..maybe I can repay the debt one day." I said as I petted his head and started walking towards the barn. Humpy was a good, faithful friend. Without hi... coming to my rescue I might have easily died in the bitter cold. First I walked to the open stables where the cows were all gathered, huddled together and chewing peacefully on some hay. Humpy gave them a few barking commands, as if to say, "Get on your feet! The boss is here!" The cows gathered at the troughs and I fed them grain and made sure. I had a desk in an office used by two other, full-time instructors but that was all right. No one was around after 3 PM anyhow—ever—so the office might as well have been mine. The narrow window in the office door had been covered with construction paper by one of the full-timers so he could sleep in there unobserved, and although one wall was all window with a view of the parking lot, if the office lights were off you couldn't see in. I'd already brought in what I needed before class in a box. And I couldn't do anything about the "fine mess" because I was securely bound in a closet with no avenue of escape. Perhaps I should back up a little bit. I was in a hotel in New York, spending a weekend alone. My wife, Alexis, knew where I was and why I was there. In fact, she had helped me pack my bags for the weekend. It was Alexis who selected the hotel at which I would stay, the clothes I would wear, the make-up I would take, the dominatrix I would call, and the photographer I would hire.. Basically, what we do is announce in the magazine that we're going to make a big drive to cut administrative expenses. We make some highly visible cuts, nothing terribly important, since the biggest cut is phasing out our cut. At the same time, the boat -- I think we want to call it the "Defender," don't you? -- will throw the financial picture into a turmoil. We can dump a lot of money into that operation legitimately. Then, after somewhere between two and four years, we, as the Defenders, can.