Liz paced around her living room; a portrait of a patient waiting to find out if it is terminal. The slightest twist of her hips threatened to rip the fabric of her skirt and allow full movement again. Her rose blouse was about to lose the battle with her D cups. Liz stopped to adjust the blouse down to allow a canyon of cleavage. After a moment of consideration, she settled for a small hollow of cleavage instead. 

French manicured nails begged to be bitten so she placed words in her mouth instead: "Could he have met someone else? Maybe he already has someone else. Was he just trying to pick up a hot piece on the side?" Her cheeks flushed a bright pink before the blush ran down either side of her face and formed a smile. The thick carpet was given a reprise as she slowed to ponder. The phone definitely would have rung by now if they both had the same line of thought. A tiny tremor ran through her and ticked her eyes toward the clock. The second hand slowed down and thought about going backward. "I'll give you a buzz about six." It was five fifty-eight, Bastard! About six, it had been about six for centuries. She didn't know why she perpetually placed people on pedestals. It could be the undying romantic swimming under nine to five thoughts. The romantic wanted it all to fall together in perfect symphony with no turbulence until the end of time. So did the lazy American in her that wanted everything now, fast, and cheap. 

Rejection wasn't so horrible; especially rejection from a guy who she would probably end up using anyway. It was the thought of not being certain whether or not she was rejected…she dug her nails into the palm of her hands. Her heart beat to the insane rhythm of a drummer on crack trying to play the solo of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. "I don't have anything else to do," escaped through her clenched teeth.

That wasn't entirely true, she did have that laundry. Laying out the clothes you were going to wear for the week took some time. Picking off every piece of lint on them with tweezers took a little extra time. And those stains: they were as bad as red wine on white cotton. Focusing on each square inch at a time, Liz found ways of getting them stain free. She wondered if they were complete opposites. A layout of the maze, along with a method of defeating the Minotaur, always appeared in her mind. Maybe he just chose the closet path, and hoped the Minotaur had joined the Teamsters. The Teamsters might have told it not to look down that path on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

She should be the damsel in distress awaiting a shining knight to save her from boredom. Instead, here she paced, dismal and distressed.

"Screw him! Who needs men anyway? They're messy, rude, arrogant, insensitive, and just so detached! Why doesn't he call me?" Her fists shook at the tiny room.

The phone rang. Time stopped. Reality displaced itself. The train was no longer on the tracks because the tracks were imagined. Life was more than what she expected; her cynicism had no ability to mold the real world. Liz dived on the couch tackling the phone. She held it in a death grip to ensure that it didn't slip away like a wet bar of soap. Without bothering to check the caller ID, she slipped into her phone sex voice: "Hey there."

"Liz, turn on your TV!" a female voice shouted.

Her face and shoulders both slumped. Then her eyebrows met and her teeth ground together.

"Why Sarah?" Liz asked. 

"It looks like your dream date turned out to be a nightmare," Sarah said.

Liz dragged her eyes around the vast tundra of the little living room. The remote was playing hide and you're screwed if you need it. After another quick survey she shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the television set. She stopped. Puzzled for a moment, then the little light bulb went off above her head as she remembered how to turn on the television without the remote. "What channel?" Liz asked.

"Channel 5," Sarah said.

Liz's mouth dropped open as she saw what was on the screen.

"Sorry baby. But look on the bright side—"

"I'll call you back," she hung up on Sarah.

Finding the volume up button, the TV was turned up to an earsplitting level. An attractive news reporter (with a fake Barbie doll quality that made Liz hate her immediately) was filling the viewing public in on what had happened in the small cottage behind her. Various news scenes about the story—such as the ordinary house, the police directing traffic, a parked car in front of a garage—flashed across the screen as they often do. It could have been a subliminal message sent just to her. His face flashed on the screen then turned again, to the outside of his house. In that flash, Liz had seen those beautiful green/blue eyes betray a vicious craziness.

"—twenty-three is the body-count so far. It seems that Gary Bauer would lure women back to his house where he would chain them in the sound-proofed basement so that he could rape and torture them before finally killing them. It is unclear at this time how long he has been doing this, but police believe that he had more victims lined up. The district attorney's office will be preparing their case against Bauer, though it is their opinion he will try an insanity plea.

"Next with sports—"

A jab of her finger killed the tube. Stumbling, like a George Romero zombie looking for flesh, she went into the kitchen. Opening the basement door, she was devoured by darkness as she sank into it.

Liz pulled on an overhead string that sent the darkness retreating as it was chased out by the dim yellow light. Drifting through the laundry room into her workshop, she began to power everything down. She knew that she wouldn't get anything done now.

Her butt, still unaccustomed to the tight skirt, bumped into her surgeon's instrument tray and knocked some of the contents onto the floor. Liz took a clean rag off of the tray, bent down, and slowly wiped off each scalpel before returning them back to the tray. She rearranged all the items until they were picture perfect and in the order which they would be most used: scalpels, pliers, mace, hammer, saw, and small vial of acid. Tapping her foot and twiddling her fingers, she glanced over at the spot she had reserved for him. The rough concrete needed to be resealed so she could get the blood off easier. Too bad the spot would go unused for another week. She had just oiled and polished the shackles and bought new electrodes. And she had just fixed the trapdoor that led to the lye bath. 

She chuckled as she picked up her strap-on dildo with the razor blades embedded in the end. The drawer that was reserved for things that she forced up men's anuses had a perfect place for it carved out of foam. She thought about him. They really weren't that different. It is all in the planning ahead though, she thought as she began to mop the already clean floor