Dante's Vacation

Entry to Hell

The driving snow was showering the windshield and I did my best to stay focused despite protests from my overworked brain. It had been a long day at work with a million things to wrap up before I could go leave the office to get ready for a much needed vacation. I had things to do at home on top of it all before I could compartmentalize all my deadlines and responsibilities that were going to have to take a backseat to our vacation to London.

I had wanted to go for a long time, but never found the time or a good enough excuse to go. Benji was about to graduate from college and I decided that was excuse enough. He had been semi-sulking because he was going on for his Master’s while Zach was going to be finished. He knew he had to stay in school longer if he wanted to go into forensic science but he still hated the fact that Zach was leaving college and he was staying. As a celebration of his reaching milepost one, I asked him if he’d like to go to London. We were due a real vacation, just the two of us.

“London?” he asked me curiously.

“London.”

“Well… I never thought about going to London,” he mused. “Isn’t that pretty expensive?”

“It can be but it doesn’t have to be,” I told him. “I’ve been checking these last minute deal sites and if we keep our calendars clear and are flexible, we can go for a decent price.” I watched him as he thought about it, and smiled when he started to do the same.

“London. Let’s go to London,” he grinned, flinging his arms around my neck.

So we booked one of those last-minute flights and as we had hoped, we got a great deal on an air and hotel combo, better than we ever expected. We had planned to stay at the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, but the Waldorf Hilton had a huge price drop the day I was planning to book the tickets. We had watched that last-minute site like the stock market, and struck when we saw the deal we were looking for.

“Let’s check the website and see what the Waldorf is like,” I recommended, clicking into the address field and searching for www.hilton.com.

“I’ve heard of it,” Benji recalled. “Isn’t it supposed to be nice?”

“In the states, it would be. I mean, Holiday Inn versus the Hilton? It's a no-brainer here, but I'm not sure about over there.” I clicked a couple more times, and waited for the page to load.

“High speed, my behind,” Benji complained as the pictures took their sweet time to appear.

“Better than dial-up, my dear,” I informed him. “Here we go.” It didn’t look bad, but then it was the Hilton’s site. They would hardly advertise anything less than wonderful. Needing an unbiased opinion, I went to TripAdvisor.com for more information.

Ben peered over my shoulder so he could see the screen. “They’re griping about the bathrooms.”

He was right. Frosted glass walls with no privacy, according to the reviews. That was essentially it. I hit the back button a couple of times to get to the Hilton’s site and viewed a picture of the room.

“Doesn’t look bad to me,” I observed. "Does that look like there's no privacy to you?"

He shook his head. “No. Even if it's not private, it isn't like we haven’t seen each other naked before.”

“Nope,” I agreed. “What do you think?”

“I think we should book it,” he decided.

A few clicks later, we were set with airfare and rooms. “I’m not sure about Priceline,” I worried. “I’ve never booked through them before. I hope we don't have any problems.”

“I know. You can’t argue with the price, though,” he reasoned.

“It’s a good $400 less than any other sites we’ve checked.”

It seemed like only yesterday that we had booked our tickets and now, two weeks later, we were ready to go. I was really looking forward to it. Work had been uncharacteristically crazy for some reason over the last few months and I needed a break. Even the 8 hour plane ride was going to be a welcome thing considering I wouldn't be working.

I glanced at the clock on the dashboard as I finally saw our house in the distance. I had spent the last hour trying to get back home in the snow – a surprise March snow that covered the lines on the road to the point I had to follow the tracks in front of me. The trip to Nelson and Zach's should have taken a fraction of that time, but the snow piled up fast. I was glad I hadn't waited to take Maggie over there.

As I crawled the car into our driveway, I refused to give in to the nagging thoughts that the weather might hamper our ability to get out of town the next morning.

I kicked off my wet shoes as I came in and called for Ben. “Are you all packed?”

He appeared in the entryway, taking my jacket for me. “How bad were the roads?” he asked rather than giving me a status on packing.

“Bad. Are you packed?” I asked again.

His gaze shifted toward the floor and that told me what I wanted to know long before he opened his mouth. “I’m getting ready to do it now,” he confessed.

My hands went to my hips. "I told you to work on it while I was gone."

He looked sheepish and shrugged, but hardly repentant. "I got sidetracked."

“It’s almost 9:00, Benjamin. You should have had that done long ago.” I planted a smack to the seat of his jeans. “Get busy. We have to get up early tomorrow.”

If looks could kill…

“I’m going,” he complained. “I just have to finish up a few things.” His scowl turned to a sly smile and he said, “I have a surprise for you, though, but I'm not giving it to you if you keep being mean.”

He rubbed his backside to be sure I knew the definition of mean included swatting one's partner.

“What kind of surprise?” I asked, intrigued, but like Ben, unrepentant.

“Pillsbury Turnovers,” he said to me.

“Cherry?” I asked in hopeful anticipation.

“What do you think?”

I loved those things but didn’t indulge very often given the fat and calorie count. But heck, it was vacation. “That sounds good. Hurry up, please. I don’t want to be up until all hours.”

“Grouch,” he grumbled to me. I had to hide a smile at that.

“I’m going to pay a few bills that came in today. One last loose string.” I went to the office while Benji stayed in the kitchen to bake.

I dug through an entirely too thick stack of mail full of 90% crap and 10% of what I call “real mail”. I stacked up the junk mail like I always do and worked my way through the bills that needed to be paid whether we’re on vacation or not, and told the web-banking server when to pay what and how much. It always seemed to take longer to wade through the junk than it did to pay the bills. I was glad I had sorted through the bulk of it a few nights before.

At least at that moment I was glad.

Circle One - Limbo

I could smell the turnovers baking and I have to admit, my mouth was watering. I can remember my mother making them for us when I was a kid, but then for some strange reason, Pillsbury made the horrible business decision to discontinue them. I say “horrible business decision” but they obviously survived without turnover income. I just didn’t think I would. They brought them back several years ago and I loved to have them when I was in the mood for a little sugar with a splash of nostalgia.

Ben put a plate down beside the computer with two cherry turnovers laced with a string of icing zigzagged over the triangle-shaped pastry.

“Mmmm. That looks good,” I said, picking one up and taking a careful bite of the steaming turnover.

“Happy vacation,” he smiled at me.

He was terribly distracting perched on the edge of my desk in tight black jeans and an old t-shirt. My Benji. My Benji, who would rather wait until the last minute for his own funeral if they would let him. My Benji, who was probably still not packed.

“Thank you,” I said, appreciating the fact he not only remembered what I liked, but took the time to make them for me. “Not that I’m not appreciative…” I started.

“I know,” he replied, taking a bite and scrambling to catch a bit of cherry that threatened to fall into his lap. “Go pack, right?” he asked around the cherry filling.

“Right,” I answered with a smile. I couldn’t keep my hands entirely off him, so I possessively ran one up the thigh of his skin-hugging Levi’s, wishing we had time for a little interruption.

“Can’t I eat a little snack before I finish packing? Ogre?”

I tried really hard not to grin at that but I couldn’t help it. “Yes, eat - but do it quickly. We need to be ready. It’s getting late. If you hurry, maybe we can…”

“What?” he asked with a definite gleam in his eye. “Watch TV together?”

Sliding my hand to his inner thigh, I replied huskily, “Something like that.”

“I’ll be ready,” he promised with an air of confidence.

We ate our snack, and after I gave Benji a good push in the right direction, he went about his business packing while I finished with the bills.

“Oh, my God,” I heard him say. He started rifling through the papers on the desk stacked up on the right side.

“What is it?” I asked only mildly distracted at this point. I didn’t even look away from the computer screen.

“I can’t find my passport,” he muttered.

I was sure he was just wired from excitement, so I didn’t pay it much attention, being quite sure he’d find the passport. “It’s around here somewhere,” I assured him.

He was beginning to get a bit frantic, but that wasn’t unusual for Benji. I recommended several places for him to look, but it wasn’t until he said anxiously, “Well, can you help me look?!” that I went to join him on the trail of panic.

“Where did you leave it, Ben?” I shuffled through papers on my desk looking for the little blue book and hoping to find it mixed in.

“It was right here!” he stormed, thumping the unsuspecting desktop harshly with his knuckles.

“’Here’ where?” I asked him, as I busied myself by shoveling more papers about. If it was on my desk, it could be anywhere. I picked up two London Passbooks from the desk and said, “Were they with these?”

“Yes!” he snapped.

“Calm down, Benji,” I consoled. “It has to be here somewhere.” I was confident, knowing it, in fact, did have to be there somewhere. It had to be.

“It was in this stack!” he said, frantically shuffling through the envelopes again.

My stomach went from penthouse to ground level in milliseconds.

“Not a stack right here?” I pointed.

“Yes. RIGHT here,” Ben acknowledged cracking his fist down right where I had put…

“I threw another stack of junk mail away,” I told him. “That’s a new stack you have there.”

“What?!” Ben shrieked.

“I threw that stuff away days ago. It was junk,” I reported. “What was your passport doing with the junk mail?”

“I put it there because the passbooks were there,” he said, panic still coursing through his every fiber. “I wanted to keep them together!”

“Ben,” I stated as calmly as I could manage, “the passbooks are here and the junk mail was there.” I tapped the top of the desk for each pile. “I can’t believe I missed that. A passport doesn’t look like mail.”

“It was in a white envelope…” he uttered.

“An envelope??” I asked. “Why was it in an envelope?”

He spoke patiently to me as though I would need help getting from point “A” to point “B”. “Because…” he started slowly… “that’s what it CAME in!”

I could feel the tension, tension that should have been going away with vacation looming, building to monumental proportions. It was after 10:00 and we were supposed to be leaving in a matter of hours. I was tired and not in the mood.

“Benjamin, it has to be here somewhere.” I know I was getting testy because first of all, he should have been packed long before 10:00. Second, something as important as a passport should be somewhere safe. Somewhere other than with the junk mail.

“I KNOW! Why did you have to throw that mail away?” he barked angrily at me.

His tone was getting edgier and the passport was still nowhere in sight. “Because that’s what you do with junk mail. You pitch it,” I informed him. “This is why you don’t wait until the last minute to pack, Benjamin.”

He huffed enough to raise a hot air balloon and followed with, “I always pack just before we go...”

“I told you to get this done earlier.”

“…that way I don’t forget anything,” he finished around my interruption. Well without seeing it, I could feel the accusatory look fall over my face. He saw it, too. “It’s not my FAULT!” he screeched. “YOU threw it away!”

That tone went all over me. “Lower your voice right now and keep looking,” I demanded.

The last thing we needed was a finger-pointing argument on top of a missing passport. We spent the next hour tossing papers and all sorts of stuff hoping that the next article moved would reveal the desired passport.

Around midnight, we were both ready to spit nails.

“That’s it,” I conceded, discouraged, tired and with no passport in sight. “We’re not going. We’ll go somewhere else in the states.”

Ben’s retort almost blew my hair back. “NOOOOO!” he yelled at me. “I want to go on this trip! It was for me!”

“I can’t help it that your passport is gone.”

“The outside trash,” he determined. “Let’s check the trash.”

“We are NOT digging in the trash,” I told him firmly. "It's not out there."

Thinking that was the end of the matter, I continued to look until I heard the distinct sound of the back door slamming. I knew he had headed for the trash that was crammed into the barrel around back. I knew it was an exercise in futility to search the trash since the bags with his passport in them were in the city dump.

I was ready to explode and/or strangle my partner when I grabbed my coat and a flashlight to follow him outside. He had strewn trash all around the bin by the time I got there.

“Benjamin! Stop it,” I ordered, stooping to grab bits of trash. “It is NOT in there. They picked that trash up two days ago.”

“It has to be here!” he retorted hotly. “It has to be!”

I shone the flashlight into the oversized trashcan and shook my head at my partner leaning over on his tiptoes to see inside. “Don’t throw stuff on the ground,” I warned.

“I have to find it,” he said frantically, still digging through the trash.

It was cold and the ground was thick with snow that bit through the leather of my shoes, nipping quickly at my toes. There was no way the passport was in the trash and I knew I needed to get Ben calmed down and back inside where it was warm. I was just as upset as he was that our trip was going to be cancelled, but that was life and we could go somewhere else.

I had to grab his wrist to keep it from plunging back into the trashcan. “That’s enough. We need to go inside. Help me pick up this trash.”

“I *can’t*, Vic! I have to finish here!”

“You have to help me pick up the trash,” I said in my best warning tone. “Stop it, now, and help me.”

I refused to listen to any more arguments about trash mining, and focused on picking up the mess on the driveway. I tossed a handful of paper and a milk jug into the bin and held the top open for Benji to put the trash back that he had gathered.

I could hear him grumbling as he got closer and he slammed the trash back in the can. He said, “Fine. You won’t let me look, I’ll have to do something else.”

“The only thing we’re going to do is make a few phone calls to see what our options are. We’ll make a decision after that.”

He virtually stormed back into the house and flung himself on the sofa with his arms crossed. I nodded toward the office and said, “Why don’t you pull United up on the computer and get the phone number for me? We need to see if we can rearrange our flight first of all until we can find out if there’s any way to get a passport in a day.”

I was going through a stack of printed maps, hotel directions and tube info to find our itinerary, and was able to find that. Naturally, something I could simply print off the computer was a cinch to locate, but the passport? Still MIA. He had the number for me by the time I was looking at the itinerary and I called United Airlines, and was promptly put on hold.

“Who else is calling at this time of night?” Benji griped.

“I have no idea,” I said as I listened to the same bit of music loop over and over. The happy-pappy jingle was beginning to grate on my nerves in short order, which didn’t take much given it was now extremely late with only a matter of hours between the current time and when we were supposed to leave. Ben was pacing, so I gave him a project. “Check the internet about passport replacements.”

“I don’t know where to look!” he barked, dumbfounded.

“Go to the USPS link and search for passports. The link will come up.”

Another hour later, we didn’t know much more. The United Airlines guy was as helpful as he could be, reserving an alternative flight for an additional $200 per person should we need the change. He seemed quite certain we could get a passport in a day.

“Maybe it’s like your driver’s license,” Ben said as we finally climbed into bed in the wee hours of the morning. “They have it all on the computer and can just print me another one. Do you think?”

“The guy seemed pretty sure we could get it in a day,” I reported. “Maybe that’s how they do it.”

It was starting to look like we might actually be able to salvage this vacation, even if we were still hanging in limbo.

I closed my eyes to go to sleep with my lover wrapped in my arms, thinking like a crazy man that there was actually hope…

Circle Two – Lust

“Get up, Ben,” I nudged, kissing along his neck, barely smelling the last vestiges of cologne from the day before. The stubble on his jawline scratched at my lips but it wasn’t enough to stop me. I had a hard time concentrating on getting him up to get dressed rather than getting him up another way. “Hit the shower while I make some more calls. I need to call the passport office and see what our chances are of getting you a replacement passport this morning.”

His eyes uncharacteristically flew open as the events from the early hours of the morning registered. His feet were on the floor in seconds. “I hope we can get it,” he wished, shuffling around the bed. “I *need* this vacation. I’ve been looking forward to it so much.”

“We’ll do what we can but if we can’t get the passport today, we’ll do something else. The United guy said we would have a credit on the airfare, at least, so we can salvage something.”

“I don’t *want* to do something else,” he parried as he peeled off his t-shirt. “I want to go to London.”

I pushed him toward the bathroom door and patted his temptingly firm bottom as he walked into the bathroom. “We’ll do what we need to do.”

“But I don’t want to go to Massachusetts!” he argued.

I knew it wasn’t London but it was a second option I proposed the night before, knowing we might need an alternative. It was a place we had talked about visiting before, but it paled in comparison to our original plans. I knew it, but what else could we do?

“We’ll find somewhere to go, but right now, I want your butt in the shower in case we need to make a beeline for the passport office.”

I sent him on his way and I took a seat on the edge of the bed near the phone. After trying several local passport offices and getting after-hours answering machines, I managed to get on the line with a passport office in another state. A friendly gentleman with a thick southern drawl answered the phone. I painfully went through the whole ordeal, keeping it as simple as I could so as to not bore the poor guy to death.

“Well, now, that’s just a shame,” he commiserated, “a crying shame.”

“We have a delayed flight for this afternoon at 6:00,” I told him. “We just need a passport today. It’s a reissue so we were hoping it wouldn’t be a big deal to get another one today.”

A movement in the doorway caught my eye and I saw my still-damp lover making his way over to me wearing a loosely wrapped towel around his waist. I winked at him, feeling more optimistic in the early light of day than I did just after midnight.

That is, until the passport agent spoke again, his next words making a vacation in New England a more likely prospect than Old England. “Oh, you ain’t gonna be able to git one at a regular passport office,” he informed me.

“What do you mean?” I asked calmly, adopting a neutral voice to keep from alarming Ben. It didn’t work. We had been together too long and he immediately stopped toweling off his hair when I spoke.

“Well, you gotta go to one of them main offices. A regional one. We got ‘em in D.C., Chicago, L.A., I believe there’s one in San Francisco…”

“We would have to go to one of those? You’re sure?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure. Cain’t nobody at just a regular passport location git you one in a day. Naw, you gotta go to a regional passport office.”

Hopes dashed, I took the phone numbers down that he offered even though I saw it as useless. There was no way we were going all the way to one of those offices, incurring even more expense on the off chance we could get the passport. I thanked him and hung up, trying to prepare myself for the flurry of questions and protests Ben was going to hurl at me.

“What? What did he say?” Ben asked me anxiously.

“Basically, we’re going to New England.”

“NO!” he stormed. He flew to his feet, the towel around his waist shifting to the floor while he clutched the life out of the little one he had been using on his hair.

I stood up with him and took him by the arms and said as firmly as I could. “Benjamin, the only other option is to get another plane ticket to go to one of the regional passport offices, of which there are only a handful in the whole country.”

“Where? Where are they?” he demanded to know.

I snaked my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. D.C., California, Chicago…”

“Chicago?! We can do that!” he shouted anxiously.

The despair on his face was heartbreaking but I knew he’d have a good time no matter where we went once he got there, and I didn’t see the reason in making a decision to fly all over the country in the hopes that we would actually manage to get a passport in a day. No one could seem to give me a guarantee that it could happen and as you might expect, the passport site didn’t make any promises either. That's the government for you.

“It doesn’t make a bit of sense to do that," I reasoned. "We could go to one of those places and still not get your passport.”

I gave him a quick hug and told him to dress. He continued to argue about it, getting himself more and more worked up. I snapped my fingers at him in frustration, feeling my own stomach starting to churn from the stress. I wasn’t going to have it.

“Benjamin!” I admonished following the snap. “That’s enough. I’m going to take a shower and then we’re calling United again to straighten out the tickets and see what we can salvage to go somewhere else in the country.”

“NO!” he said more loudly than I cared for.

I smacked my palm down on his backside, still not covered as he had spent more time arguing than dressing. He yelped, jutted his butt away from my hand, and gave me a fulminating glare – but he stopped arguing momentarily since I had his attention.

I ignored the glare and warned, “I said to quit arguing about this. I’ll be out in a minute and we’ll see what else we can do.”

“But we have to *fly* through O’Hare to get to London! O'Hare is *in* Chicago! We can just get them to switch our tickets to originating in Chicago, fly there today, get the passport and leave tomorrow!”

I gave him a hard look and he adopted one of flat-out appeal that tugged at my heartstrings even though I had to overlook it. I just couldn’t see a way around it. We weren’t going to London and that was the end of it.

I tried to be gentle but firm. “Pull the lip in and get dressed. We’ll do London another time. Think about something else we can do. Pick another place in the states while I'm showering if you don't want to go to Massachusetts.”

“I don’t *want*…!”

My fuse had burned down to the point it was scorching the head of the explosive and I snapped, “Benjamin! Think of something else. I’m not arguing with you over this.”

I paused to be sure he not only heard me but also listened, and the look on his face told me he had, and he was not happy about it. I continued on for a shower before World War III broke out.

I leaned into the mirror after I undressed and ran my hand over the stubble on my face. I wanted a vacation to alleviate some of the work-stress from my life, not add to it. It was unfortunate the way that things had turned out, but we couldn’t change anything, so why fret over it? I turned the shower on as hot as I could stand it, and let the water stream over my tense shoulder muscles that were twisted into mangled knots. I resigned myself to the fact that London would have to wait and tried to think positive thoughts about other alternatives. It was a horrible time of year for New England, actually, and I wracked my brain for other options, hoping Ben was doing the same.

When I came out of the bathroom, I was relieved to see Ben was throwing more clothes in his suitcase and was fully dressed. It was a good sign.

“Still packing, huh?”

“Yeah,” he answered as he tossed a sweatshirt into the case.

“Did you decide where you want to go?” I asked. I was so glad to see him in better spirits and I was hopeful it was because he had found a place he really wanted to visit in the states.

“Chicago.”

I deflated as another muscle in my neck curled into a tight knot. I should have known better. Ben and I are both pretty stubborn, and I knew by his one-word answer the needle was still stuck in the same spot.

“Benjamin, I clearly told you…” I started.

“You said pick another place and I did," he interrupted. "Chicago's in the states.”

He looked at me from a sitting position on the floor, knees folded under him, his eyes meeting mine only briefly before guiltily darting away. His sheepish expression struck a chord and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the rest that I sensed was on the way. There was more. I could feel it in my bones.

Ben fulfilled the prophetic niggling in my gut. “I bought the tickets.”

“You did WHAT?!” Off the charts. That’s where my frustration level was at that very point. Completely off the charts.

“Don’t be mad, Vic…”

“Mad?” I asked sarcastically. “Why in the *world* would I be mad? Just because my partner spent probably a truckload of money on last-minute plane tickets without my input shouldn’t make me mad in the least, should it?”

“I did not! I’m *saving* us money because we might still get to go to England, and that would have been money lost! You said pick another place, so I did. If I can’t get the passport we can just stay and vacation in Chicago. No harm done,” he explained, looking quite small from my 6’1” vantage point over his 3’ one on the floor where he was sitting.

His words sank in, and I realized I hadn’t said we couldn’t go to Chicago for vacation. But Ben also knew I might veto his decision, despite what I had or hadn't said, which is why he booked the tickets while I was busy, without waiting for my input.

"How much?" I asked him, not really wanting to hear the answer, but knowing I needed to hear it.

"Don't worry about it," he commented distractedly.

“How. Much?” I asked again more slowly.

He started straightening clothes in the suitcase and said something so low I couldn’t hear him.

"Out loud, Benjamin."

“Around $700,” he reluctantly replied.

My voice raised enough to crack glass, when I repeated the amount. I had to consciously lower it, which took more effort than I thought I had at that point in time. “You spent $700 of our money without talking to me first?”

“$700 of *my* money, so I didn’t cost *us* anything,” he pointed out with his chin defiantly raised.

That went all over me. We were a team. There *was* no “my” or “your” in our relationship. “What affects you affects us! I would expect you to discuss any $700 purchase, made with either your money or ours.”

“I had to do it,” he almost whispered, folding a t-shirt in his lap.

“You did not have to. I was gone 15 minutes, max. You could have waited.”

“It made sense in my mind to do it. You said pick a place. I picked then bought tickets."

“I can't believe you did that,” I commented in disbelief. "$700, Benjamin. How could you do it?"

"You said they would only give us a partial credit on the London tickets if we cancelled so we were going to have to pay to go somewhere else anyway. I figured we could pay to go to Chicago and hopefully, not lose out on the London trip at the same time. With a partial credit, we were going to have to pay something else anyway."

My anger began to recede a bit with his logic. He was right, but that was hardly the point. "You couldn't have waited until I was finished with my shower to discuss that with me?"

He shrugged. "I guess I could have."

"You didn't because you thought I wouldn't let you do it," I pronounced the obvious.

"Maybe."

"Probably," I corrected. "What’s the itinerary?”

“The plane leaves at 2:30,” he announced, then added hopefully, "so we don't have much time. Just enough to get ready and pack, probably."

I was ready to wring his neck. I looked at the clock and saw it was 9:30 AM. We would need to leave in three hours to get to the airport an hour and a half before flight time. I knew what he was thinking when he pointed out the lack of time. Well, it wouldn't take me more than ten minutes or so to warm his behind, and I doubted he figured on that. Three hours was plenty of time.

Ben placed the t-shirt in the suitcase and headed for the bathroom. "I'll go get our shaving kits packed."

“We aren’t finished discussing this, Benjamin David,” I declared. I started digging for clothes so I could dress for the serious encounter that was about to follow.

“You *told* me to pick another place. I picked another place!” he defended himself heatedly as the light dawned.

“Where in those instructions did you hear ‘book plane tickets to another place without talking to me first’?”

“I should be able to spend my money however I want to,” he asserted, challenging eyes meeting mine.

I pointed a finger of warning his way and said, “Don’t push it, Ben. Not today. You're in enough trouble.”

He balked and stared at me but I ignored the expression as I slipped on my jeans. By the time I had my sweater pulled over my head, I found Ben sprawled face-down across the bed.

Our emotions were running high and I tamped down my annoyance as I sighed at the sight of him. He was upset, angry, guilty, frustrated… I could smell it all over him as it flowed off him in waves.

I sat down alongside him and before I could say anything, he said, “It’s not fair, Vic.”

“How is it not fair?”

“I did what you told me,” he remarked without looking at me.

I watched the back of his head since he remained on his belly. “I told you to book a flight?”

“You said pick a place. I was just trying to help. Trying to make it right for losing my passport. That’s why I paid for it.”

“That wasn’t the way, Benji, and you know it.”

He rolled over and leaned up on one elbow to look at me. “You threw it away, you know.”

“Because it wasn’t where it should be. Don’t try to shift this to me. The missing passport is not the issue here, anyway. Things happen. The issue is you dropping $700 without getting my input to avoid the possibility of me disagreeing with you.”

“I had to make it right,” he confessed. “If I asked you and you said no, I wouldn’t have a chance to do that.”

His eyes were getting glassy and I knew he was stressed from the passport fiasco on top of what I was about to do. I sensed we needed to get it over with and pretty quickly to get things on track. I’m not one for dragging discipline out anyway, but especially not when Ben is getting worked up and we have limited time to deal with $700 expenditures.

"You should have talked to me about it before making a decision like that in a vacuum. And you knew it."

He looked away, confirming that he did, in fact, know he shouldn't have done what he did. He knew what was coming and he knew why. He knew from the minute he made the decision to buy the tickets behind my back. I held a hand out for him and helped him to his feet before I wordlessly pulled him across my lap.

I tugged his sweats and underwear down to his knees and promptly started spanking his clenching backside. I couldn’t let him by with what he had done, especially since he knew he should have discussed it with me. As his bottom began to turn from white to rose, he began to break down. I held him tightly against my stomach as he began to wriggle against the smacks I was steadily applying to his posterior. I resolved myself not to give in to his cries of protest or supplications to stop, and I continued to spank him until I felt he had learned the lesson I was trying to teach him.

I parked him in the corner to contemplate the error of his ways while I put some thought into whether or not we were going to Chicago. If we cancelled the tickets, we’d lose the money for that trip as well as the money we would lose on the England vacation. The problem I had was that Ben shouldn’t be able to get his way when he did something he knew for a fact wouldn’t go over well with me, but at the same time, losing $700 to make a point was just as ridiculous as booking the tickets in the first place. The money was already spent and we couldn’t get it back, not to mention we might actually pull it off and salvage the original trip after all.

I left him to face the wall, keeping one eye on him while the other was on the suitcase as I went through the clothes to be sure I had everything I needed. Ben's tears turned to hiccupping breaths after about ten minutes and I called him to me. He pulled his fallen sweats carefully back into place then dragged unwilling feet my way as he wiped the backs of his hands across his wet eyes.

I wrapped my arms around him and he laid his head against my shoulder then tentatively slipped his arms around me.

"I'm not going to cancel the Chicago tickets, but I want you to know I considered it. Strongly."

He raised his head and looked me in the eye, something he hadn't been able to do since I came out of the shower. He was absolved.

"Why would you do that?"

"Because something about keeping them knowing how you got them didn't seem right." He dropped his eyes again at that.

"But you changed your mind," he stated without meeting my gaze.

"Only because I'm too tight to waste $700 making a point." I crooked my finger under his chin and raised his face. "Look at me. If you ever pull a stunt like that again, you'll get paddled. Do I make myself crystal clear?"

He nodded against my finger. "Yes, sir," he nearly whispered. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you," I accepted the apology and hugged him. "We'd better get a move on if we're going to make that flight."

Ben quietly double and triple-checked the packing while I made more calls to United. We had a lot of fancy footwork to do with the London tickets as they needed to be shifted again – now to the next evening – on the off-chance we would actually get Ben a new passport. Going to Chicago meant we needed to also change our origination city since we wouldn't be leaving from home.

My head started to thump when the United lady on the phone painstakingly explained to me our tickets couldn’t be changed to a different origination city for security reasons. It would have to be a new ticket. I was betting new tickets would cost more than the $700 tickets to Chicago and more than the partial credit they had promised on the original tickets.

“But we already have seats on the flight I’m asking you for because we were supposed to connect to it from here, but now we'll be leaving from there." God, I was giving myself a headache. "Can’t you just cut off the first leg of the original trip and let us board the one you already have us ticketed for?”

The answer was “no” once again. So sorry. Sure. Me, too. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

According to her, the only answer was to fly all the way back home to catch the flight we already had booked only to turn around and go right back to where we started from to catch the connection. Brilliant. No wonder so many airlines were in trouble financially.

My stress level was increasing with almost every passing minute. I thought longingly to my piled up desk at work. That sounded like a vacation.

Circle 3 – Gluttonous

We hadn’t managed to eat before we got to the airport and I was in need of a cup of coffee in a bad way. We arrived around lunchtime thinking we would have more than enough time to eat and still find an airline attendant who might be able to help us.

We checked in and then went to the United Airlines Red Carpet Club before we scouted food, since it was more important to reschedule the London flights than to eat at that moment.

It’s amazing what they can do in the club that the attendants on the phone and at the gates can’t seem to manage, so I was hopeful we would get things squared away no matter what I had been told earlier. If they couldn’t arrange for us to leave from Chicago, we’d be vacationing in the states, passport or not, because there was no way we could get back in time to leave from home. I wished for a miracle because I was tired of arguing about vacation and tickets and lost passports.

“I’m thirsty,” Ben told me, while we waited in line.

“Why don’t you go see what you can find in the main lounge? They should have something to drink. I’ll stand here and see what they can do for us while you go.”

I watched him walk away as I waited for them to finish with the man in front of me, and I reflected on the day. Even though I spanked him, Ben continued to defend his rationale that we would have been wasting even more money if we didn’t at least try to go to London. He was right to a point. We would only be getting a partial credit if we cancelled London and that credit could only be used under specific circumstances according to United, so chances were, we would have lost the whole amount.

We finally compromised on our positions. I agreed he had a point about the money and he grudgingly conceded that I had one about making unilateral decisions behind my back. He only did so under the disclaimer that my point shouldn't have ended with him across my knee. He couldn't look me in the eye on that one, though – he knew it was fair even if he wouldn't admit it aloud.

I could see him from where I was and I watched him investigate the snack counter, hauling his laptop roller bag behind him. He managed to grab a few items before he searched for a seat. I kept an eye on where he settled, which was also within my line of sight, so I could easily find him when I was finished at the counter. The club was unusually busy that day and the last thing I needed was for us to get separated.

He winced as he carefully took a seat, apparently still feeling the aftereffects of my message from a few hours ago. Part of me felt bad about it, but it was a small part. Ben knew exactly how I would react to what he did. He made the decision to deal with the consequences later or else he felt like they would be worth it, I wasn't sure which. Either way, he knew better and made his decision despite that. I didn't have a choice other than to deal with it, vacation or not.

My turn at the desk finally arrived, but I was there so long Ben finally came back over to find out what was going on.

“I’m still hungry,” he groused.

“Get some fruit inside.” His nose wrinkled at the selection but it was the best I could do for the moment.

“I don’t want fruit,” he said, with his nose still turned up.

“See if they have crackers and cheese.”

“It’s Brie,” he pointed out. I know he's picky, but even I don’t like Brie.

“I thought you found something to eat over there.”

“A Twix,” he told me. That wasn’t going to be enough.

“We’ll find something when we’re done here,” I promised him, looking hopefully at the clerk. She had been helping me so long that we ran into the end of her shift. She was working off the clock but provided stellar service, regardless.

“Ok,” she announced wearily. “I made it so you leave from here tomorrow at 6:00PM. I managed to sort of erase the first leg of the flight you were supposed to take. Just don’t mention it to anyone.”

“Perfect,” I gleamed. That was one major hurdle down and this lady had clearly performed an airline miracle that everyone else I talked to said was an impossibility. We owed her big time.

“She fixed it?” Ben asked incredulously.

“She fixed it,” I assured him. “Now we just need to be sure we get your passport or we’ve lost the $700 from today’s flights *and* the original vacation money.”

He frowned at me. “Be positive. It’s going to work out,” he said confidently.

I wasn’t so sure. I heard his stomach rumble and he laid his hand over it as though to calm it down. He asked, “Do we have time to eat?”

I looked at my watch and said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. We’re going to have to do a grab-and-go. It took too long in here, but it was worth it.”

“We should get some good food later on vacation, anyway,” he said to me. “That’s part of the fun of vacation. Junk food.”

We had a lovely meal of a day-old sub sandwich and chips that we had to eat on the plane since we had no time to eat before boarding. The good food would have to wait.

Circle 4 – Misers and Spendthrifts

“At least we got the room for nothing,” Ben said, pushing his way into our room. "Now that's a sweet deal."

I held the door for him while he maneuvered his laptop bag and one suitcase. “I’m just glad I had the frequent flyer points."

“So, see? This trip to Chicago isn’t costing so much after all.”

“Benjamin,” I chided clearly. “It already cost us a grand more than we should have had to pay.”

“$700,” he corrected me. “Don’t be so cheap, Vic.”

I grabbed his arm as he walked by, headed to the bathroom. “A thousand dollars is hardly cheap.”

“Stop rounding up. It was not $1000,” he pointed out. “And we would have had to pay extra to go somewhere else anyway.”

“We would have had a credit,” I reminded him.

“A partial credit,” he countered.

I felt the stress building again, and changed the subject. “Hurry up in the bathroom. We still have to find Kinko’s and get your passport picture.”

“And get a bite to eat. I’m hungry.”

“Again?” I asked.

“We did a grab-and-go! It was nasty and I didn’t eat the whole thing,” he groused.

“Quickly, please,” I rushed him.

It was well after regular business hours for most retail stores, and I was crossing my fingers, toes and other appendages that Kinko’s would still be open. I assumed there would be a place next to the passport office for pictures but with our luck so far on this trip, I wasn't willing to risk it.

The flushing toilet followed by the sounds of Ben washing his hands interrupted my thoughts.

“Ready,” he said emerging from the bathroom and we went directly back to the lobby we just came from.

The bellhop was most helpful and got us pointed in the right direction not only for Kinko’s but also for the passport office, which we would need for the morning. He told us exactly where to get off on the ‘L’ so we would be within walking distance.

Thankfully, it was a 24 hour Kinko’s and it was still open for business when we got there. The kid at the Kinko’s counter must have had aspirations for a loftier career – maybe fast food or retail – because he certainly wasn’t interested in the one he currently held. I swear, I think he moved slowly intentionally just because I told him we had a cab waiting. But, despite it taking longer than necessary, we did get the pictures and then dashed back to the cab to return to our hotel.

Ben studied the new prints and held them up for me on the way to the waiting cab. “Better than the last ones,” he beamed. “That’s good.”

I have him a look over the top of the cab as I opened my door. “Hardly worth all this drama for new pics, sweetheart.”

“Silver lining,” he grinned, ducking into the cab.

We stopped off at the restaurant in the hotel lobby before we went to our room because Ben was still complaining about being hungry. He was less than thrilled to have to eat at the hotel but it was there and convenient.

“I don’t care if you eat," I told him. "I’m not really hungry though.”

Ben flipped the menu over and eyed the dessert section. “You should just get dessert,” he said. “Something light.”

I had to laugh. “Not exactly light,” I smiled, looking over the selections on the back cover. “But I like the idea.”

He got his hamburger and I ate a warmed brownie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup on top. Even though I wasn't hungry, the dessert melted in my mouth. The sweet needed to be offset so I ordered a cup of coffee, mindful to order decaf so I could get some sleep.

After I paid the bill, I said, “If you’re finished, we need to go upstairs and hit the sack. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

"We're working harder on vacation than we do at home," he observed.

"You're right about that," I agreed wearily.

I think we were both out as soon as our heads hit the pillow. It was a good thing. We needed our strength for the next day.

Circle 5 – Wrathful

I was not mad. I really wasn't. I wasn't grumpy either no matter what Ben said.

“You are, too, grumpy,” Ben complained.

“I’m not grumpy,” I countered. “This line is just long.” I wasn’t sure if seeing Chicago from the lofty Sears Tower was at all worth waiting an hour and a half in line.

“We have to be doing something anyway. We can’t go back to pick up the passport until 1:30.”

He was right. The morning had gone unbelievably smoothly. The Chicago passport office was run as smooth as butter, and we were in and out in about 30 minutes. Benji hadn’t failed to mention more than once that his plan was coming together.

“Look. She’s changing the sign,” he observed. I looked over in time to see an employee switch the anticipated wait time from an hour and a half to 50 minutes.

The line moved faster than I expected and soon enough we had traveled the 110 floors to the viewing deck of the Tower. It was a fairly clear day, but still the sky was a bit hazy from our vantage point, veiling some of the city's sights from our view.

“Where’s the ball field?” Ben asked.

I scoured the map they gave us with our tickets and tried to figure out if the field was on east, west, north or south. Finding it on the map then matching it up to what I was seeing out the window, I reported, “I don’t think we can see it with the cloud cover today. It should be right there.”

“Shoot,” he complained.

We walked around and found various buildings in real life after locating them first on the map so we could know what we were looking at. I looked at my watch and saw it approaching 1:20. We still had to walk a few blocks back to the passport office.

“We need to get moving,” I urged.

“That was a long wait for a little bit of time,” Ben complained.

“I know, but we certainly don’t want to be late.”

“We won’t be late. Most of the group from this morning will be gone when we get there if we aren’t there right at 1:30. Then we can just breeze in, get the passport and take our time getting to the airport.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed.

Things were starting to look up. We had the flight all squared away and it didn’t leave until 6:00PM. We had more than enough time to pick up the passport, take the ‘L’, grab a shuttle to the airport and relax until time take-off.

I should have known better. The team of passport hander-outers were not efficient in the least compared to their morning counterparts. Apparently, the crabby attendant hadn’t gotten the memo that we didn’t have all day to wait on her. Talk about being grumpy. She didn't give a rat's rear end whether we liked it or not.

There were several people in the office behind the glass, yet this one woman was the sole contact for taking the receipts and sorting through the passports in her own sweet time. The drill was simple yet ineffective: hand in your receipt from the morning when you get there, sit and wait a few days until the attendant decides she’s in the mood to give you your passport.

The room was full when we arrived, hardly empty as we had expected. We saw only a few familiar faces from the morning, and when a couple of seats finally cleared, we sat down.

“Been here long?” I asked the gentlemen beside us.

“Almost an hour,” he groused with a nasty glare toward the woman at the window. Her sense of urgency was less than the boy’s from Kinko’s, which I would never have believed possible.

If I hadn’t been grumpy earlier in the day, I was by the time she called Ben to the window over an hour later. Feeling both victory and the threat of failure, we sprinted back to the ‘L’ station and prayed for a speedy train. We only had an hour to get back to the hotel, catch the shuttle and get to the airport in order to be there the required two hours early for international flights.

“We can make it,” I assured Ben, hoping I was right and fighting the urge to keep looking at my watch. We went from having more than enough time, to cutting it so close I feared we would miss our flight. I breathed a sigh of relief when the 'L' showed up in about ten minutes.

Ben gazed out the window of the train at the interstate parallel to the tracks. “God, Vic. We’ll never make it if we have to sit in that traffic.”

It was stopped. Dead stopped. Our hotel was minutes from the airport, and I hoped the shuttle driver knew some back roads or that jangled mess of traffic could potentially turn a few minutes into a very long time. Time we didn't have.

“Most airports are on the outskirts of town,” I said. “Hopefully, we’ll avoid some of this since we stayed at an airport hotel. Maybe it will clear out closer to the hotel.”

“I hope you’re right, Vic.” Ben looked at me, worry etched on his face. “I can’t believe we’ve come this far and might miss our flight.”

“We’ll make it,” I hoped, but a glance at my watch told me it wasn’t promising.

We scrambled off the train and sprinted toward the hotel. The shuttle was scheduled to leave at 3:20 and we had about five minutes to get there. Thankfully, we had checked out earlier and moved our bags to storage with the bellhop. As we rounded the corner of the building, I about choked when I saw they were already loading people and bags into the airport shuttle.

“Run!” Ben shouted and he took off, picking up the pace. I rushed to keep up with him and we arrived at the front door, winded.

“We need our bags, and that shuttle,” I breathlessly addressed the bellhop.

While we waited for them to load our things, Ben asked the driver as he climbed aboard, “How long to the airport?"

“About twenty minutes,” he reported.

“We’ll barely make it two hours before departure,” I announced, looking at my watch. We didn’t even have time to change our clothes before we got on the shuttle, but if we actually made it in 20 minutes, we could change at the airport before we checked in. Neither of us wanted to wear jeans on the 8-hour flight and planned to be in sweats so we could be comfortable and hopefully sleep on the plane.

We surprisingly made it to the airport in time to change and we went from the restroom directly to check-in. The kiosks weren’t an option with all the ticket changes plus we were flying internationally, so we went fell into an agent's line.

“No seat assignments,” he commented, passing the ticket jackets to me, “but you’ll get them at the gate.”

“At the gate?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, it looks like they’re doing some upgrades or something.”

“Sweet,” Ben grinned. “Maybe we’ll get upgraded.”

“Not with United,” I burst his bubble. “They like to charge you for upgrades unless you have coupons, which I don’t. My frequent flyer status doesn’t get me many perks like with US Air.”

“US Scareways,” Ben teased.

“It’s no problem,” the agent said. “You’ll get your assignment at the gate.”

“I don’t understand. We had seat assignments when we scheduled this,” I informed him, remembering distinctly that the woman in the club had even written them down for me.

"I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It just shows you’ll have to get them at the gate.”

Great. Just great. Another hurdle. We made it through security and headed directly for the Red Carpet Club where I hoped we would again get special service and get our seat assignments without hanging out at the gate until time to leave.

“I can’t help you,” the club agent said apologetically. “This flight is in an oversold situation.”

My jaw dropped. “Oversold?”

Warning bells were ringing in my head. Apparently our tickets weren’t confirmed according to her. Visions of one of us making the flight and the other getting left behind flashed in my head. By that time, I was wishing I never heard the word "vacation".

“Yes,” she apologized. “I’m sorry. You should be at the gate no less than 45 minutes before boarding, which is about 45 minutes before takeoff. There should be someone there to help you.”

Well, there went our leisurely wait. And we needed to eat again. I looked at my watch and saw we should be at the gate right then according to the agent’s timetable. Away we went, foodless and running yet again. We were getting more exercise than we did in the gym.

We rushed up to the gate counter and saw there was a ticket agent already there. She barely looked up from the computer and said, “We’ll call you after we begin boarding.”

“Boarding?!” Ben snapped as we walked away.

I was not happy, not happy at all. “Watch one of us get a seat and one not,” I grumbled.

“Or one sitting in one place and one way off in another.”

“Or in the middle of the five-seat row.”

I didn’t like it, not one bit. My mood only got worse as we scoped the airport for something to eat that wasn’t another crappy sandwich like we had the day before. We finally found pizza that was mediocre and brought it back over to the gate.

The longer we sat there, the busier it got, and still no word from the desk. There was a huge dark cloud of doom hanging directly over us and I didn’t like it. “I’m telling you, Benjamin, if *one* more thing goes wrong, I’m not stepping foot on that plane and neither are you.”

“What?!” he choked incredulously around a glob of cheese. “You can’t do that!”

“Yes, I can,” I disagreed. “Neon signs, Benjamin. I see signs lit up in neon that this trip was not meant to be.”

“It is so! I got my passport!” he countered as he chewed.

“Which we wouldn’t have had to do if this trip hadn’t started out wrong to begin with.”

“I’m sorry!” His face reddened and he shrank into his seat.

I didn’t mean to make him feel bad about the passport. That wasn’t my intention at all but I really felt like this trip was not a good idea. We were tempting fate, twisting events to have our way, when the Powers That Be were trying desperately to steer us another direction.

I laid my hand over his and said, “Benji, all I mean is, at some point we should listen to what we’re hearing.”

“Why do you have to be so negative?”

“I’m not being negative, I’m being cautious.”

He shook his head and flopped his mini-slice of pizza back in the cardboard box, slamming the lid closed. “No, you’re not.”

“I am, Benji. I think it’s a sign. Or *signs*, rather,” I added.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe the Powers were keeping us off the original flight for some reason? Maybe we avoided something terrible?”

“Is the glass half-empty or half-full you mean?”

“Negative,” he accused. “You’d always see it half-empty.”

I opened my mouth to respond and my phone vibrated at my waist. It was my mom. I explained our current situation and how we had managed to get the passport but still didn’t know if we were going.

“Victor Tanner if *one* more thing happens, you and Ben had better not step a foot on that plane,” my mother warned.

I looked over at Ben who had rolled his eyes, having heard her from where he sat. I guess I get my volume honestly, never mind my superstitions. “We’ve already talked about that, Mom. I’ll update you as soon as I know something.”

Ben was on his feet as the boarding began and we still hadn’t been called. He stormed over to the desk before I could get there and demanded to know something.

“Oh, here they are,” a different agent said nonchalantly as she picked up two previously printed boarding passes. “They were laying right here.”

“Beautiful,” Ben grumbled snatching them from her. “Nice of someone to let us know.”

I steered him toward the gate and took the tickets from him before he could say anything else to the agent. I was relieved to see that our seat assignments were together and in the business economy section. Thank God. Otherwise, we would have been crammed in the back with less legroom and possibly not together. I was thrilled to see we were sitting together even if we were in the middle five-seat section rather than by a window. We were at least on the end of the row, which was good but had a downside: every time someone had to pee, we’d have them crawling over us. Better than being separated, I thought.

We settled into our seats comfortably and as the plane filled up, our row didn’t.

“Oversold my ass,” Ben grumbled. “Can you believe she made us wait like that?” He peered around and reported, “These aren’t the only empty seats, either.”

“Thank *you*, United, for a little unnecessary stress,” I muttered.

“What stress?” Ben grinned, and I cut my eyes at him.

Bypass Circles 6 – 9; Go Directly to Hell

Security and customs in the UK were a breeze next to just trying to get on a plane in the states. After 9/11, everyone was treated as a potential terrorist in the states until proven otherwise. But, we were finally in London, officially.

We stood in the baggage claim area waiting on our bags. Luggage rolled by a piece at a time on the conveyer belt and we finally had everything except Ben’s suitcase.

“I don’t understand why it didn’t come off right behind my duffle bag.”

“I don’t know,” I said watching bags of various colors, shapes and sizes roll by. “Maybe they shifted the luggage around to distribute the weight and yours got moved.”

Ben looked hopefully toward the rubber flap as another piece of luggage pushed its way through. I was as disappointed as he was not to see his bag. He said, “There’s that darn floral one again. It must be lost.” He looked around the ever-decreasing crowd and added, “Or its owner is. I think my bag is still in Chicago.”

I was beginning to think the same thing. And why wouldn't it be lost? Everything had gone so smoothly so far. We were due a little bump in the road. We were about to throw in the towel, when it crept around the corner of the baggage carousel.

“There it is!” he exclaimed exuberantly, making his way around the contraption to get to his bag.

“Thank God,” I said in relief.

We juggled our luggage and found an exchange counter where we swapped US dollars for silver.

“Stinking dollar,” Ben complained, pocketing his money. “It’s like flushing half of what we gave the guy.”

“The dollar's just not worth much these days,” I commented. “Not over here, anyway.”

“Maybe we should go to a third world country next time,” he suggested.

I folded the few bills I had and put them in my pocket. “I don’t think so.”

We boarded the train, which wasn’t bad given we were starting at the beginning point of the tunnel. I didn’t want to think about how much trouble it would be to hoist our bags into the car from a mid-point in the tubes where the train wasn’t stopped for any extended length of time like at the airport. We’d worry about that later. For now, we just needed to “mind the gap”, get settled, and wait for our stop.

“It’s a good thing we don’t have to change trains,” Ben said with a glance at our luggage piled up in the corner by the doors. “What a pain that would be.”

Changing cars would have been bad, but not nearly as bad as what we found when we got to our destination: the stairway to heaven we had to climb *with* our luggage. I gazed up the length of never-ending risers then back at the bags we had to haul up them.

“No elevators?” I asked, looking around and seeing none. "I thought this stop had one?"

“I don’t see any.” Ben's eyes searched back down the underground tunnel for a sign pointing to a lift. "Nothing."

The people who had exited the train with us disappeared quickly up the stairs and we were left alone. I sighed. It just kept getting better.

“Let’s move,” I said, launching into action.

Halfway up the stairs, I heard a rumble from underground that made me hurry along, but not fast enough. A herd of newcomers mounted the stairs from below and I prayed not to get trampled as a million feet thundered around us. They were still skirting us when I stopped at the top of the stairs and tried to find my lover in the mass of people clamoring around us like buffalo.

When the masses finally cleared, I saw Ben on the opposite side of the landing, white and shaken. “Dear God,” he uttered, mouth hanging open. “I thought we were going to get squashed.”

“Me, too.”

“I thought about dropping my bag and just making a run for it,” he stated.

I knew the feeling. After surviving the stampede, we managed our unscathed bags through the turnstiles and headed for the exit. We stepped out into daylight for the first time since we entered the airport in Chicago and were surrounded by people once again.

“There’s no way I’m dragging this luggage to our hotel,” Ben declared, bewildered with all the activity around him and apparently averse to trying to find our way through the throngs with luggage in tow.

“I’m with you,” I agreed. A cab loomed in the distance like an oasis in the desert about a half a block away and we hurried toward it, manhandling our luggage over the uneven stone sidewalks as we went along.

“Waldorf Hilton,” I told the driver.

“But that’s just ‘round the corner,” he replied with a half-smile at me.

“That’s okay,” Ben said, falling into the seat. "We'll ride."

We held our bags in front of our legs in the back, which wasn’t a problem given the large distance between our knees and the back of the driver’s seat.

“Wonder if all their cars are this way inside, or just the cabs,” Ben whispered. "No trunk."

I shrugged rather than responded because I didn’t want to offend the driver in noticing the difference in a US cab and one in the UK. Although, UK cabs were much cleaner and nicer, so I don’t know what I was worried about. Any differences I could point out would have been positive ones.

It was a mere five pound trip to the Waldorf, virtually a couple of streets over from where we had been. I was still glad we made the trip by cab since my maps were in my suitcase and I was too tired to try to sort out where we were going anyway. Eight hours in the air following the stress it took to get on the plane had left me pretty whipped, not to mention the five hour time difference. The sight of the Waldorf left me almost as euphoric as when we saw the cab.

The bellhop in Chicago had been good, but the one that rushed us at the Waldorf put the Chicago guy to shame. Our bags were whisked away before we had time to think, and the guy patiently waited until we had checked in to carry our luggage all the way to our room.

“Wow,” Ben breathed, surveying our temporary living quarters.

It was tastefully and contemporarily decorated in royal blue and crisp white. Tulip entwined accents swirled all around the light fixture hanging over the bed with a bulb centered in each flower. Matching tulip sconces decorated each side of the bed with a long single light hanging over each of the pillows for reading. An armoire covered the entire wall beside the frosted glass bathroom, which provided even less privacy than the one in the picture we looked at online or in comparable rooms in the states.

“Awesome,” Ben said, checking the outlets over the desk beside the door. “We have at least one US outlet. That’s for my computer,” he declared, laying claim to the outlet.

“We can’t send emails from in here,” I warned. “We’ll have to check the business center because I refuse to pay $30 a day for internet access.”

“It costs 15 pounds?”

“Yep,” I confirmed as I moved my suitcase against the wall and out of our way. “Look at this, Benji. Plasma.”

“I can’t believe it,” he said in wonder as he looked up at the plasma television hanging on the wall at the foot of the bed. “We need one of these at home.”

“Need? Hardly.”

He found the remote lying on one of the glass-topped bedside tables and switched on the television. “Friends!” he announced.

“How about that?” I noted as Joey said something that made the canned audience roll with laughter. “I want to freshen up. Do you?”

“Yes! I feel like I haven’t showered in days.”

“I hear you. Do you want to go first?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

He was sprawled on the bed, shoes kicked off, and one arm folded behind his head. I couldn’t help but smile at him and I said, “You look comfy, so I’ll jump in the shower while you watch that.”

I took a pit stop first and frowned at the bathroom set-up. There was no door at all leading into the area and anyone in the room could see right inside. The shower was to the left of the doorless entryway and the toilet was directly behind that. It had a bit of privacy and was closed off by a door of sorts, but I use the word “door” loosely. There was a one-inch crack all around it with no hardware for latching at all. It just swung back and forth in the opening. The door, like the bathroom walls and other enclosures, was made of frosted glass, no thicker than ¼ inch thick.

I used the bathroom and said to Ben as I stripped, “If we didn’t know each other before, we would after staying in this room.”

He laughed and said, “I can see you, Vic. You’re nekkid.”

I spread my arms to show off my full naked self. “What do you think?” I turned in a circle so he could get the full view, pausing for him to see the good parts.

“I like,” he admired with a grin.

“Why, thank you.” I bowed deeply in appreciation then turned my attention to getting cleaned up.

They had those fancy girl soaps in the Waldorf, an oatmeal one and shower gel. I opted for the oatmeal because I figured I had less of a chance of coming out smelling like a flower. I stepped inside the shower stall and thought I was going to need a user’s manual to figure out how to operate the spray at first, but I finally got it right. It had not only the regular showerhead like I was used to, but also little jets down the front of the stall to spray you all over. It felt good after eight hours on a plane.

“Great shower,” I said stepping out “nekkid” onto the mat as I dried off.

Ben was stripping off his clothes as I pulled fresh ones on. “I need a good shower,” he said, stepping past me into the glass stall.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on my socks when I looked up into a full moon in the middle of the day. Ben had his butt pressed firmly against the frosted glass of the shower and I started laughing in spite of myself. He heard me and knew he had gotten my attention.

“About time you looked over this way,” he shouted over the sound of running water. “I’ve had my butt against the glass forever.”

“Don’t tempt me,” I said to him. “We want to squeeze in a little sightseeing between sex.”

He finished his shower and I passed the time by looking through our London Pass book while the television played in the background. Ben came out of the shower and I said, “I’m surprised Buckingham Palace isn’t in this book.”

He paused towel-drying his hair and pulled the towel away from his head. “What?”

“I said I’m surprised Buckingham Palace isn’t in here.” I held the book up for him to see what I was looking at.

“It’s in there,” he informed me.

“No, it isn’t,” I countered, flipping through the book as I spoke. I had checked the index as well as look through the tours section and it wasn’t there.

Ben came out of the bathroom and started rummaging through his backpack. “What are you looking for?” I asked him.

“My book,” he muttered. “Is that mine?”

I looked at the book I held and said, “No, it’s mine.”

His face reddened and he took the book from me. He searched the book and found something near Buckingham Palace and said, “There.”

I looked where he pointed and said, “That’s not Buckingham Palace.”

“It’s close enough,” he snapped. He was flaring at me and I wondered curiously at how we went from butt cheeks pressed to the shower glass to this bout of temper I was seeing.

“It’s not Buckingham Palace and that was my point.”

“All right!” he growled loudly. “It’s not Fuckingham Palace! Happy?”

No, not really. Far from it, actually. Vacation or not, he wasn’t talking to me that way. I stood up and took him by the hand and dragged him back into the bathroom and turned him to the sink. I stopped as I reached for the soap, remembering I had nothing but shower gel and oatmeal soap. I had no idea what was in either of them and wasn’t sure I wanted them in my partner’s mouth. My mind sorted through several options and settled on a few firm smacks to his nekkid rear end.

“Ow!” he hissed through gritted teeth as he danced away from my falling hand. “Vic, stop it!”

And I did after a dozen or so swats. I turned him to face me and he rubbed behind him. “You don’t talk to me like that, Benjamin, on vacation or at home. You’re lucky you aren’t spitting bubbles right now. What was that outburst all about?”

“Never mind,” he said, deflated.

“Never mind nothing,” I contradicted. “If this is any indication as to how the rest of this trip will be, let me make one thing clear. I won’t be putting up with anything here that I don’t put up with at home.” He frowned hard and looked away from me and toward the shiny tiles. “What changed your mood so fast? Ben, answer me.”

“Nothing.”

“Benjamin!”

“I lost my book! Okay?”

Emotions passed over his face, flashing from angry to sad, then back again. “What book?” I asked him.

“My London book. I keep losing things!” he said, slapping his bare thigh in frustration.

“So we use mine, Ben,” I told him. It wasn’t a big thing, losing his book, but on the heels of losing a passport… well, it made a little thing that much worse to him, apparently. “It’s not a big deal, really.”

He didn’t seem at all too sure about it, but he sniffed back tears that were more from frustration than the little bit of whacking I did to his rear end. I hadn’t swatted him hard enough to cause him to cry, but it looked to me like the long trip, the stress from the day before and losing his book were adding up, making it hard for him to hold onto his emotions.

“Get dressed,” I told him gently, kissing his cheek. I breathed in the smell of oatmeal soap that wafted up from his damp skin. “Let’s see if we can take in the London Eye and find something to eat. Hungry?”

He nodded and quietly said he was sorry. I gave him a hug and straightened his damp hair with my fingers before it dried like it was, God forbid. He dressed without saying a word, the only sounds in the room being those of him dressing and the television in the background.

“Jacket,” I said as we prepared to go, and drew a scowl. “It will get cool this afternoon, and it isn’t exactly hot now.”

“We’ll be walking,” he argued.

“With jackets on,” I proclaimed, and I held his out to him. He frowned again but took the jacket. I pulled mine on and reached into the pocket to be sure the room card key was there. I felt a familiar square of a book inside and pulled out another copy of the London Passbook. “Oh, I must have had your copy earlier.”

Ben’s mouth flew open and he said, “I didn’t lose it?! *You* had it all along??”

“It looks like it.” He glared accusatory daggers at me and I explained, “It was an accident, Ben.”

“*I* thought I lost it. I can’t believe…” His mouth pursed down into a thin line and he eyes narrowed. “I got *spanked* - a *lot* - because you had my book!”

I turned him around and pushed him through the door. “You got *swatted* - a *little* - for cursing at me. You’re lucky all they have is that girl soap or…”

“I was upset!” he interrupted.

“Benjamin. Walk. Don’t argue.”

I drew in a deep breath as he ignored my direction and berated me as we walked down the hall for unfairly punishing him.

It was going to be a long week.

We found a little hole in the wall of a restaurant and sat at the table wondering where the waiter was until we realized we had to order at the bar. I ordered fried chicken and Ben got a burger. Out of the largely empty seating area, we managed to pick a table right beside the door to the ladies room.

Great.

It amazed me by the time I had finished my chicken how many women there actually were in the small restaurant judging by how often the door directly behind me opened and closed. Apparently, every female in the place had to use the bathroom while they were there.

We left after we ate and walked to the London Eye, which didn’t look anything at all like an eye. It was a giant Ferris wheel moving at a pace so slowly it appeared to be sitting still, which gave the occupants time to see the beautiful city. Bullet-shaped capsules were spaced evenly around the big wheel where people could sit or walk around as the Eye crept toward to the sky in a clockwise circle.

My body was instantly tired, despite the recent refreshing shower, when I saw the enormously long line – or queue – at the ticket counter. Ben grabbed the fabric of my jacket sleeve and tugged me toward the building.

“We need to go here,” he instructed. The shower had left him with a burst of energy that eluded me.

Thankfully, the line moved quickly and our London Passbook got us in for free. Ben bought a souvenir book and grabbed a map of the city off the counter. I was more tired when we found a still longer line of people waiting to board the Eye. I thought I saw Ben’s body deflate at the same time mine did.

“We’ll be in line forever,” he realized aloud.

I glanced around and commented, “Nothing else for us to do. We’re too late to really go anywhere else we wanted to go this week.”

He sighed and moved toward our place at the end of the line. He stated optimistically, “Maybe it will move fast.”

Which it did, surprisingly enough. What looked like a two-hour long wait was actually only about 20 minutes. We used the time to read through the brochures we picked up from the lady at the ticket counter when we got our passes.

Ben studied the map in his hand then shoved it toward me. “Look at this, Vic. There’s a golden egg hidden in the city somewhere.”

“How about that?” I replied, reading what he showed me.

The map was marked off in a grid covering the city, and the object was to mark the part of the grid that matched up to where this mysterious egg was hidden. “It must be easy to find if you can see it from the Eye.”

“We have to find it. We could win something,” he beamed. "How do you hide a golden egg in the city? It must be too big to recognize from the ground but easy to spot up in the Eye."

"I doubt it's all that easy," I noted. "British Airways is giving away airline tickets to the winner."

"I'm finding it," Ben stated optimistically and I smiled at his enthusiasm.

Our turn finally came and we piled in the glass car with about 20 other people. It was more cramped than I expected and we had to weave in and out of people to be able to see. I could tell by the huffs and accompanying nasty looks my partner was shooting at people that he was getting testy. It was easy to get to that point after the last few days – some of the people were getting on my nerves, too, especially a particular group of obnoxious young people. I had to keep telling myself that they were just acting their age, not trying to get under people's skin. Probably didn't even realize they had a knack for it.

Ben held up the digital camera and snapped several pictures from different vantage points. I stood close and ran a hand down the middle of his back. “Do you see the egg?” I asked.

“No, but then SOME people keep getting in my way,” he barked rudely toward the young people near us, who promptly stopped their immature yammering when they heard Ben’s comment.

“Ben!” I ground out quietly.

“Well, they are,” he declared defiantly with a look shot at them. I think I saw one of them wither at his tone and glare.

“Stop it,” I demanded. While I didn’t disagree with what he was saying, it wasn’t his job to keep peace on the Eye or monitor behavior. It was, however, my job when it came to him. “Leave them alone. We can see just fine.”

“They aren’t even paying attention. Just goofing off.”

“And we might be a little cranky from an eight-hour flight.”

He frowned at me. “You mean *I* might be cranky. Just say it.”

“I meant *we*. Don’t put words in my mouth. But you’re proving my point so stop it and look for the egg.”

He glared at me while he tried to decide if it was worth arguing about or not. I was relieved when he turned back toward the Plexiglas and snapped a few more pictures.

“Is that the egg?” I asked, pointing toward a rounded gold top on a building in the background.

Ben studied it and tried to decide if that was the egg we were looking for. “I’m not sure.”

The more we looked at it, the more I was convinced it wasn’t right. “I don’t think so.”

“How hard should it be to find a darn golden egg?” he queried.

“Harder than I thought,” I admitted. The ride ended and we left without ever finding the elusive egg.

We wandered leisurely down the busy street and came upon the London Aquarium. “We can get in free here with our Passbook coupons. Wanna go?” Ben asked pausing in front of the aged white stone building.

I couldn’t imagine this aquarium to be more special than any others we had been to at home, but like he said, it was free and we were standing right there. Might as well go.

The aquarium was what I expected with the most impressive part being a two-story tank with sharks in it. One huge gray-white shark swam by with his white belly turned to us as he passed by.

“God,” Ben said in awe. “He’s huge.”

I watched the fish reverently, as the layers of teeth seemed to demand of me. Scenes and images from Jaws flashed in my head when I saw the black eyes up close and in person. Then Ben’s voice complemented the images with a “Dunh, DUH, dunh, DUH, duhn, DUH…” version of the movie’s shark ballad. I grinned at him, loving his fun side, which he let me glimpse on occasion. He wasn’t anywhere near the jokester Zach was but he could always make me smile.

We passed through the darkened hallways by the dim lights in the ceiling and the glow from the tanks and realized we were either at or near the end of the tour.

“That was quick,” Ben noted.

“Yeah, but not bad for free—“ I started to say, when an alarm started to shriek in the building.

“What the…?” Ben said.

It seemed the drama on this vacation was never-ending.

“Let’s go.” I grabbed Ben's arm and rushed behind the people in front of us to the nearest exit like the disembodied voice over the loudspeaker instructed us to do. The group in front of us reached the big red door first and pushed against it.

“It’s locked,” one of them said urgently.

Ben turned to me in alarm and realized, “We can’t get out. What if there’s a fire?”

I didn't even want to think about that. A fire wouldn't surprise me after the hell we had been through over the last few days. In fact, it seemed appropriate.

“Keep going,” I urged, pushing him down the hall. “There’s got to be another exit and it was probably just kids monkeying around with the fire alarm anyway.”

Another door loomed at the end of the hallway and I was relieved to see people leaving through it with no problem. We stepped outside the building and I immediately looked around for emergency vehicles, which were nowhere to be found.

“Kids,” I said again in a rush of relief.

“Must have been. Nice of them to give me a heart attack,” Ben complained. He recovered nicely though. “What now?”

I shrugged, having no real plan for the first day. We had no idea how tired we might be so we had decided to play the first day by ear. “Want to just walk and look around?” I suggested.

Ben agreed and we set off on foot. We passed a large grassy area filled with people lounging on the lawn, reading, talking, and just relaxing. Artists were on the sidewalk, some painting for money and some for fun. Mimes in silver and gold paint stood statute still, entertaining the throngs with their art, hoping for a pound or two to be tossed at their feet.

The crowd thinned out as we continued walking and we found ourselves outside of Parliament. I was struck by the architecture. The cream-colored building sprawled out over what would be several blocks back home. The architectural lines drew the eye skyward as delicate designs jutted toward the heavens. Pictures didn't do it justice.

“Not open today,” Ben realized. “Could we go in on a weekday do you think?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, not knowing if the public could go or not. “We’ll have to find out.”

We walked a little ways further and Big Ben towered over us. Little Ben poised the camera at it to get a shot of it with the clouds in the background. It was absolutely beautiful.

"Zach would kill to be here with his camera," Ben commented.

The architecture was truly grand and I was sure Ben was right. Zach would have been in Kodak heaven.

By the time we got to Westminster Abbey, my feet were beginning to complain that they had had enough.

“We can’t go in here today, either,” I noticed. Even if we could have gotten inside, I was too tired to fully appreciate anything else that day. “I vote we head back to the hotel and rest for a bit then go back out for dinner.”

"I'm in," Ben agreed.

We managed the tubes much better without luggage but were instantly lost when we emerged out onto the street. I couldn’t remember which way the cab had taken us and neither could Ben. I was about ready to sit down on the curb and quit. I couldn't believe we were so close to a place to rest but couldn't find it.

“It’s got to be close,” Ben said.

“I know it’s close, but close to what?” I wondered in frustration, looking around. The street names weren’t ringing any bells and we had actually spent more time away from our hotel than near it that first day.

“I think it’s this way,” Ben announced, heading off in one direction. I started to suggest another cab, but remembered how close we had been the last time and hoped we’d find our way. The map in the London Passbook was useless for anything more than tube directions so we were on our own.

I saw the theatre showing The Lion King and recognized the huge banner hanging on the side of the building. “I remember that,” I said, tugging Ben in that direction.

“I don’t think it’s that way,” he disagreed.

“I remember it.”

“But I don’t think we passed it near the hotel. You just saw it on our way somewhere else.”

Both of us looked at each other, neither of us positive. I shrugged. “What do you think?”

Ben looked down the street toward the theatre and shrugged back at me. “Guess we can try it.”

So we did.

And it was the wrong way.

“I knew this wasn’t right,” Ben grumbled at me.

“I know I saw this before, Ben. We have to be close.”

We rounded a corner just when I was ready to throw in the towel and call for another cab when Ben exclaimed, “There! It’s this way.”

Thank God one of us knew where to go. Sure enough, our hotel was right there. We finally made it to our room and Ben flung himself facedown on the bed and toed at the back of his tennis shoes until they dropped with a thud onto the floor. I picked them up and moved them before taking my own off and stretching out beside him. I glanced at my watch right before I closed my eyes. Five o’clock London time.

A little while later, I had to use the bathroom enough that it woke me. I rolled over and lifted my wrist so I could see my watch. Ten o’clock!

“Benji, sweetheart,” I said while running my hand down his damp back. He was hot and sweating. “We slept through dinner.”

“Not hungry,” he muttered drowsily.

I yawned as I wandered into the bathroom, took care of business and undressed for bed. “Benji, get undressed.”

“Noooooo,” he grumbled into the pillow.

I was stripped down to my jeans and socks and I sat on the edge of the bed and prodded my lover until he grudgingly gave in, got up enough to undress, then collapsed back on top of the covers. I finished undressing then slipped in bed beside Ben after adjusting the room temperature to a more comfortable level.

We were both dog tired, the last few days more a blur than a memory. Or maybe I was just hoping to forget. Lying in the high-end sheets, my lover curled against me, I had to smile at the craziness of the events that led us to London. It was darn-near unbelievable.

I shook my head and started to laugh when something occurred to me.

"Wha'?" Ben mumbled sleepily beside me.

"Do you know what day it was that we went to Chicago?"

"Friday. Yesterday. No, the day before yesterday. What's today?"

"Saturday. I mean the date."

"I dunno."

"April Fool's Day. Not a soul thought we were lying when we told them you had lost your passport and we were on our way to Chicago to try to get one in a day. Not even Zach."

I felt Ben shake with a tired laugh before he went straight back to sleep. I recognized the steady rise and fall of his chest under my arm as he slipped peacefully into dreamland. He deserved a peaceful night; we both did. I was hopefully optimistic in the quiet evening hours. Despite lost passports, travel ticket mishaps, close calls at airports, obnoxious tourists and mysterious alarms. We were going to have a good week in London, I determined.

Even if it was pure hell to get there.

The End