- - CUCK’S LOST AND FOUND - -

- On the 25th, Angel (ex-Pearl), and Doug came out of their comas. Each coughed, and moved, and talked to BJ and Louise, then drifted into normal sleep.
- On the 26th, Angel and Doug were moved out of the ICU.
- BJ and Louise would keep the memory of that Christmas day for life, and tell that story, whenever they were asked about working on Christmas.
- The 27th was cold and windy, it rained all day. At 4:01 PM, Nurse Louise Rencher clocked out, and left Timberhill Hospital.
- Dr. Canon Wilcox sat in his silver Cadillac, with the defroster and heater, on high. He watched Louise as she maneuvered around the puddles covering about half of the Employee Parking lot. It was a long walk to the last parking spot, in the last row.
- Louise got to her Toyota, and got in.
- When Dr. Wilcox saw the windshield wipers on Louise’s car begin their rhythmic movement, he put his car in gear and drove away. He turned east on Hillcrest, toward his mountain cabin instead of west toward his beach house.
- When Louise saw the silver Cadillac turn east, she smiled.
- Dr. Canon Wilcox and Nurse Louise Rencher were secretly dating. They met at his mountain cabin a few times a week.
- Louise parked under the cabin’s carport. From the trunk, she picked up a red-wrapped box, her Christmas gift for Canon.
- Canon was sitting on the porch swing, waiting for her.
- "Damn that Betty Furr! I’m soaked to the bone!" Louise smiled. "However, there is a silver-lining. I absolutely, positively must get out of these wet clothes, including my bra and panties. I must get buck naked... to avoid a head cold or something." She kissed Canon.
- Canon smiled.
- She handed the red-wrapped box to him. "Here’s something for when I get, buck naked."
- Canon stood up, but he didn’t move toward the cabin’s door. "I talked to Betty today." He handed Louise a slip of paper with a number on it. "Merry Christmas. It’s the number of the closest parking spot to the Employee Entrance. Well... the closest one that was available."
- "Oh thank you!" Louise kissed him again. "Betty’s been such a bitch to me, I don’t know why."
- "Well I do. Last winter, she thought you and Doug, were having an affair."
- "Really? Doug and me... boinking?"
- "Yes, That’s why she assigned the bad parking spot to you. I told her that you had never dated Doug, that you had been seeing someone else for a long time."
- Louise waved the piece of paper. "Thanks again. I’ll make up some excuse and stop by her office tomorrow. Get a feel for our new relationship." Louise looked at Canon, then nodded her head toward the cabin’s front door. "Why aren’t we inside? Where I can get buck naked!"
- "Because we need to talk... just talk... with our clothes on."
- "Talk about what? If you’re not in the mood that’s okay. I’m not really wet-to-the-bone, just my raincoat and shoes. I’ll stay clothed, I promise."
- "Okay." Canon jangled his keys. "But we need to talk about our relationship."
- "Oh! That sounds serious. Hurry, I’m cold."
- Canon opened the door.
- "Is it serious, serious? Did your wife find out about us?"
- "No."
- "Is she still living in Paris?"
- "No, she moved to Bordeaux."
-
- In the rain, Robert Jenkins held his umbrella over Pamela as she got out of his car. She situated a small plastic shopping bag between them, they huddled together, and hurried toward his apartment
- In her best fake-English accent, Pam said. "Very generous of you to share your water-deflecting contraption with me, Squire Jenkins."
- Mimicking her accent, BJ said, "I’m forever at your service, Lady Jenkins. I’ve thought of applying for a patent. I’ll call the contraption a Topskin."
- Pam laughed. "Oh sir! They won’t sell well, not with a name like that. Ladies will think of the word foreskin."
- "Do ladies think of such things?" BJ opened the door of his apartment.
- Less than five minutes later, both were in bathrobes, sitting on opposite sides of his dinning room table.
- Pam dumped the contents of the plastic shopping bag on the table. She sniffed the wrapper of a sandwich. "Onions... yours." She slid the sandwich toward BJ. It knocked a napkin off the table. She leaned down, picked up the napkin, and glanced between his legs.
-
- Louise removed her coat and shoes, then sat on the center cushion of the sofa. "Light the fire please, I’m cold."
- Canon lit the fire then walked to the bar. "I’m glad you like your Christmas present. Do you want a Manhattan or an Old Fashion?"
- "Will I be staying here tonight, or driving home?"
- "I don’t know."
- "Are we breaking up?"
- "I don’t know."
- "Well, what do you know?" Louise began to rub her toes.
- "I talked with Betty today. To get you a closer parking spot. It was a long talk. She knows about us." Canon mixed a drink.
- Louise shook her head. "A few days ago, she asked if I knew Dr. Wilcox, She’s a bitch!"
- Canon began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace.
- "I think she was blackmailing me... a little bit."
- "What do you mean, a little bit? Getting blackmailed is like getting pregnant, it doesn’t happen in little bits."
- Canon sipped his drink. "She complained that her paycheck wasn’t quite enough. She said it should be about a hundred dollars a week higher. She said that she could only afford to fly to Paris on her current pay, but if she had a raise, then she could fly right over Paris and go to Rome."
- "Innuendo!" Louise kept rubbing her toes.
- Canon kept pacing. "Yeah. But then... she ask me if my wife was still living in Paris or had she already moved to Bordeaux."
- "Damn!"
- "And then she said that she thought you needed a raise too, but only fifty dollars."
- "Me?" Louise tilted her head. "Why?"
- "She said so you could get out more, go to parties, look for a guy, an unmarried guy. She emphasized the word unmarried."
- "Huh! So Betty wants us to break up, or she’ll tell your wife?"
- "Bingo." Canon sipped his drink.
- "Does she know how we feel about each other?"
-
- Pam straightened back up and put the napkin on the table. She looked at BJ and pointed toward his lap. "I see you still have yours."
- BJ followed the direction of her pointing finger and looked down at his sandwich. "You just shoved it to me."
- "Not your sandwich, your foreskin."
- "Oh. Yeah." BJ shrugged.
- "Why?" Pam took the wrapper off her sandwich. "Last summer, you wrote in my birthday card that you were going to get circumcised. I remember the sentence. It’s not a sentence, one usually finds in a birthday card. I kept the card, I showed it to Adrian."
- BJ licked a drop of onion juice off his finger. "I thought I’d let my wife decide."
- "Wife or fiancee?"
- "Wife."
- "So your foreskin is some sort of a bizarre wedding keepsake, present?" Pam smiled.
- "It’s timing. I was engaged last summer."
- "Darlene?" Pam squeezed mustard on her sandwich.
- "Yeah, Darlene. She wanted me to get it done, but two months later, we broke up."
- "Lucky you! You missed a bullet." Pam snickered. "Well... you missed a knife." She bit into her sandwich. "I love these things, no calories. I wish you’d send me one every week."
- "Send me a money order, I’ll send you a sandwich."
- "Alternate! One week send me a Foot-Long-Plus, Dawg House Mastiff, with chili and extra cheese. Then a St. Barnard with sauerkraut and extra cheese."
- BJ released a long low burp.
- "I’ll take the sandwich to the ‘Cock & Hen’, and cut a couple inches off the end, and trade it to Huntley for a pint of Guinness. He’d do that for me. He lusts for me... I think. He lusts for Adrian, why not for me too?"
- BJ burped again. "That’s twisted."
- "Adrian said, Huntley has a foreskin. I like them. I’ve liked them ever since I played with yours. Remember?"
-
- Canon had stopped pacing, his drink glass was empty, he stood facing the fireplace.
- "Well?" Louise said loudly.
- He turned. "Huh?"
- "Well what about Betty? Wake up! Does Betty know how we feel about each other?"
- "No... I guess."
- "You guess?"
- He shrugged. "She tried to blackmail me. She thinks we love each other, and our love is her leverage for blackmail."
- Louise walked to the bar and made two Manhattans. "Sit down Canon."
- Canon sat on the fireplace’s hearth. "I don’t want to get divorced. I don’t love her, but we’ve been married for years. She’d get everything in a divorce. It was her money that paid for my schooling. She had lawyers, there’s a prenuptial agreement."
- Louise handed him a drink and kissed him. "It’s a good thing you’ve a doctor. You wouldn’t make a good private investigator. You don’t have a devious mind... I do! I have a plan."
-
- BJ shook his head. "Pam! Change the subject."
- She giggled. "Well? Do you remember what I said, when I played with your foreskin for the first time?"
- "We were nine. No! I don’t remember."
- "I said, I wish I had one."
- The memory came back to BJ. "Yeah. And I wondered which of us was built wrong."
- "If we get married, I want you to keep it."
- "Second cousins shouldn’t marry."
- Pam scooted her chair away from the table. "It’s not against the law."
- "They still shouldn’t marry."
- Pam stood up and dropped her bathrobe.
-
- Canon gulped his drink. "What’s you plan?"
- "Counter-blackmail."
- Canon stood up. "Huh! That is devious!"
-
- Pam walked into the bedroom, her voice drifted back to BJ. "I could drive to the airport and wait there for a couple of hours. Or, we could spend a couple of hours in here."
- BJ stood up.
-
- Pete had the night shift at Cuck’s Bar & Grill. The place wasn’t as full as usual. The door opened, Pete looked at the new face. Louise Rencher bumped into the doorjamb. Pete watched as she staggered past the coatrack and toward a booth. She turned-in at the first booth and plopped down.
- BJ looked at her, "Louise?"
- "Hi, BJ, I’m drunk."
- BJ leaned toward her and slid his hand under her hip. He pulled out a knit cap. He wiggled it at her. "My cap."
- "Sorry." Louise focused her eyes on BJ’s nose. "I didn’t see it... or you... I’ll move."
- BJ focused his eyes on her hip. "I’m alone, stay if you want."
- Pete approached the booth, he looked at Louise. "You staggered in. I think you’re too drunk to drive. I’m afraid I can’t serve you. That’s the law."
- Louise gave Pete a drunken military-style hand salute. "Okay chief. Then I’ll have a Martini. Hold the ‘mar’, and hold the ‘tini’, but don’t hold the glass, I want my fingers wrapped around a stem."
- Pete shook him head and thought to himself, only drunks and Californians talk like that.
- When Pete turned toward the bar, Louise called to him, "I really do want a glass, I’ll give you five dollars for an empty glass... with a long stem." She looked at BJ, "I can afford to do that. I’m going to get a fifty-dollar-a-week raise."
- BJ looked up from her hip, and stared at her breast.
- "I’m up here BJ." Louise tilted his head up. "I need to talk. My secret lover just dumped me. I need help getting through the five stages of grief." She giggled.
- BJ stared at her lips. "How about that. I, was involved in a dumping tonight."
- "Are you the dumper or the dumpee?"
- "I’m not sure."
- "Why not?"
- "I think it was mutual, maybe." BJ burped. "I said I was going to get circumcised."
- Louise looked toward BJ’s lap. She handed him a red-wrapped box. "Here. Merry Christmas, it’s a present. Don’t use it until you’re all healed... down there."
- "Thanks. I didn’t get you anything."
- "That’s okay, I didn’t get you anything either." Louise pointed to the box. "It was for my secret lover."
- "You mean Dr. Wilcox?" BJ ripped at the red-wrapping.
- "Does everybody know we were secret lovers?"
- "I think so." BJ looked at the bottle’s label and squinted his eyes. "I can’t read this."
- Louise said, "It’s mint flavored body-massage oil. Ever use it?"
- "No."
- " Do you want to?"
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- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 27, 2007