Dinner with Dennis

Dennis whistled as he walked from the bus stop.  His shopping bag was brimming with a dozen red roses and bulging with a bottle of champagne.  Tucked under his arm were fancy chocolates in a heart-shaped box.  While the bubbly’s chilling, he reckoned, I can make a start on dinner.  There’ll be soft music tinkling in the background.  Candlelight…

He turned the key in his front door.  The house was in darkness.

“Hello?” Dennis called into the gloom of the hallway.  “Darling, I’m home!”

There was no answer.  Dennis shut the door and bolted it.  He breezed through to the kitchen-diner and lay the champagne in the fridge.  He ransacked a drawer until he unearthed a box of matches.  Singing to himself, he skipped around the house, lighting scented candles.

A shuffling sound came from above.  The bedroom.  Dennis vaulted up the stairs, two, sometimes three at a time.  He arrived just as there was a thud.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” he shook his head.  He helped the man up from the bedside rug and lay him back on the duvet.  “Someone’s over-excited, aren’t they?”

The man, naked apart from a pink sash diagonal across his torso, and a red paper heart over his privates, said nothing.  Dennis leant over him, searching his big brown eyes.

“Be patient, my darling,” Dennis breathed.  “I’m going to make us a lovely romantic dinner.  This is going to be the best Valentine’s date ever.”

He pecked the naked man on the forehead and went back downstairs to chop vegetables.

An hour or so later, Dennis climbed the stairs, balancing a tray, two champagne flutes.  The bottle was cold in his armpit.

“Here we are, darling!” he sang out.  “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

The man on the bed tried to recoil but he was tied so tightly to the bedposts he could not move in any direction.

Dennis sat on the edge of the bed.  “Would you like me to cut your meat?”

The man’s eyes widened in terror.  Blood spilled from his lips.  He could only grunt inarticulate sounds since Dennis had sliced his tongue out.

“Here comes the aeroplane!” Dennis brandished a fork with a Jersey potato impaled on its tines.  The naked man groaned in terror and kept his lips clamped together.

“Don’t be silly, darling,” Dennis scolded.  “I’ve gone to a lot of trouble.”

The man turned his face away in painful defiance.

“Come on,” Dennis cajoled, the potato booping the man’s chin.  “Don’t make me take you back to the cellar.  Don’t make me swap you for one of the others!”

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