The widow parts the blinds of her second story loft looking out over the streets below. No sign of her appointment. Dark and deserted lies the city as if remembering that it was once an important trading destination where caravans stopped to refill and to show the wares which they carried from distant lands.

No stranger to loneliness herself the widow closes the window blind and takes a kleenex from the box upon her nightstand which she uses to wipe the tears away through nights of bitter sorrow. No comfort for her from the little black book of names that she keeps by the silent telephone.

She takes and pours herself a glass of chardonnay from the bottle that was left unopened from the party that no one attended. Walking to the door she peers through the peephole. No one there.

Methodically and skillfully she arranges the instruments of her profession. She handles the whip like it's her lover, an extension of her personna. The cool wooden handle gently purrs in her hand and comes alive.

The handcuffs, the ropes and bindings and the chains. She is an expert in all forms of captivity. She knows a hundred ways in which to tie someone up.

Her appointment is late. He's going to pay!

The more she is preoccupied with her craft the less time she has to dwell on her own enslavement. Enslaved to loneliness. A widow bereft at a young age. No one to comfort her.

No pictures to remind her of the children taken away in the divorce. The pain she feels at that bitter reminder causes her to wince and she cracks the whip.

"Rat Ta Tat Tat." The knock outside herdoor saves her from falling into the gaping abyss. Little does she know that His hands are there waiting to catch her.

The time has arrived…

~TP

a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, Ecclesiastes 3:3.