'I see you're in the paper again, Ms Brune.'
From behind the concierge's desk Davy Markham held up a copy of the local community newspaper with a front page photograph of Josephine Brune ceremoniously planting a tree in front of the new West City Early Childhood Education Centre. 'I've got a couple of spare copies here if you'd like them.'
Ms Brune smiled a wry smile. 'Thank you, Davy, but they delivered about a hundred copies to the Council office.'
Davy's enthusiasm was visibly dampened. 'Oh. So I guess you won't need another one then.'
'No. But thank you for the kind thought.' Ms Brune had a reputation for being a bit severe, but she was always courteous.
'That's OK,' Davy said.
'I don't suppose there was ...' Josephine Brune hesitated, 'a parcel at all? For me? Courier?'
Davy shook his head. 'No, not today, Ms Brune. Were you expecting something?'
Ms Brune frowned ever so slightly. 'Umm ... perhaps tomorrow,' she said. ' I'm not sure how long it usually takes.'
As Josephine Brune – former MP, current chair of the council's Development Board, and board member of three of the country's top ten corporations – waited for the lift that would take her to her seventh floor apartment, Davy nevertheless had one more look through the packages and parcels awaiting collection by the residents of Greenwood Towers. 'No. Definitely nothing here,' he said, eventually.
'Oh well, as I say, perhaps tomorrow. Goodnight, Davy.'
An hour or so earlier, however, there had been a parcel for Jack Braine in Apartment 2D. Jack had arrived home from a frustrating day in the English Department at the university. Thursdays were always a bit manic, but this one had been especially so. A lecture at nine, another at eleven. Then the weekly departmental meeting that had gone on and on. And just as Jack was about to leave for the day, he had fallen into a long and somewhat pointless debate with one of the new IT support people.
'Parcel for you, Jack,' Davy had called out as Jack walked in the front door and strode towards the lift. 'Bit early for Christmas. Your birthday perhaps?'
Jack had been half expecting a book that he had bought from Amazon. But this parcel didn't seem like a book from Amazon. Or at least it wasn't in the normal Amazon packaging. It was just a plain brown box with a hand-written address label. Also, it didn't feel heavy enough to be a book.
'No, you still have a few months to save for my birthday, Davy.'
Just as Jack entered his apartment his phone rang and so he placed the anonymous parcel on the small hall table and there it remained for the next hour or so while he took the phone call, initiated a couple of calls of his own, and then set about preparing some supper.
Different people open parcels in different ways. Some people attack the top; some attack an end; and some just do whatever it takes to separate the wrapping from the contents. Jack Braine preferred a more considered approach. He looked for the weakest point: the point at which the carefully-considered intervention of a sharp knife would have the greatest effect for the least effort.
Turning the parcel upside down, he found just what he was looking for: two of the four cardboard flaps that formed the base of the box met beneath a single strip of packaging tape. Jack ran the tip of a well-honed Sabatier utility knife along the join. Two seconds; job done.
The first thing that Jack saw when he carefully lifted the cardboard flaps was bubble wrap. Lots of bubble wrap. A veritable cloud of bubble wrap. And somewhere deep inside the cloud, something purple.
He lifted the purple-centred cloud from the box and, with another judicious nick from the utility knife, sliced through the small piece of tape that was keeping the layers of bubble wrap from unravelling.
According to the label attached to the purple phallic-shaped object at the centre of the cloud, the larger of the two objects in the box was a Rabbit Habit vibrator – 'the favourite choice of the quality-conscious'. The smaller object was a shrink-wrapped three-pack of AA batteries.
Some sort of joke? In a few months' time, Jack was scheduled to deliver a paper on the rise and rise of erotic literature for women. Maybe one of his colleagues was having a little joke at Jack's expense.
After contemplating the Rabbit Habit for a few moments, Jack looked once more into the empty brown cardboard box to discover that it was not, in fact, quite empty. There was some sort of folded, printed piece of paper. And, on retrieving and unfolding the piece of paper, he discovered that it was a printed invoice/packing slip addressed to J Brune, Apartment 7D, etc. He looked again at the hand-written label on the outside of the box and nodded. Yes, it had been an easy enough mistake to make. The hand-written 7 did look a bit like a 2. And Brune did look a bit like Braine.
Jack smiled to himself at the thought of prim and proper strait-laced Josephine Brune, sprawled in a chair or on the edge of a bed, her knickers down around her ankles and the skirt of her designer business suit pulled up around her waist while she simultaneously serviced both her vagina and her clitoris with the two-headed buzzing purple monster.
And then, having enjoyed the thought, he set about recreating the bubble wrap-cloud and putting it back into the box. That done, it was just a matter of placing a new piece of packaging tape precisely over the piece that had earlier been so neatly slit, and the package was returned to its pristine state.
'There,' he said to himself. 'No one will ever be any the wiser.'
Early the following morning, while Davy was standing out on the pavement, remonstrating with a van driver who had parked in the No Stopping area, Jack surreptitiously slipped the repacked package into the wire bin behind the concierge's desk and briskly strode off in the direction of the university – but not without bidding Davy a cheery 'Good morning' as he went by.
It was shortly after 5pm when Jack returned. Davy was at the door, cloth in hand, industriously cleaning smudged fingerprints off the glass. 'What's the point of having a handle, eh?' Davy said. 'No one bothers to use it.'
Jack smiled. 'Oh well ... gives you something to do, Davy.'
'Oh, I've got plenty to do, don't you worry about that.'
Jack walked into the lobby and pressed the lift call button. Fifteen seconds later, the lift arrived and the doors opened. Jack stepped in and was just about to press the button for the second floor when he heard Josephine Brune's voice. He stuck his hand out to stop the doors from closing. 'Perfect timing, Josephine,' he said.
'Thank you, Jack.'
Ms Brune was just about to join Jack in the lift when Davy called out.
'Oh, Ms Brune ... the parcel you were expecting ... it must have arrived this morning.' And Davy raced to the desk and reached over to grab the parcel and hand it to a slightly uneasy-looking Josephine Brune.
'Umm ... thank you,' she said. 'Yes.'
Jack waited for the doors to close and then pressed the buttons for the second and seventh floors. 'Your birthday?' Jack enquired, glancing at the parcel.
'Umm ... no. It's probably just something that I ordered. For the kitchen,' Josephine added. 'You know ... a gadget. I have a bit of a weakness for kitchen gadgets.' And she laughed. Nervously.
The lift stopped at the second floor and Jack stepped out. 'Well ... enjoy your new gadget,' he said.
'Thank you. Have a nice evening.'
'I shall do my very best,' Jack assured her.
The following day – Friday – Jack Braine and Josephine Brune again arrived home at more or less the same time. And for the second time in as many days they shared the lift.
'How was your new gadget?' Jack enquired mischievously. 'Did it perform as you hoped it would?'
For a moment or two, Josephine seemed not to know what Jack was talking about. But then ... 'Oh! Yes,' she said. 'I mean no. No, I didn't get a chance to ... umm. No.'
'Oh well, the weekend's coming up,' Jack said.
