Pflug Figures It Out, A novel by Chris Plowe (About 87,000 words; opening scene)

George Pflug probed his dry mouth with his tongue. Swallowing produced no secretions. He felt depleted. Utterly. Like an alien had drained his vital fluids before ejecting him from the trash chute, he was tumbling through deep space to land…where? Somewhere comfortable. Lying on something soft. He stretched all four limbs, feeling his heart surge—not faster, just stronger, punching his left chest from the inside, like Bugs Bunny in love. He arched his spine, then collapsed back into the darkness. Wherever he was, he would just stay here a while. No rush. It was dark. Faint music played, far away. Something doleful, maybe from a Spotify sleep playlist.

As the calm gave way to a sense of unease, fragmentary sights and sounds from the previous night flickering and fading, Pflug rolled to the left and pushed himself up on one elbow. Blinking his dry eyes, he could make out a fuzzy horizontal line of faint light, down low. A door. He was in a dark room. On a bed.

He felt around for his glasses. He thought he heard a footfall on the other side of the door, which then opened slightly, or so he surmised, based on the blurry appearance of a vertical bar of dim light and an increase in the volume of the music.

“Hello?” His voice broke from a whisper to a rasp. He coughed and swallowed.

The room darkened again and the music got quieter. He thought maybe he heard movement outside the door over the ringing in his ears.

He nearly fell to the floor when he tried to swing his legs off the bed. Hidden under a tangle of sheets, his left ankle had a strap around it, apparently attached to the foot of the bed, or a bedpost, it was too dark to see. His thumping heart sped up. This is not right. This is not the sort of situation in which the dean of an elite public health school finds himself. He tugged at the strap and freed his leg with a scritch of Velcro. He took a shaky inspiration, releasing the breath through pursed lips, trying to push more oxygen back up into his brain. What had he gone and done now?

Freed from the restraint, both feet on the floor, he rubbed his bearded cheeks and then pressed his palms into his eyes. He felt a brief spin of vertigo, his torso listing to the right as multicolored lights flashed and scooted up and to the left in both visual fields. Not daring to stand yet, he checked his appendages. Arms intact, still in the shirt he’d been wearing earlier that evening…or was it last night by now? All the buttons—cuffs and front—were unbuttoned. Legs, intact. But bare. Sweeping his foot in a semi-circle Pflug found his pants, and tangled in them, his boxer briefs and socks. He gently tucked his fifth appendage into the briefs. It felt chafed, the thin skin and subcutaneous tissue puffy and tender.

What in the living fuck went on last night?

He remembered arriving at the Japanese restaurant downtown to find that the newly retired hedge fund magnate he was meeting, his school’s latest benefactor, had brought an unexpected guest to their get-acquainted dinner. And that the big donor had put away several sakes and a tall Sapporo with his sushi. He remembered the president of Dupont University, Robin Englund, greeting their trio at the door of his palatial residence on the edge of campus. And that the president’s pupils had been so dilated Pflug couldn’t make out the color of his irises. He thought he remembered dancing. That seemed implausible. These are serious people, at a serious university. Then again, something implausible, something bordering on unbelievable, must have happened, based on the evidence in his lap.

Pflug could not imagine how he ended up in a bed in a dark room, tangled in straps, parched and dizzy. How did a working dinner with the incoming chair of his school’s board of advisors followed by a nightcap at the president’s home turn into some sort of all-night debauch?

Ah. It was starting to come back to him. It all started in his office. With a migraine prodrome and aspirin that wasn’t aspirin. A wave of dizziness interrupted his analysis. Right now he needed to replete his fluids. He pulled on his socks, then his pants, buttoned his shirt to mid-sternum. He felt around on a nightstand, found a reading lamp, and switched it on, blinding himself. Once his eyes could tolerate the light, he found his glasses, stood slowly, tucked in his shirt, buckled his belt, and shuffled toward the door. He pushed it open and peeked out. The empty hallway was lit from one end, still too dim to make out the framed art on the walls.

Pflug padded toward the light, past closed doors. Feeling wobbly, he traced the wall with the fingers of his left hand to steady himself. Following the scent of strong coffee, he emerged into a chef’s kitchen, lit only by the hood light above an eight-burner gas range, to find his host, dressed for the gym, turning off the flame under a six-cup espresso maker. The soothing electronica was playing from a Bluetooth speaker on the granite island, the sky starting to lighten outside the bay window above the breakfast nook.

The president glanced in Pflug’s direction then quickly looked away. “Good morning, George! Feeling better? How about some caffeine for that migraine?”