you, kind sir,” she told him and stepped into the foyer.

He laughed a slight laugh after which he added, “I just love it when you end a sentence like that.”

She turned to him brief enough to retort with, “I see the game’s already started.”

“I’ve been waiting,” he one-upped her.

“For?”

“For you to show up- I told you more than two years ago, that sooner or later you’d show up. Do you remember why I told you that?”

She turned and approached him.

“Remind me,” she asked.

“Let’s just say, I sensed in you- that you have an appetite- that you can be hungry given the right time and the right circumstance. That’s probably why you’re here, tonight? Right?”

“The house looks different than the last time,” she assessed, ignoring the question, then left the near-to-touching proximity between them, walked across the foyer and stepped down into the sunken room beyond. “I remember this room,” she said as she walked further inside. “You’ve done a good job of making it presentable- very livable and comfortable.”

He followed her into the room, watching how she walked and how she moved across the carpet up to the fireplace.

“Very nice,” she added. “I like the color of the carpet- dark green- almost like a beautifully manicured lawn.”

“Thanks,” he offered slowly.

“Actually,” she continued on, “if we opened those two curtains and windows on either side of the fireplace and moved this table and that chair out of here, we could lay out a blanket, break open a bottle of wine- pour- and have a little picnic right here in the grass.”

Alex chuckled.

“Yeah, a real splendorific time.

She looked over at him, partly in surprise.

“I caught that- that’s very good- ‘splendor in the grass.’”

She paused before adding, “No telling what that could lead to, right?”

He nodded, “Yeah, but without the grass stains on our elbows and knees.”

They both laughed at that.

“So,” she continued as she walked up to within inches of him, “are you going to give me the tour?”

“If that’s what you’d like” he said cautiously, then, “okay, let’s reacquaint you with the kitchen and dining room since you’ve been in both of them before.”

She stepped back and pointed at a closed door.

“What’s beyond that?” she asked.

“Beyond that,” he waved toward the door, “are the stairs to the basement.”

“I see,” she said, now stepping toward the door, “do you keep it closed for a reason? Are there secrets in the basement?”

She paused before concluding with, “You know what they say about basements, don’t you?”

He quickly thought about her question and instantly had an answer that exited his mouth with a slow deliberation.

“I don’t know. What is it that they say about basements?”

She smiled that smile.

“They say that unpredictable and unexpected things can happen there,” she told him and walked to the closed door. “Let’s go see.”

“All right,” he answered, walked over to the door, opened it, reached in and turned on the light

“After you,” he said to her and gestured down the stairs.

She turned, smiled and simply said, “No, I want you to go down first, then, I’ll follow.”

He returned her smile and said, “No problem, I’m fine with that.”

“That’s good to hear,” he heard her say from behind him as they took the next step on “the tour.”

Slowly and carefully, they made their way down.

“Wow!” she exclaimed at the bottom of the stairs, “there’s so much stuff down here, things on top of other things- it’s crammed!”

“I don’t know,” he said, turning back to her, “I don’t see it so much as crammed, it’s rather cozy, stimulatingly tight.”

“Do you like it this crammed, this tight?” she asked.

“I do, it gives me the feeling that I’m able to do some of my best work, when it’s like this- you’d be surprised.”

“I’m sure I would,” she agreed easily then asked, “shall we head back up?”

Alex smiled and then said, “Sure, why don’t you flip around and head up. I’ll be right behind you.”

They then proceeded to climb the eight stairs back to the family room, where she made a left turn where she mounted the three stairs leading up into the kitchen and to the table.

“I’ve been in the kitchen before- at this table- on the other side, by the sliding glass doors to the deck,” she told him and proceeded to walk over to the exact same spot where he remembered her standing before.

“Though,” she continued, “the table is longer than I remember it,” she said as she surveyed it’s length. “How long is it?”

Alex looked down the length of the table trying to come up with a length that was as close to precise as possible.

“Not sure, maybe six feet,” he guessed then added, “hold on, I’ve got a yard stick right over here,” he pointed toward a corner in the kitchen, “let me get it and measure.”

He then stepped to his left, took the yard stick out of the corner and measured.

“Exactly six feet,” he informed her, “longer than you are tall.”

He waited for her to say something- which she didn’t- so he upped the stakes.

“I guess somebody could have a celebratory feast on this table- a real bacchanal- it’s sturdy as hell.”

“Yeah, they could-” she acknowledged, then was immediately interrupted.

“You know, it probably could hold a lot of weight- if it had to- no problem at all,” he said with a smile and a nod.

They stood there, now, along the long sides of the table and across from each other, with both of them waiting for the other to take the next step, say the next thing.

“Shall we continue with the tour?” Alex finally asked.

Amanda smiled and began so as to move around the short end of the table toward the entrance to the dining room.

“Yes, of course,” she said.

“Now,” Alex continued as they crossed into the dining room, “the dining room is different than the last time you were here.”

Amanda walked to the middle of the room.

“Whoa!” she uttered scanning the room panoramically, “The bookshelves- the books- the artwork! It’s like a cross between a library and a gallery- but with two couches at a right angle to each other, a couch for each of two people- almost like controlled intimacy.”

Alex shook his head with uncertainty.

“Come again?” he asked.

“Think about it,” she replied easily, “if they each sit at the far ends of their respective couch, they can share the room- share the experience and each other- safely. Though, if they slowly move toward the other end of their couch, where they could be close enough to touch but not to hold, wouldn’t that be an exciting lead-up- almost like in the movies?”

Alex laughed and asked- “Suitable for all audiences? No “R,” no “PG?”

“Maybe it could end up being ‘X-Rated?’” she asked. “Though, it would be tough to take the entire couch to the cleaners.”

“But not the cushions,” Alex added.

Her eyes widened, just before she shifted to the affected voice of an employee at a make believe cleaners.

“Ah, excuse me Ma’am, what exactly are these stains on the cushions?”

Once, again, they laughed, together.

“On the other hand,” Alex began with a shift of focus in mind, “it can be peaceful and serene in here.”

Amanda smiled. “Almost like a room in a castle, befitting a princess.”

“Would that be your wish?” he asked.

“Yes,” she told him, “actually it would be one of two wishes. Can I have two wishes?”

He looked over at her and recognized that she was right there, right on the verge of ‘play.’ He decided to join in.

“Well,” he began, “if you were the princess in this room, in this castle, why of course you can have two wishes, after all, you are a princess. What say thee to your two wishes?”

She looked off briefly, then back with that smile on her face and said, “I wish for happiness and serenity.”

Alex nodded, then told her, “And so be it done, in this room to bring thee the wishes of your heart.”

They smiled at each other for long, lasting moments before he asked, “Shall we continue?”

“By all means,” she replied as they headed across the room to the edge of two sets of stairs that could lead in two different directions.

In one direction, down three stairs was the foyer, into which she entered through the door to the outside. The other was up the stairs to the second floor.

She stopped at the base of the stairs going up, turned to him and said, “I’ve never been upstairs.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m as sure as the fact that the Crown Royal Black bottle I spotted under the buffet, you know, the one you bought a couple of years ago. Is it still sealed and not half empty?”

Amanda paused for a moment before asking him another question, “Has it ever been opened?”

“No.”

“Then, I’ve never been upstairs,” she told him with impressive assuredness and then proceeded to descend the three stairs to the foyer and toward the front door.

Alex joined her in the foyer.

“There were a lot of things we didn’t get to do today,” he said as they walked toward the door.

“Like?” She asked with piqued and curious interest.

“Well, like that bottle of Crown Royal you just mentioned, standing there, all alone, by itself, under the buffet, unloved and unopened.”

“No, we didn’t,” she began almost wistfully, “but how about this, why don’t we say that this tour was the mini, the ‘introductory’ one? Why don’t we schedule the next one to be the more “in-depth” tour, complete with unlimited time on the clock and unlimited refreshments under the buffet?”

He nodded agreeably, “That sounds good to me.”

She smiled, then said, “Great, and by the way, is that the only bottle of Crown Royal you have?”

“It is,” he admitted.

Instantly, a pursed smile came onto her face, right before she advised him, “Maybe you should get another one.”

With that, they turned and headed for the front door.

Most recently, John Richmond has made his way to a small upstate New York town where he divides his time between writing and discussing the state of the world with his coonhound buddy- Roma. John Richmond he has appeared in Qutub Minar Review (India), ArLiJo, Taj Mahal Review (India), Rundelania, New Ulster (Northern Ireland), The Corner Club Press, Oddball Magazine, Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Tower Journal, Stone Path Review, Meat for Tea: The Valley Review, Rogue Particles Magazine, From the Depths, Flash Frontier (N. Z.), The Birmingham Arts Journal, Riverbabble (2), The Writing Disorder, Lalitamba, Poetic Diversity, Marco Polo Arts Magazine, Embodied Effigies, ken*again, Black & White, SNReview, The Round, The Potomac, Syndic Literary Journal, Ygdrasil (Canada), Slow Trains, Forge Journal, and others.