The company Christmas gathering at Hunter Wellborne’s country home found Haas drinking more than was his custom. He’d even tried a few puffs of the marijuana cigarettes that were circulating, and they made him dizzy. The marijuana and the alcohol combined to make him lose track of his wife Amelia and to need the bathroom. He decided to find the bathroom first, but it was occupied, and so he waited as patiently as he could in the hallway. It was there that his boss, Hunter, came upon him.

“There you are,” Hunter said. “What happened to your Santa coat?”

“Too hot and itchy,” Haas mumbled. “It’s in the bedroom with—”

“Yes, yes. Enjoying yourself?” interrupted Hunter, fixing Haas with his grin.

Haas nodded, not quite trusting his voice.

Hunter strode away, but stopped, turned back, and added, “Oh, by the way, your wife—she’s certainly the young lovely. You lucky dog.”

Haas, his need to pee more urgent than ever, had moved his hand to hold his penis, the way a little boy might, and Hunter’s abrupt turn surprised him. “Uh, yes,” Haas replied, and reached into his pocket to pull out his keys, trying to make it look as if that had been his intent all along. “My lucky rabbit’s foot, you see?”

Hunter examined the keychain. “So that’s your secret,” he said. “Pity the poor bunny. Isn’t ASPCA all over your ass?”

“It’s only some sort of synthetic fluff and felt,” Haas said. “I’ve had it since I was a boy.”

“Lucky you,” said Hunter. “You certainly are a lucky ducky. If I had a piece of tail as pretty as your Amelia, I wouldn’t be wasting my time at a party such as this. She’s a darling, she is, your young Amelia, with her pert breasts and bouncy little backside and wee upturned nose. I were you, I’d be home banging her to beat the band. Yes, you’re a lucky man. A lucky, lucky ducky.”

Haas couldn’t think of anything to say to this. But Hunter went on: “Duck is not the only thing rhymes with luck, you know.”

Haas nodded, his blush spreading.

Hunter grinned.

Haas wished his boss would go. He wished the bathroom door would open.

“Luck also rhymes with pluck. They say a man with pluck makes his own luck.”

Just then the bathroom door did open, and out strutted Jim Keller. Haas was about to rush in, when the receptionist from accounting, Pamela Something-or-Other, young and pretty and flushed of face, followed Keller out of the bathroom.

“Oh, excuse me,” said Haas, and then he stepped into the vacated bathroom and hurriedly shut the door before anything else could happen. His hands rushed to unbutton and unzip. He fished himself out and managed to hold off long enough to raise the toilet seat. Bending, leaking, about to spurt his stream, Haas noticed the condom on the tile floor just to the side of the toilet. It looked to be freshly full of juice—the reservoir end bulging with fluid, the outer surface of the sheath glistening, and some seepage leaking from the untied end. Haas’s erection was instant.

And now he couldn’t pee. Images of Keller and Pamela going at it in this very bathroom while he’d waited outside kept his cock hard. Haas stood over the toilet for some minutes, unsuccessfully willing the lewd images to disappear. His erection wouldn’t subside.

Maybe if I masturbated, Haas said to himself. He knew he was aroused enough to climax in a jiffy, but something kept him from caressing the robust stalk of flesh that jutted before him.