“Hello?”
“Alicia.” Damn. It was Amanda, from Accounts Receivable. “You’re late.”
That woman made me more nervous than a basket of bunnies. I tried to put a smile in my voice. “What’s the penalty this time, Amanda?”
“You’ll have to ask the Man in the Penthouse. Any time debt exceeds our consultants‘ estimate of your reserves, we have to refer it to him. You know the rules.”
I felt the color drain from my face. I’d grown complacent, over the years. Taxi-dancing with the Devil, Bobby called it. Just a little bargaining here, a little wheedling there, a joking plea for help in a pinch – it adds up, eventually. Bobby never did approve, but he didn’t mind looking the other way when it was to his benefit, did he? The BMW, the Greek island cruise, the house on the beach…
The first blood sacrifice is nothing – what’s a pint between friends? But we were past the niceties of friendship, now.
I grabbed the seam ripper. What’s one more hole in the soul? We’d find out – if Bobby ever woke up.
This wicked little flash of fiction was inspired by Creative Copy Challenge #481. The prompt included the words: Penthouse, Consultants, Reserves, Receivable, Exceeds, Complacent, Basket and Bunnies, Color, Blood, Sacrifice. These are highlighted in the story.
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HollyJahangiri
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It always comes due some time. Seam ripper is, uh, clever.
Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt recently posted…Side Effects: the dark side of medicines
🙂 oh, good! I was imagining the debt coming due in bits, like all the little bargains. Not one big payment, but they do add up. And it was Bobby’s turn to chip in. They are coming apart at the seams, aren’t they?