Dr. Van Helsing’s face turned a beet red. The downside of being one of the smartest and most knowledgeable people in the world was that he had no patience with attractive, well-mannered, good- intentioned nitwits.
“I’m going upstairs to rest.” He was following the advice given to him by Dr. Sigmund Freud: when you cannot fight the impulse to slap an idiot, just leave the room.
“Anything you say, doctor.” Jonathan stroked his jaw, still reeling from two swats to the face.
“Oh.” Mina turned to speak to the professor who was already at the bottom of the stairs. “Would you mind taking my trunk up to my room as you go?”
Van Helsing’s entire body tensed. After a few deep breaths he turned to reveal a tight-lipped smile. “Not at all.” He bowed and clicked his heels. He went to the trunk and after several valiant tries conceded to himself that he could not lift it again. “Mr. Harker, would you mind helping me with this?”
“I’d be glad to.” Jonathan leapt to his feet and bounded across the room, picked up the trunk handily and placed it on Van Helsing’s back. He was on his way back to Mina when he stopped abruptly. “How silly of me.”
“Yes, I agree,” the doctor agreed sarcastically.
Jonathan went up the stairs to where Van Helsing had dropped his valise, took it and with a courteous nod handed it to the doctor. “Here you are.”
Moaning under the load, he wheezed, “Thank you very much.”
“Anytime, doctor,” Jonathan replied innocently as he plopped on the sofa next to Mina. Another ghost of dust arose.
Van Helsing sighed deeply, looked up at the steps ahead of him and began his ponderous ascent.
“Oh, Jonathan,” Mina whispered as she snuggled close to her fiancé. “I’m so frightened.”
He put his arm around her. “You shouldn’t be, dear Mina. I’m here to protect you.”
“But what if Dr. Van Helsing is right?”
Jonathan looked around at the professor and replied, “I suspect the doctor has been juicing up his sauerkraut for too many years, and it’s finally getting to him.”
Van Helsing groaned with each step he took carrying Mina’s trunk. Louder and louder.
Dracula stuck his head out of the game room door. “Children of the night, shut up!”
“I’m afraid it’s not the children of the night, count,” Mina informed him.
“Or even the wolves,” Jonathan added.
“It’s me!” Van Helsing grumbled from the staircase.”
The count walked over to the professor, bending over to peer into his enflamed face. “Could I be of some assistance?”
“Please help me with this load.”
“Let me take this valise for you.” Dracula reached for the bag.
“Hands off, dumbkoff!” Van Helsing jerked it away.
“Very well, do it all by yourself. See if I care!” He walked away in a snit.
The professor resumed his flamboyant suffering and continued to conquer the staircase step by step.
Without warning, the three wives burst into the room.
“Oh, Jonathan,” Claustrophobia cooed.
“Yes?” He looked up from the sofa.
“Come play with us!” Salacia pleaded with a lustful tone in her voice.
“Games!” He stood with the glee of a child being called to the kitchen for a plate of warm cookies straight from the oven. “I just love games!” He looked at Mina. “Would you care for a rousing game of mah jong, my dear?”
Mina was as daft for parlor games as Jonathan. She smiled, stood and was about to reply in the affirmative when Dracula caught her by the crook of her arm and pulled the young lady away.
“You would rather see my art collection, wouldn’t you?” the count asked.
“Well, I suppose.” Her lovely brow crinkled. “What do you think, Jonathan?”
By the time she looked in his direction, the three wives were guiding him through the door.
“We don’t know mah jong,” Susie Belle purred, while she stroked Jonathan’s shoulder. “But we have other exciting games.
“Oh really?” he replied. “Like Parcheesi?”
The wives just laughed as they pushed Jonathan into the game room and slammed the door.
“Parcheesi?” Mina started following them. “I love Parcheesi?”
Dracula pulled her back. “Susie Belle doesn’t plan to play Parcheesi, I assure you.”
“Jonathan will be disappointed.” She pouted a bit.
“I doubt it.” A smirk crossed the count’s pale lips. “Come, let me show you my itchings.”
“Pardon?”
“I mean, my etchings?”
“Where are they?”
Dracula led her to the wall covered by the tapestry. “In the room behind the door.” He lifted the hanging to reveal it.
“What an odd place for an art gallery.” Mina went through the door and looked down. “Oh. Stairs. You keep your art in the basement?”
As Dracula shut the door, Van Helsing finally reached the landing. Opening the center door he pushed the trunk in and collapsed on top of it. At the same Jonathan ran into the entry hall sans coat and tie.
“Shame on you!” he lectured the wives. “You don’t want to play Parcheesi!”
They swarmed into the room like licentious locusts with a bad case of the giggles. As though on cue Claustrophobia took a pose on the staircase, Susie Belle blocked the front door, and Salacia aggressively undertook a frontal assault on Jonathan. He fell backwards on the sofa. Salacia launched herself, defying the laws of gravity to land on Jonathan’s soft underbelly.
“Get off me, Salacia! I don’t think you are a very nice person!”
“You’re right! I’m not a very nice person! That’s why I’m so good!”
His mind raced for a proper comeback. “You—your ensemble does absolutely nothing for you.”
“Then I’ll take it off.” Salacia slipped the shroud’s straps off her shoulders and then proceeded to unbutton his shirt. “And you can take your ensemble off.”
“Rats.” His eyes went to the floor. “Mina was wrong. It didn’t destroy you.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have the most alluring dimples?”
“I—I don’t have dimples.”
“Then let me make you some.” Salacia opened her mouth wide to bite Jonathan.
Jonathan rolled off the sofa, jumped to his feet and scrambled to the staircase. “Oh doctor!” he screamed. “Dr. Van Helsing!” He stopped abruptly face to face with Claustrophobia. “Oh. Hello.”
“A big strong man like you doesn’t need a doctor.” She tried her best to sound seductive, but came across more as sympathetic.
“Right now I need something.” Jonathan sighed.
“I understand.” She took a hesitant step toward him. “You’re scared.”
“Out of my wits.”
“I’m scared of things too.”
“Really?” (Author’s note: I cannot stress enough how naïve Jonathan is.)
“Yes. Let me tell you about it.”
“All right.”
Claustrophobia gently guided him to sit on the stairs. She leaned in as though to whisper in his ear. “I have this dread fear of closed places.”
“Perhaps a doctor could help.” A light went off in his head and he snapped his fingers. “Dr. Van Helsing is very bright about things like that.”
“I was seeing the best doctor in the world, Sigmund Freud,” she continued, “until something happened to me that made all my fears go away.”
Again Jonathan sighed. “I wish something would happen to me to make all my fears go away.”
Claustrophobia was so close, Jonathan could feel her hot breath on his neck. “Oh, something will happen.” Her sharp fangs touched his skin.
He screamed and leapt to his feet. “Stop that!” He looked up the stairs. “Oh, Dr. Van Helsing! Where are you, Mina?
“I must have you!” Claustrophobia lunged at him.
“Let me out of here!”