The rosy cheeked butler sat on a three legged stool in the basement, blotting his soaking brow with a silken purple cloth. He let out a slow grunt of frustration and resumed his crooked position over the table. He gazed confusedly at the little machine; it's gears locked in an eternal jam, unless he could mend them. He surveyed his tools and reached for a small needle nose pliers. "This oughta do the trick" he muttered in a dampened tone. He reached cautiously into a narrow space between two gears and gave a hopeful pinch. In an instant the machine resumed it's course and the gears churned a wild tune. Sparks flew out as the man's finger severed neatly, half still attached to his hand, and the other forever lost in the depths of the machine. He once again removed the silken cloth from his front pocket and wrapped it tightly around his newly formed stump. "I've done it!" he exclaimed, and leaped in jubilant excitement, a river of red meandering down his forearm. The gramophone was fixed. He would be eating well tonight.
"Jermaine!" an anxious voice called from the floor above. He dropped the cloth in surprise and mopped up a small puddle of blood on the floor as he replied "I've fixed it madam." He lifted the machine off of the table and ascended the thirteen stairs which separated him and his mistress. As he opened the door, his eyes were cut by the bright lights of the lounge. Hours spent in the din of the basement made for a lengthy adjustment, but as the room came into focus he spotted Lady Fiona reclining in a La-Z-Boy in the corner. Her feet rose above her head as she pulled the upholstered lever to her right. "Do you have it?" she asked despondently. "Yes ma'am" he replied and pulled a Rick James record out from behind his tailed waistcoat. "Let's Dance!" she demanded and threw herself onto the bear skin rug. He dropped the needle on the record, and hoped Lady Fiona wouldn't question the absence of half of his ring finger. They boogied earnestly until the butler was too winded to continue.
He climbed the stairs up to his attic bedroom and exchanged his uniform for a pair of striped pajamas. His old bones creaked with the bed as sat down. He picked his feet up off of the ground and positioned himself comfortably on his back. He turned off the small lamp on his bedside table, heaved a sigh of a prayer, and was asleep. He died that night, deep in dreams of Rick James and affordable yet luxurious living room furniture. Lady Fiona discovered his body the next morning and wept at the loss of her old friend.
Two weeks later she noticed a most foul odor coming from her gramophone, and when her vast collection of febreze failed to cover the smell she decided to take apart the machine. She toiled for the majority of the evening, finally stumbling upon the old butler's decomposing finger around eleven o'clock. She lovingly wrapped it in the purple hanky she had found on his bedroom floor, and thought about what to do. Moments later, with a fiendish grin on her face, she went down to the basement and filled an old apricot jam jar with formaldehyde. She returned to the lounge, tied a red satin ribbon around the butler's bony finger and dropped it into it's final resting place.
From that day forward, each time she yearned for her old dancing partner, she would play a disco record on her newly refurbished gramophone. During especially lonely times, she would sweep the jar off of her kitchen counter and waltz feverishly, imagining a sweeter time, when her butler Jermaine would hold her firmly in his experienced arms and masterfully caress the back of her next with his index finger. Yes. She missed him, but the beacon on her counter would shine through a world of weariest darkness.
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