By the time the carolers were fittingly proclaiming to all the world that they were donning gay apparel, Splooge had reached the center of the group whooping and hollering his way through the startled singers, smacking as many of them as he could with the umbrella turned billy club.
"That'll teach those holiday ho-bags to spew their Christmas crap at my doorstep!" Splooge said proudly when he re-entered the office and banged the umbrella on the floor to remove the snow. A stunned Bob Crotchlick sat back down at his desk, afraid to comment.
At precisely 4:59 and 59 seconds, Dickteaser Splooge said to his assistant, "You'll want all day off tomorrow, I suppose."
"The stock market will be closed," Bob said. Getting no reply, he continued, "So, yes, I would like the whole day off, if it's quite convenient, Sir."
"It's not convenient," barked Splooge, "and it's not fair. If I docked your pay even a dollar, you'd think I cheated you. But, you don't think I'm being cheated one bit when I pay you a day's wages for no work!"
"Christmas only comes but once a year," Crotchlick said weakly.
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!" Splooge proclaimed as he retrieved his black woolen coat from the coat rack. "But I suppose if you must take the entire day off...then be here all the earlier the next morning!"
"Yes, of course. Thank you, Mr. Splooge, Sir."
The two of them were headed towards the door. It was just then that the phone rang. Splooge eyed Bob, clearly ordering Bob to go back and answer the phone.
"It is after business hours on Christmas Eve, Sir, the clients can't expect-"
"Money never sleeps!" Splooge interrupted.
Bob wearily unwound his scarf and headed back to his desk. Splooge exited out into the cold and told Bob not to forget to lock the door when he left.
Splooge fought the biting wind as he made his way through the snow, muttering something about all the taxes he and other business people paid and still the city didn't see fit to make sure the sidewalks were kept clear during a storm. Splooge entered the coffee shop a few doors down from his office. It was staying open until 6 PM so he had made it in plenty of time.
He stood in line and silently scoffed at the holiday creations such as Double Cream Mocha Peppermint Frappe and Candy Cane Coffee Concoction that his fellow coffee shop patrons were ordering. He watched as the clerks filled the cups, topped them with generous portions of fresh whipped cream, and then drizzled the flavored syrups over them.
Splooge was outraged. What extravagance! What foolishness! Bah, humpstud!
Dickteaser ordered the same coffee every day. It was his own special order, informally known among the employees as the Splooge Special.
They filled a large cup halfway with plain old black coffee. Then, hot water was added to fill it to the top. Since a regular full cup cost $2.99, Splooge insisted that he should only pay half of that which was $1.49.
Then, on top of that, he demanded the senior citizen discount (which was offered to patrons fifty or older) of 15%. That brought the total cost down to $1.27, which was exactly what he paid every day and not a penny more for a tip either.
One day, there was a new employee who insisted she had learned in training that customers could not have two discounts. He could either have the 50% for the reduced amount of coffee or he could have the 15% for being a senior, but he could not have both.
Well, Splooge berated that poor girl until he reduced her to tears and she quit on the spot. Splooge was never so satisfied to ultimately pay his $1.27 on any day before or after.
Dickteaser Splooge noticed an eighteen year old blonde hunk, sitting alone at a table, slowly nursing a cup of coffee. Each time the stud took a sip, the cream created a mustache on his face which he then seemed to suggestively lick off.
Splooge generally avoided making eye contact with fellow humans, lest they take that as an invitation to start a conversation with him. This usually worked as a deterrent.
However, this impudent stud kept looking at him, apparently wanting to say something. Splooge knew what he wanted alright, he'd seen and been approached by plenty of hustlers in his time.
They could somehow smell the money and they were attracted to it. They looked all cute and innocent, until they came out with their true intentions, begging for money to perform s*x acts!
As the line snaked forward and Splooge ended up closer to the stud, the blonde ran his fingers through his soft, smooth hair and asked, "Excuse me, aren't you Mr. Dickteaser Splooge?"
So his reputation preceded him! Did these man-whores have a website or something where they identified and traded information on rich older men? Splooge considered that he might be flattered if he wasn't being singled out as a mark for a hustler. He looked right at him and said, "Don't hook in this coffee shop, boy."
"I'm not hooking," the stud answered. "I'm waiting for my friend, Bob Crotchlick. He works a couple doors down. From the way he described his boss, I thought you might be him."
"Might be he," Splooge said crossly, correcting the stud's grammar. What were the schools doing with his tax money? They certainly weren't teaching youngsters how to speak properly! "Yes, Bob does work for me," Splooge said suspiciously.
The stud stood up from the table and extended his hand. Splooge had no idea how short he was until he stood up.
He was a compact guy, about 5'3" at most. He must have weighed no more than 125 pounds. His tight t-shirt under his open hoodie revealed that he was no stranger to the gym. Dickteaser recognized his type as what was commonly referred to these days as a "pocket gay."
Seeing that Dickteaser made no attempt to shake his hand, the mini-hunk withdrew it awkwardly. "Maybe Bob has mentioned me at work? I've been staying at Bob's since the end of August. My name is Tim, but Bob and his partner refer to me as Tiny Twink."
"If the shoe fits, Cinderella..." Dickteaser observed.
"It's funny so I don't mind them calling me that," Tiny Twink said.
Splooge did vaguely recall Bob saying something about a college student staying at his apartment, but he didn't usually pay any attention to Bob's inane ramblings if the topic wasn't about business or money. "Bob is still at the office, working, so you'll have a while to wait."
The coffee clerk called out to Splooge that it was his turn to order. Having nothing else to say to the short stud, Splooge turned away from him. He heard him call out, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Splooge." At that, Splooge whipped around long enough to respond, "Bah, humpstud!"
Splooge left the coffee shop with his beverage and skimpy sandwich. He walked several blocks home through the windy city streets, carrying his large umbrella with which he had previously attacked the Christmas carolers.
One might think it was unsafe for an older man to walk through the city alone at night. In most cases, this would be true. However, when it came to Dickteaser Splooge, criminals were afraid that he was so nasty and hungry for money, he would mug them first!
Why was he walking the streets in the first place? Most men of his ample means (and many with much less net worth) had private car services at their beck and call twenty-four hours a day. Not Splooge. He would never spend money on such a thing.
Taxis? Splooge said they could turn a straight line ride of a quarter mile into a labyrinth that would go on for twenty miles and cost hundreds of dollars. What about the subway? Surely, he would spend a couple dollars to get out of the cold and avoid walking several long city blocks on a blustery night such as this?
Indeed not! Splooge had never spent so much as a quarter on a subway ride. He thought it was a waste of money when he had two perfectly good legs with which to propel himself.
By the time Splooge reached his condo complex, the wind had turned the umbrella inside out and his steaming hot coffee now had mini ice chunks which he could hear banging around inside the cup.
Splooge fought with the gate to the little courtyard. The wind practically took it out of his hand and tore it off its hinges. As Splooge approached his door, he blinked to clear his vision because he thought he saw something hanging on the door, under the number.
It was hard to make the object out because his porch light was burnt out and the door was in shadows. At first, he thought it was a small wreath.
The year before, his annoying neighbor, Flaming Fred, had hung little wreaths on all the residents' doors. Splooge had taken his down and stomped on it. He had every intention of doing so again this year.
As he got closer, the object was no longer a wreath. Startled, Splooge took a step back. He was staring at the face of his long-deceased partner, Jacob Jism!
Splooge looked around the courtyard at the other doors. One had a holiday welcome mat with a Santa picture and the message Welcome Ho-Ho-Home.
Another door had a jingle bell strip hanging from the doorknob. Yet another neighbor's door had a big, red bow with frilly ribbons hanging down.
As he had originally expected, each door had a small wreath, the same ones that Flaming Fred had hung the year before. Splooge looked back at his own door again. There was no wreath, just Jacob Jism's face staring back at him!
Jacob's face looked different than the other objects on the neighbors' doors. It had a glow around it, as if powered by its own internal light source.
Other than that, the face looked relatively normal. Jacob's eyes were open and staring right at Splooge, though they did not seem to move, nor did his eyelids blink.
His hair seemed windblown, the way Jacob used to look all those years ago when the two of them came inside from playing ball on a breezy spring day. Despite its seeming normalcy or perhaps because of it, Splooge recoiled in horror.
He held up his sandwich bag, intent on using it to knock Jacob's face off the door. As he positioned the bag in the air, he saw Jacob's face morph into a wreath.