What if the Dungeon Closes
by Tim Jones-Yelvington
This was around the time when all the restaurants started closing. We'd go out to dinner and find our first choice padlocked, windows white-washed, chairs balanced treacherously on tables. When we got to our second choice, our third choice, our fourth choice, it'd be packed. No one was spending any money, yet everyone went out to eat. And for the restaurant lucky enough to secure their patronage, a stay of execution.
"I feel terrible for all my friends who are losing their jobs," Marlena said, crunching her salad. "It's like the bottom's falling out. People are falling, hanging from the sides of buildings screaming 'help! help!' like in those cartoons from when we were kids."
I nodded. I was tired of this conversation about cartoons from the 1980's.
"It's times like these I'm glad I left corporate America."
Marlena was a professional dom. Men paid her to whip and insult them. She was always telling me how much less exploited she felt than when she'd worked as an administrative assistant.
"You feel like your job is secure?" I asked.
"Most of the time," she said. "But then we'll have a day with fewer clients, and I'll start to worry... I mean what if the dungeon closes? What would I do then?"
I pictured an iron grate crashing, locking. I thought about Marlena's clients, lonely men, wondered how they'd get by. They'd listen to stale, recorded insults in cramped apartments. They'd whip their own asses, dissatisfied because they always knew exactly where the whip would land. This reminded me of myself trolling internet sex sites, firing five-word missives to Adonises carved from clay, then grabbing my sagging stomach and thinking better of it, erasing my messages, erasing my profile, creating a new one the following day.
It was dark outside when Marlena and I left the restaurant. Winter was coming, the sun set early. Marlena threaded her arm through mine and walked me home. Around the block, shops shuttered, never to reopen.
They’d whip their own asses, dissatisfied because they always knew exactly where the whip would land.
Classic. Good stuff, Tim.
I like this a lot, very cool. An interesting experiment would be to see how you like it if you took out the last sentence. It ends the story very neatly by pointing back to the things you've already been discussing. Without that sentence, it ends on this strange, sudden note of hope.
I like that, Kevin. Maybe if I ever have a chapbook.
The ending's been the most contentious part of this one -- I originally shot for something broader and more metaphysical that never really worked.
and thanks to you both, of course.
I liked this a lot, especially the second half. Much of the writing about this damn recession -- both fiction and nonfiction -- has a kind of sterility to it, I've found, an emotional distance. You definitely avoid that here. The three-sentence paragraph in which Marlena is revealed to be a dominatrix is wry and spot-on. Ditto the narrator's visions of the closing dungeon and its hilarious aftermath.
I'm not sure if you're looking for feedback since this has already been published, but if so, I'd snip the adverb "treacherously" in the opening paragraph. By that point, the prior description has long since established the treachery.
Also, Marlena's contention that "the bottom's falling out" feels somewhat obvious, especially given the more creative way she expounds on this directly afterward. (Loved the citation of '80s pop culture there, by the way.)
Lastly, I'd like to read a bit more about the restaurant where this pair _does_ end up -- in such trying times, which eateries are still raking in the bucks? It's never the ones you want.
Now I'm off to enjoy some prerecorded insults and auto-whipping.
I love the title
and the making do with prerecorded insults
and this telling line of yours - "No one was spending any money, yet everyone went out to eat."
I love that first paragraph. What a grabber.
This story is so wonderful and feels so true.
Thanks everybody!
Can you add this to the SmokeLong group, Tim?
Ha! Smart, funny, very Tim. And good god those conversations about 1980s cartoons -- which just went on and on forever in the SLC teahouse if I recall. Our generation's bad, nostalgic habit.
I like how much fodder there is for thought in this snappy, concise package. Vivid, punchy, a strong in-and-out with a strong concept.