Returning I

It was Tuesday, about six-thirty in the evening, and Karen stared at the phone, a fixed and purposeful stare that she hoped would overcome her hesitation and fear. She so wanted to pick up the handset and dial, but her hand would not move. She got up, then walked to the kitchen sink, and drew a glass of water. Drinking the water helped somewhat to clear the big lump in her throat, but it did nothing about the phone.

Two hours later, Karen was still circling the phone, like some fish, she was slowly being reeled in by her incredibly growing need. She deliberately turned her back on the telephone and walked into the bedroom and picked up the newspaper. Perhaps if she read the ad again, she might be able to convince herself of the utter folly of actually following through. She turned to the page with trembling fingers and easily found the ad. It was the only one on the entire page that was circled! The ad read:

WANTED: Mature vigorous gentleman seeks wayward young working women who miss a firm fatherly hand. If you have been naughty and deserve to be punished, I will turn you over my knee, take down your panties, and spank your bare bottom until you promise to be good! If you need the security of knowing that you will be soundly disciplined when you misbehave, I will be your strict Daddy. Call 444-555-2345 between 6PM and 10PM Monday thru Friday and ask for Robert. You must be between 18 and 28 years of age to answer this ad.

Karen idly traced the circle around the ad, reading and re-reading the text that was already engraved in her mind. Perhaps branded would be a better description, and the words seemed to burn in her brain with an almost real pain as the hours passed. She knew with conviction that she was going to call, it was just a matter of time and courage.

As the evening waned, and the hands of the clock moved ever closer to the hour of ten, Karen became more and more jumpy. She would sit on the couch, then leap up and pace the room, sit again, then jump up and go into the kitchen. In the kitchen she had made endless cups of tea, microwaved them again and again, but nothing helped. Karen took a Tylenol, but it had no effect. She went to the bathroom, feeling a bit nauseous, but nothing happened, so she sat again on the kitchen stool and glared at the phone. Karen began to feel rather ridiculous, and berating herself mentally, she thought: 'you silly goose, twenty-four years old, and acting like a teen-ager afraid to call a boy!'

She glanced for the hundredth time at the clock, and was shocked to see that it was now only FIVE MINUTES TO TEN! Something deep inside her snapped, and she grabbed the phone and dialed; it rang once. It rang twice. It rang for the third time. On the fourth ring, Karen decided that if it was not answered by the fifth ring she would hang up. Suddenly a deep baritone voice boomed in her ear and said: "Good Evening." Karen tried to speak, but her throat had closed, and her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.

"GOOD EVENING!" the deep voice said more firmly. "What can I do for you?'

"Is...is......is.... this Robert?" Karen finally managed to stammer.

"Yes, this is Robert, can I help you?"

"Uh, I.... I saw.... I saw your ad in the Star. And I wanted... I wondered, I mean, Uh...... I wondered if you meant what... what you put in the ad?"

"Young lady," came back the rumbling voice, "What is your name?"

"Karen..... I'm Karen." she replied in a very small voice.

"Karen, I want you to take a deep breath, let go of the phone, put it down, go and get a glass of water, drink some, come back, sit down, pick up the phone again, and just listen very carefully to what I am going to tell you. Can you do that? Can you do EXACTLY what I have told you to do?"

Karen was shocked to find that she was actually standing, clutching the phone in a death grip, almost as if it were a life preserver, and the Titanic was sinking before her very eyes. How did he know what she was doing? She looked wildly around the tiny kitchen, hoping she would be able to see the hidden video camera. Puppet-like, her strings loosely held, she pulled the phone from her grim grip, put it down, got water, drank, sat on the stool, and picked up the phone.

When she put the receiver to her ear, the deep voice immediately spoke.

"Karen, I want you to listen, and not say anything until I tell you that you may talk. Can you do that?"

"Yessir!" she said. (Now where had that come from, she thought).

"Very Good. Now if you are really serious about answering my ad, you need to understand that it will lead you into one of the most intense experiences of your young life. If I accept you, and I say if--- advisedly, you will report to me this Friday afternoon at 6PM on the dot. I will then guide you through a weekend of renewal and regeneration that will last until six o'clock Monday morning. The experience will recreate something that you have lost, and obviously miss. Do you understand me? Have you been listening carefully?"

"I guess so, I mean, I, I think I understand, but----- " Karen was cut short by Robert's sharp and no-nonsense tone.

"What you think is of no consequence, DID YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I JUST SAID?"

Karen, exhaled, in a long drawn out sigh, and all the tension of the afternoon and evening seemed to leave her body with the rush of air.

"YES." she said in a clear and lilting voice. "I understand what you said. If you will have me, I will be there at 6PM exactly, on Friday, without fail."

"Very Good, Karen. I would be pleased to have you as my guest. Now, have you got paper and a pen? I am going to give you some instructions about the weekend, and directions to find my estate."

The rest of the week was a blur, and Karen was not sure what she did at the office and cared less. As Friday dragged on, she found herself again filled with an ever tightening tension, that snapped as the clock reached the hour of Five! She slammed the file drawer home, made a perfunctory swipe at straightening her desk, grabbed her purse, and ran for the elevator. She knew the drive was going to be a long one, and she worried about being able to find the place.

Fifty minutes later, still stuck on the Freeway, she pounded on the wheel in frustration. She had so wanted to be on time, and she knew, with a tiny lurch of fear, that she was going to be quite late.

As she exited the freeway, Karen glanced at her watch, and was horrified at how late it was. The sun had already set, the long summer twilight had begun, and she knew she still had at least fifteen miles to go. (And promises to keep....) she thought, with growing anxiety. The world around her had turned to a gray blue, and shadows were darkening, which seemed to match her mood of despair. Karen had so wanted to be on time, and she was beginning to worry that Robert would change his mind and send her away, rejecting her after all.

The ad in the Star had been very explicit, and Karen wondered if the weekend would live up to her expectations and fantasies. Answering the ad had been difficult, but when she had finally made the call, and spoken to Robert, her fear had melted into certainty. She knew that this experience was what she needed, and the anticipation mingled with her anxiousness about being late just wound her tension tighter. Karen slapped the steering wheel, her tension and temper mounting in intensity, but it did not help. She slowed the car, pulled to the curb, and took a deep breath. Fumbling in her purse, she pulled out the sheet of paper, and reread the directions to Robert's estate.

Karen thought about The Estate. She visualized something that was an amalgam of TARA from Gone With The Wind, and the Castle from Citizen Kane. She had actually toured San Simeon, the Hearst estate, while in college, and the memory of that opulent monument to wealth and ego added to her excitement and tension. She frowned at her scribbled notes, wishing that she had written more slowly and legibly, and hoping that she could interpret her scrawl.

On the road again, and several miles closer to her destination, Karen felt chilled, and turned down the air conditioning. The stunning heat of the day was giving way to a typical desert night chill, but she knew that the tingle running up and down her spine was not due to the temperature in the car. Peering into the growing darkness, Karen knew she was in an area of the far flung metropolis that was totally unfamiliar. Rolling hills and scrub trees, a few far off lights in the distance, told her she was well out of the city. She slowed the car, frantically looking for something that would match the directions she had been given. Just as she was despairing and certain that she had missed a turn and was lost, Karen saw the high stone wall on the left. Another hundred yards and she spotted the gate and the two tall and massive pillars topped with large glowing electric lanterns on either side. This must be it! It had to be The Estate, it just HAD to be!

Turning left into the entrance, Karen stopped inches from the ornate gates, and parked. She got out of the car, walked to the right pillar as instructed, and opened the little door to find a telephone. She picked up the handset, and heard the phone ringing. It rang twice, and then a familiar male rumble spoke.

"Good evening. Is that you, Karen?"

".......Yes....." she said, and looked at her watch by the light from the pillar lantern. It was after seven, and she was very, very late!

"Get back in your car," the rumbling voice said, "and when the gates open, go through and follow the road to the fork, then drive to the right. It will circle around and bring you to the parking area. Park as close to the house as possible, and come to the foot of the stairs. I will be waiting for you."

The drive seemed to go on forever, and with no house in sight, Karen began to think she had taken the wrong way. He had said the Right, she thought, but now was not sure of anything. Then she saw that the road ahead was curving to the left, and was relieved to see lights glimmering in that direction.

She parked next to a rather battered minivan, only a few yards from the foot of the stairs, got out of her coupe, and stared at the house. It was set on the top of a hill, and accessed by a wide stone stairway framed by two smaller versions of the pillars that bracketed the main gate. The stairs brought forth another image from her mental movie storehouse, and she thought that there should be clouds and pearly gates for a stairway to heaven. Karen shook herself; it was, after all, just a very large house. Although three stories high, It was not quite a castle, but contemporary in a rather unusual and yet stylish manner. As she surveyed the scene, there was something about the structure that bothered her, but she couldn't quite figure it out. There was a subtle strangeness that triggered a shiver and increased the chill she felt from the night air.

Then she had it! The proportions were all wrong, and the place seemed to be weirdly gigantic. It was as if the building had been made for a giant, and she half expected Goliath to be standing atop the stairs, swinging his huge club and roaring at David. It was a silly image, and she chuckled, and felt better.

When Goliath suddenly did appear at the top of the stairs, she squealed in fright. Then the voice that she knew was Robert's said: "I was beginning to worry about you, young lady. You are VERY LATE! Where on earth have you been?"

As Robert descended the stairs, Karen was dumbfounded! The man was at least eight feet, perhaps even nine feet tall! She felt very small and vulnerable, and a bit frightened, as Robert came closer and towered over her. Bending a little, he shook his finger in her face, and scolded: "I do NOT like to worry about my girls, and once you have been accepted, you ARE one of MY girls. Now you come right inside young lady, and then you can explain your extreme tardiness!"

Taking her firmly by the hand, Robert started up the stairs, and Karen found to her amazement that she was having trouble climbing the treads. She had to scramble to keep from being pulled off her feet, and the stairs were impossibly oversized, and very difficult to climb. Suddenly Robert reached down, grabbed Karen up, and wrapped one huge arm around her body. The other arm, and the very large hand attached, cradled her bottom, and thus she was carried bodily up the stairs and into the house.

Robert swept through the huge open doorway into the house, Karen tightly held in his arms, and then leaning down, stood her on her feet. "Stay right there, Young Miss, and don't you dare move." he said, stalking away into the gloom. The inside of the house was fairly dark, but Karen could tell that she was in a hallway. The only light came from the pillar lanterns outside and from a doorway open just a crack, at the end of the hall. All the doors on either side of the long passage were closed, and except for Roberts' receding footsteps, all was silent.

The hall was suddenly flooded with light as the door at the end opened and two giant figures were silhouetted. One was Robert, and the other appeared to be a woman! They came toward Karen, and the second figure did indeed resolve into an Amazon of incredible proportions. The Amazon looked down from the heights at Karen, said not a word, then turned on one massive heel, and strode back down the hall. Robert's deep tones snapped Karen out of her shock.

"Come with me girl, and we will get you prepared for this weekend." Having spoken, he swept swiftly down the hall, and Karen found herself running to catch up.