Fool's Errand

"I don't really feel the heat. No, you're right, this is definitely not Lisbon. You are in the desert somewhere in that indeterminable area between Algeria, Mali, Libya and Niger. You are some 200 miles from any other town in any direction you choose to walk. This settlement is rather temporary as there are mining corporations who are sounding this area out for any traces of underground oil, gas, water or minerals worth mining. The drilling rig crews and mining gangs are tough, primitive men who need to spent some of their mining dollars satisfying their cravings, and I don't mean alcohol, that's strictly not available anywhere around here."

"So where exactly am I, and why am I strapped to a table?"

"Funnily enough, I found out about this place while operating in this general area looking for terrorists. It seems that even jihadis have sexual appetites and some extend that desire to preferring men to women. This is one of those establishments that provide men to pleasure other men."

"What the —! So why am I tied down like this?"

"The owners are grateful to have supplies of fresh meat from time to time and past experience tells them that subdued first timers take it better when they can't actively participate and realise that they cannot escape the attentions they are about to receive. And, some clients like to pay substantially extra for virgin arse. Don't worry, Gareth, although you're soon to be a sex slave, with little option but do what you're told, you will get paid, well, sort of. I'm told you will on average serve between 7 to 10 clients a day, usually close together over say a 4 or 5 hour session, and you will be paid the equivalent of about 4 cents a client, that's up to 40 cents a day, say 3 dollars a week with tips, an annual salary of 150 dollars. However you do have to pay for food, water and rent out of that income."

"You bastard!" Gareth tried to struggle to get free, but to no avail. "How'd you manage this, Mason, you're just a postman."

"That must be why I managed to parcel you up so effectively, then. Actually, I have friends, ones who care for each other and suddenly even more grateful when I found access to resources that has opened up enormous possibilities for them."

"I suppose it was you who put the Inland Revenue onto me, and you must have supplied the tickets supposedly won in an England Rugby raffle draw, to get me and Josh out of England so you could kidnap me?"

"Yes, I admit guilty as charged. You fell for the lottery ticket easily enough, but then I suppose you buy raffle tickets at rugby clubs all the time?" Mason noticed Gareth nod slightly, "Odd that you didn't find it suspicious that Josh won a trip on the same cruise, or that four of your teammates coincidentally won the lesser prizes of a weekend skiing in Aviemore?"

"No, I didn't really connect the dots."

"Oh well, I think your rugby team may be relegated this year, with your mysterious disappearance and four players with broken limbs from skiiing accidents."

"Look, you didn't have to do this."

"I did. I swore to always look out for Caroline. You shouldn't have hurt my sister."

"I'm sorry, OK?" he snarled, "So can we stop this April Fool joke now?"

"Oh, it's no joke. Just a couple of tips for you. If you get any tips from clients, declare them immediately as you have to split them 50/50 with your boss. Don't drink the water, in ice or on salads, in fact don't touch anything uncooked, eat only hot food. Drink bottled water, but it's going to be expensive, so just buy a couple of bottles on credit today and, when you've finished drinking, use the empty bottles to piss in. You can drink your own piss, it is generally safe, it has slightly antiseptic qualities and will keep for a couple of days. Buy a bottle of water every few days, you will be able to afford it and still have a few cents to save. Once you've got a grub stack, say a hundred dollars, you might be able to persuade one of the drilling men or truck drivers to give you a lift to the nearest town. I reckon you should make enough in a couple of years, just pay your dues, share your tips and work on what pleases the clients and you'll be all right."

"What about Josh? He beat Caroline just as much as I did. He shouldn't get away scot free."

"He's not, he's at the other male knocking shop at the other end of Main Street. Actually as this is the only street in town, I guess it should just be called Street. If I left you both at the same man-whore house, then there would have been war between them. This way everyone's even."

"So, if I am going to be stuck in here for two years, once I get out of here I'll be coming after you."

"No you won't. Without any money from the bank, you'll be too busy working your butt off keeping your head above water while the Inland Revenue and Banking watchdogs hunt you down. Your old man and older brother are being charged with fraud and there's an arrest warrant for tax evasion out for you. It will only get worse once the money laundering evidence is passed to the authorities. You'll be convicted in absentia, so even if you make it to the nearest British Consulate in Timbuctoo, they'll discover you owe the Inland Revenue back taxes adding up to six figures before interest and they'll have you on the next plane to Heathrow before you can change your underpants."

"But my bank—"

"It's not your bank any more, it's mine, or it was mine yesterday. That's where I have been while you've been on your little Mediterranean cruise for the last six days, negotiating to take over your bank before it collapses in the scandal. Even better, while you were being kidnapped by some friends of mine in Lisbon, I was in an all-nighter negotiation with your Uncle Henry, a couple of lawyers and other representatives from the bank and my team loaned to me by Sir Alan. You've lost the house, your credit cards, all your privileges and your job."

"What are going to do with the bank?"

"Clean up its act, pass on any evidence we have of money laundering to the agencies concerned and see to it that the bank and its considerable legally-held assets are used to finance projects around the world. In fact I have sold it for exactly what Sir Alan bankrolled me for plus a dollar, to a consortium of which I am also a member. The good news is that Belvedere Bank will still retain its initials, as it's now BB Bank Limited."

"You bastard!"

"Well, I must go, my new Dad has put his jet at my disposal for a job well done, but I really must get back soon, Lyndsey and I are going to the opera tonight, as it is high time I broadened my horizons. Goodbye Gareth, have a nice life."

His phone buzzed.

As Mason reached into his pocket for the instrument, Gareth asked, "How the hell do mobile phones work all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"Ah, they only work if you have a communications drone hovering above you, Gareth. Even in the best laid special operations, some military equipment goes missing or gets reassigned."

He looked at his phone screen and started laughing, wiping a tear from one eye.

"What's so funny?"

"My Mum and Dad, they are so hilarious. I am sure this will cheer up Caroline no end."

He turned the phone round for Gareth to see the image sent.

"Those bald guys, they are your parents?"

"Yeah, they'll never fool anyone with those latex wigs but hey, you just gotta love them for trying. Now, for the last time, goodbye."

He closed the phone, stepped out of the light and was gone, as quietly as he came.

Epilogue

"Damn, I'm late, I'm late!" She banged on the steering as she tried to find a parking space. The kerb around the tiny green in from of the ancient church was fully parked with cars, bumper to bumper, nobody wanted to miss this wedding.

Caroline managed to find a parking spot a long way down the narrow Church Lane and it was on the wrong side of the road. She had to climb over onto the passenger side to get out, the steep camber of the lane making it difficult to throw the door open and get out before the door closed again on her. She had noticed the distant car coming up the lane and tried to time her exit without inconveniencing the car or risking getting squashed.

The girls at the hairdressers had kept her there for an hour longer than the time she had booked for completing her appointment. They decided that they wanted the press to come and take photos. In the end she had to make her escape through the fire escape by the loos and was forced to do her own make up in the car using just the rear view mirror.

"Bloody men!" she muttered, "never one around when you need one, so I've had to drive myself here. If Josh or Gareth had answered their bloody mobile messages, one or both could have dropped me off at the church. But no, the buggers seem to have completely disappeared on me, the bastards!"

She started to stride quickly up the steep hill towards the church, but the tightness of her dress across her thighs didn't help much in this task, nor the extremely high heels she had elected to wear to show off her freshly waxed calves. Although the sun was high in the cloudless sky and shining brightly, and it was finally the first of April and Spring was with us at long last. All right, she thought, the north wind howling up that lane was still full of winter vigour, chilling the sun's warmth and then some, but it was still the perfect day for a wedding, one she had not possibly envisaged a few weeks earlier'

Caroline felt that cold wind acutely about her bare ears, creeping under the wedding hat that had a wide and, hopefully, she thought, concealing brim, but it still made her ears numb with cold. Another reason for Caroline to curse, this time targeting her mother and her bloody annual shenanigans.

A car horn sounded loudly behind her, so she moved to one side as the white ribboned and highly polished limousine edged past her in the tight lane, with cars parked nose to boot on both sides of the road. Recognising Lyndsey and her father Sir Alan, Caroline briefly raised a hand in a wave, before the car passed at a stately pace and Caroline wobbled rather less serenely up the hill behind it.

Two minutes later she reached the church entrance, just as the bride emerged gracefully from the car, helped by her proud and dutiful father. She was beautiful. Caroline glanced at the tiny watch on her wrist, almost bringing it to the tip of her nose to read it.

"Three minutes to 12," she muttered, "that girl is so keen to marry my brother that she has absolutely no concept of being fashionably late!"

As she clattered on her heels up the long stone-flagged aisle of the ancient church, she felt every eye was turned and focused upon her, arriving so late that even the ushers had already taken their seats after one of their number must've informed the groom of his lovely bride-to-be's arrival outside the church.

'No repeat of history for him,' Caroline thought, although she was only about 12 when her half-brother was left waiting at the altar by that bitch Marilyn who had damaged his heart so severely that Caroline had once thought it beyond repair.

'There he is again, waiting patiently, smiling at the altar, just like before, but this is nothing like before. Wait! He still has a full head of hair! Damn! Well that's his lookout, being the odd one out in the family!'

They smiled at each other in greeting as usual, with Mason's smile being even huger than usual, but that was only to be expected on the day he gets himself married to the Honorable Miss Lyndsey Alice Mason.

Caroline had to admit she liked Lyndsey, liked her a lot, but how dare she spoil the April Fool joke by insisting on taking her husband's surname upon marriage and reverting to her middle name, her mother's first name, so she would henceforth be known as Dr Alice Lyndsey. Where was the April Fool joke in that?

She reached the end of the front pew on the groom's side of the aisle and looked past her aunts, the happily married restauranter Aunt Anna and the glamorously svelte widow Aunt Maria, and saw her father and mother, both sitting there in their finest, and both had beaming smiles on their faces and, unlike the email photo attachments she had received of her bald parents, both were wearing full bloody heads of hair!

"Bugger!" Caroline exclaimed to all and to nobody in particular, as she stood in the aisle with her hands on her hips.

Her smiling mother initially put her hand up to her smiling lips when her eyes met her daughters but then, just as the organist was preparing to play the Wedding March, she joined in the rest of the congregation's chorus:

"April Fool!"

THE END