Nightmare Messiah

Monday V

         After having a cigarette and drinking the rest of the cognac he’d been given, Gage decided he might as well try to mingle a little more. What the hell, he thought. At least by wandering around talking to random strangers he could pretend not to know what he was really here for. Socializing with rich yuppies was a good way for him to forget why he was at the Langston estate, and he intended on taking as much time forgetting as he possibly could. Forgetting was something Gage Sterling did best.
         The crowded parlor off to the right at the bottom of the steps sounded like the constant buzz of a beehive. Three glasses of champagne and two glasses full of cognac, chugged instead of sipped, tended to have an adverse reaction on a man’s ability to concentrate clearly on anything. This was the perfect level of disassociation for Gage Sterling. He was precisely where he wanted to be, comfortably numb but not quite to the point of blacking out and making an ass out of himself. That’s also where he needed to be, so as not to ruin the deal completely.
         As soon as he stepped back into the parlor, he grabbed up another glass of champagne from one of the traveling trays, and was immediately accosted by a slightly overweight, middle-aged woman in a plum-colored dress. “You there,” she exclaimed while stepping over to catch him by the arm. Before he knew what was happening, she dragged him over to a group of other middle-aged people, men and women, and had latched herself onto his side. “Young man, we need you to settle a dispute for us.” The woman smelled like moth balls and alcohol. Gage suspected the dress she was wearing had spent decades in a closet, untouched until she could fit in it again, and that she had probably had far too much wine.
         He smiled. “Well then. I’ll see if I can help,” he said. He had no idea who the woman or the other three people were at all. One was a woman in a pale yellow dress who was too pale herself to be wearing that color and look good in it. Though her hair was long, it was also grayish white and pinned up off of her shoulders with a handful of charming gold accessories that she had tossed into the mix, likely as a pathetic attempt to cover up the fact that her hair was indeed gray. He guessed her around fifty. The other two were gentleman in black tuxedos a lot like his own, though one was a little portly and bald, while the other was tall and wrinkled instead. He briefly found himself wondering who these people were and what their connection was to Gideon Langston, but then he decided it wasn’t important and skipped over that notion to try paying attention instead.
         “My dear boy,” continued the woman in the plum-colored dress. “Rodney and I have been arguing with Mr. and Mrs. Donovan here as to whether or not it is possible for a woman to kiss another woman on the lips and not be considered vulgar.” Gage had just been taking a sip of champagne at the moment, and he almost spit it back out in his glass.
         “Shirley is of the opinion that it is not at all a vulgar act,” intervened the second woman, waving her hand snobbishly and smiling despite the gesture. “Harold seems to think that it’s completely improper for two ladies to kiss each other on the lips. Yet Shirley and I have done so as a courtesy of our friendship for years now.”
         Gage suspected that the taller gentleman was Harold, the more portley fellow was Rodney, and obviously the fatter woman was Shirley. That only left the woman in the yellow dress. He looked at Shirley expectantly, and she didn’t fail him in blathering on. “Quite right, Annette. Quite right. The things our husbands don’t know about us!” She laughed, and she sounded like a mule in doing so.
         “Kissing another person in public is a vulgar act,” grunted Rodney. For a moment there, Gage thought it was a pig speaking instead. The man’s face even crinkled up as if he had sucked down a lemon and discovered the rind to be disgustingly chewy, yet somehow also satisfying. He sipped champagne.
         “Particularly when it’s two women caught in the act,” chimed in Harold.
         Annette cackled like some overdressed bird whose feathers had just been plucked out of her tail. “Oh come now, Harold. It is perfectly acceptible for two sisters to kiss each other on the mouth in our society.” She said our society as if it completely belonged to these four people and no one else. Nevermind the fact that they were surrounded by other high society members in their expensive finery and stupidly idle conversations.
         “You and Shirley are not sisters, however,” said Rodney.
         “Pish posh,” said Shirely. She fluttered her hand in the air as if she were holding an invisible folded fan. “That doesn’t matter. Annette and I think of one another as sisters. Isn’t that the same?”
         The entire conversation was dizzying, and Gage wasn’t precisely certain how he was supposed to settle the dispute. “That’s quite right,” said Annette, rather proudly lifting her chin to emphasize the concept. “Shirley and I have been friends since before we married, Harold. And we’ve been kissing each other on the lips since then. I’m amazed you haven’t noticed until now.”
         “Oh I noticed,” grumbled Harold, taking a sip of something from a large glass. Gage suspected it was cognac. Cognac seemed to be the signature alcoholic drink of the rich. Or at least, that’s what he was beginning to speculate as true.
         Annette’s nose wrinkled up in a near perfect immitation of Rodney’s earlier expression. “Well then I’m amazed you haven’t complained about it before.”
         “Before we’ve always been in the company of ourselves. Besides...” But Harold didn’t finish his statement. Instead he took a long drink of his beverage and pretended as if he hadn’t said anything at all. He discovered, much to his obviously visible dismay, that both Shirley and Annette had fixed their attention on him. Gage thought it best to clear his throat and turn their attention on him instead. The addition of a shift felt in his arm from Shirely being latched onto it helped with that tactic. Both women looked at him expectantly.
         “I’m fairly sure,” he said, testing out his best sophisticated role, “that between these two ladies there’s nothing to worry about. Why, my sisters both kiss each other on the mouth all the time.” Though, Gage didn’t have any sisters at all, it sounded like a reasonable enough lie to get them to settle their dispute, as he’d been volunteered to do in the first place.
         Shirley squealed delightedly. “There! You see, Rodney? Annette and I aren’t the only women who kiss each other on the mouth.” She sounded triumphant. Even Annette looked pleased.
         “As a matter of fact,” Gage added. “My sisters kiss their girlfriends on the mouth all the time as well.” That was only false due to the fact that Gage had no sisters. However, he had seen many of the girls kiss each other before. They also kissed him. It was just one of those things he had learned to accept. One big happy family.
         Harold and Rodney, both defeated, drank down the rest of their beverages with sour expressions. Shirley squealed again and squeezed Gage’s arm tight enough to cut off the circulation if she had held on for too long. He didn’t feel a thing. To emphasize their victory, the two women leaned to give each other a chaste kiss on the mouth. Gage caught Harold watching them in that display with an obviously devious smile. He knew that smile. The besides that the man had cut short clearly meant that he was aroused by the sight of such behavior, and he was reluctant to admit it. Gage only grinned into his own glass of champagne while taking a sip. Rodney was oblivious. Out of the corner of his eye, Gage noticed the portly fellow had been staring at the backside of a lovely young serving girl who had passed by with a tray of toothpick speared hors d’oevres.
         “Young man, you are positively charming,” Shirley announced when she leaned back from the kiss. “Thank you for settling our dispute for us.”
         “Yes. Thank you very much,” said Annette. “What is your name, dear?”
         Inwardly, Gage groaned. He should have backed out of the conversation politely by then, to avoid this situation. He blamed it on the alcohol in his system. Outwardly, he smiled. He even lifted his glass of champagne and dipped his chin respectfully, somewhat shyly. “I’m glad I could help,” he said. Now onto the name. “Gage.” His first name was safe enough, but he needed to give a surname. Something that made him sound distinguished. Unfortunately, his actual last name slipped out before he even realized it. “Gage Sterling.” He bit his tongue in an effort to keep himself from closing his eyes and wincing. Idiot, he thought.
         “Ooh,” Shirely cooed, still hanging onto his arm. Likely she had drank too much and couldn’t keep herself upright. Or maybe she was just one of those people who had to be in constant physical contact with everyone else around her. He suspected the latter was more the case, and added in a thought that maybe she wasn’t satisfied with her husband. Perhaps it was just a way to make him jealous. Maybe they didn’t get along. “Gage Sterling. Any relation to Matthew and Isabel Sterling?”
         Hearing those two names was like having a dull and rusted knife shoved into his heart. He hadn’t heard those names in years. In fact, he had rather hoped to forget them entirely. “Ah, no,” he said immediately. “No relation at all.” How was it that these people knew Matthew and Isabel Sterling?
         “Are you certain?” asked Annette. She peered at the boy with the utmost scrutiny. So did Shirley. She leaned off of him just far enough to be able to look up at his face and narrow her eyes.
         “I’d heard they had a son,” added Shirley. “Sad story, if the rumors are true.”
         “Oh no,” said Gage. “I’m certain.” Though he felt extremely uncomfortable all of a sudden, he did nothing but smile charmingly. “No relation.”
         “The Sterlings,” Shirley went on, “came into money a few years ago. One of those hard luck families, I hear, who finally found themselves some luck.” Gage had heard this story a dozen times before. He didn’t need to listen to Shirley ramble on about it, so he didn’t.
         Though, while she prattled on, he couldn’t help but remember it all himself. Seven years ago, he had run away from home. His father, Matthew Sterling, had been an abusive drunk. They actually had a family fortune that was meant to pass onto him when his parents died. Gage’s grandfather had been abusive as well, but in his own way. A way that Gage was tired of being a part of. A manner of abuse that included child molestation whenever they stayed over. That was actually his mother’s father, and she carried that trait with her in her genes. Shared it with her husband. Did terrible things to their children. He had a sister, not two. They both ran away from home. They had burned the house down and never looked back.
         “It was the insurance,” he heard Shirley say. “They had a good policy. When the house burned down with all of their belongings, the insurance paid out everything. Too much even. Now they own a big estate on the other side of town.”
         “Didn’t they have children?” asked Annette.
         “They did,” Shirley said. She paused a moment to think on it. “I think they were both sent away to boarding school. Troublesome children. Patricia told me the boy had mental problems, and the girl. Well. They say she was far too promiscuous for her own good.” Gage snorted. “Are you quite all right, dear? You look a little pale.”
         “Oh yes. I’m fine. Though, no. You’re right. I’m not feeling very well. Probably too much champagne.” He lifted his glass apologetically and smiled still. “I think I should step out for some fresh air.”
         “Maybe you should lay down,” suggested Shirley.
         “Maybe,” he replied. “Excuse me ladies. It was a pleasure meeting you.” He left them with a lingering smile, detached Shirley from his arm, and wandered away from the group. He heard them whispering conspiratorially behind him, but decided it was safest not to hear exactly what it was they were saying. He felt sick to his stomach all of a sudden. Boarding school. Yeah, right.
         So his parents had finally gotten his mother’s inheritance. Now they were living large. Good for them. He hoped they both rotted in hell and he never saw them ever again. Though he was suddenly stricken by paranoia. If they were now rich, that meant they were members of high society. That meant he ran the risk of running into them at parties like this one. Hell! Maybe they were even here!
         He walked through the crowd blinded by a sense of self-preservation. Everywhere he looked he swore he saw one of their faces. But it was never them. It was always some other yuppie in fancy threads laughing and talking boorishly with another. He passed by Gideon Langston, who was chatting cordially with a man who reminded him specifically of Colonel Mustard. He caught a glimpse of that frighteningly sharkish smile and offered a brief smile of his own in return before disappearing into the ballroom. He decided he could use another drink. Not champagne. Not cognac. He needed whiskey. So he stopped off at the bar to order a glass.
         After acquiring his drink of choice, Gage wandered over to a wall in the ballroom and dropped onto a chair. He wondered what time it was, and then decided he didn’t really want to know at all. However, in wondering, he happened to catch sight of a grandfather clock on the far wall, and much to his dismay noticed that the time was only a quarter after eleven. He still had nearly four hours to wander around before he had to go take that bath and wait for Gideon. He let out a long-suffering sigh and pondered on taking a nap instead. If there was an alarm clock up in his room, he could do that. After hearing about his parents, he was feeling nauseous and out of place. Even more so than he had felt before. He didn’t belong here, in this society. He never did. Not even if he had stayed with his parents, put up with the abuse. Not that his current situation was any different, come to think of it.
         Gage laughed at himself. “What’s the difference?” he asked the empty space in front of him, the violin being played by the woman on the other side of the room. What was the difference? He was still being used for sex no matter where he was. The difference was, in his current situation he was at least being paid for it. At least it was something he was good at. He had his parents to thank for that. Sick bastards.
         He found himself wondering about his sister. He wondered where she was now and what she was doing. He only hoped that she had found a decent life somewhere far away. Gage had never completely gotten out of the city, not far enough. At least he had been taken in by a group of people that protected him and kept him hidden. Not that his parents had ever gone looking for him. He’d never even seen a poster. Maybe he had just been too young. Someone would have told him if they’d seen one, though. Right? Or maybe Isaac had kept him sheltered from that sort of thing. Maybe Isaac was just as much of a manipulative, lying bastard as his parents had been. Actually, he was. But Gage liked Isaac. Isaac was at least subtle about it, sort of. Isaac never...
         “Mind if I join you?”
         It was an unfamiliar voice that yanked Gage Sterling out of his stupor. He had been drifting into a memory of his sister from a younger age. She was probably a beautiful young woman by now. He was sure of it. The person standing in front of him was not a beautiful young woman.
         “Sorry if I startled you,” said the man. He was neither a tall man, nor a short man. He was neither a fat man nor a skinny man. He was neither an ugly man nor a beautiful man. This man was probably the most unimposing man Gage had ever met, and that was strangely comforting.
         “Oh no,” said Gage. “You didn’t startle me. Well, maybe a little. I was just thinking.”
         “Not the safest activity to engage in at a party,” said the man.
         Gage chuckled and nodded agreeably, though he also felt as if that were a reprimand of some sort. It was still amusing. “No. Probably not.”
         “May I?” The man gestured at the chair next to the boy. Gage nodded, and the man turned to sit. For a long moment, they sat in silence. Gage sipped his whiskey, and the man sipped from a tall glass with a slushy red beverage in it. Gage suspected it was a strawberry daiquiri, which amused him. That factor also comforted him. This man, whoever he was, was likely gayer than Gage was himself. Nothing about his demeanor or his clothes suggested as much, however. That was somewhat comforting as well. “I saw you sitting here alone,” said the man, breaking the silence, “and I thought maybe you could use some company.”
         Gage let out a brief and abrupt laugh that actually sounded a lot like a word. “Hah!” He scoffed, but he smirked as well.
         “Yeah,” said the man. “I know. Usually when people are sitting by themselves they want to stay by themselves. Really, I figured we could both be alone together. Lonely and pathetic.” He sipped his daiquiri.
         “Do I look lonely and pathetic?” Gage turned in his chair, angled to better look at the man, and he lifted a brow. That was probably the first and only unsettling thing the man had said to him.
         “Only a little,” he said.
         The man didn’t look at Gage directly. Instead he looked down at the floor, at his feet, and exhibited a somewhat shy demeanor. Gage really took the time to look at him for the first time. Through the haze of champagne, cognac, and whiskey, he was amazed he could make out all the details. This man had short hair, a darker shade of blonde but not quite brown. He had eyes that in the dark looked gray. Maybe they were gray, or maybe they were blue. He also had freckles, a path under his eyes and over the bridge of his nose. He was a mousy, almost nerdy looking man. The suit didn’t look right on him. He was perhaps the only man at the party that didn’t look right wearing a suit. Maybe it was the color of the suit, it too was gray. “I’m Gage,” he said. The silence between them suddenly became uncomfortable, and he instantly felt the need to say something. He’d never felt the need to say anything at all. No one else he had ever encountered looked like they needed the reassurance of a friendly voice. Everyone else needed the reassurance of a voice that was screaming nonsensical ecstasy to the ceiling.
         “Simon,” the man replied, and he smiled. He smiled the way people do when they hate the sound of their own name, a shameful name.
Simon didn’t offer his last name, so Gage decided not to offer his own either. Especially after his previous experience with it. “Nice to meet you, Simon,” he said. Though he was still trying to figure out why the man sounded so ashamed of his own name. Simon didn’t sound like a bad name at all. Then again, it didn’t sound like the name of a guy who belonged at a party like this one. Maybe they had something in common.
         “Thanks,” said Simon. “It’s nice to meet you too, Gage.”
         Silence settled between them again, and Simon took a sip of his daiquiri as if it were an attached reminder that he existed. As if by taking a drink he was reminding Gage that he was there. Gage frowned and wondered why the man looked so depressed. He did look depressed. He kept glancing aside at the boy and fidgeting. He sat forward in his chair as if he were afraid of breaking the back of it. Simon had a sad and crumpled look about him. “Are you okay?”
         “Oh yeah.” Simon laughed weakly. There wasn’t a single ounce of humor at all behind his laugh. “Yeah. It’s just ... this party. It’s kind of depressing, don’t you think?” When he looked up and turned his head to look directly at Gage, fear was present in his eyes. Gage could see it, deep down in the man’s eyes. He looked like he was about ready to cry. Yeah, Gage thought. This guy’s gayer than I am. But he had a point.
         “Yeah,” he said. “It is. A little.” He couldn’t believe he was agreeing with the kid. Kid? Come to think of it, Simon didn’t look as if he could be much older than Gage was himself. He turned his head a moment to look toward the ballroom doors that lead back out into the parlor. Then he smirked with a near silent chuckle and looked back at the other boy. “Probably because all they talk about in there is whose dress looks prettier and how much wine someone’s wife’s had, you know?”
         Simon laughed, and that time his laughter was filled with a lot more feeling than before. He nodded with a wildly agreeable smile. “Yeah. Drives me crazy. I don’t even know why I’m here.” He paused to take another sip of his daiquiri. Then Gage noticed a puzzled expression. He nearly predicted the question before Simon asked it. “Why are you here? If you don’t mind me asking. I’ve never seen you here before.”
         That’s right. Gideon Langston threw a lot of parties he said. Not surprising that the same people would be present at this one. Gage was a stranger to most of them. Though he wondered how many of them were ever sober enough to know everyone else entirely. This Simon kid had an eye for detail. That could be trouble. Quickly, Gage conjured up the lie that Gideon had instructed him to conceive. “Oh. I’m a friend of Mr. Langston’s. From out of town. He asked me to stop by for the week to help him get his finances in order.”
         “You’re an accountant then?”
         “Yeah.” Gage nodded and laughed cordially. “Yeah. You could say that.” He felt immediately uncomfortable with that lie. Inside he was laughing at himself. He couldn’t tell the kid that he was a whore. Hi. I’m Gage Sterling. I’m a whore Mr. Langston hired to sleep with him for the week. He actually did express his amusement in a brief chuckle that escaped into his glass of whiskey.
         “What’s so funny?” Simon tilted his head and blinked at Gage.
         “Nothing,” Gage said. He shook his head and smiled. He’d had too much alcohol. He could feel it. He could only hope that his tongue didn’t loosen up too much. “Nothing at all. I was just remembering a joke someone told me.”
         “Oh?” Simon looked intrigued, and he turned in his chair to face Gage more directly then. His expression was a mixture of that same sadness from earlier, a touch of depression, and a splash of curiosity. “Not about me, I hope.”
         Gage laughed suddenly and at much more length. He shook his head emphatically in the negative in an attempt to reassure the kid. Why would he be laughing at Simon? “God, no. No. Why? Do people tell a lot of jokes about you?” No wonder the kid looked so downtrodden. Probably some rich yuppie’s son who didn’t want to be here. Hell. He probably felt like he didn’t belong either. Maybe they had something in common afterall. Gage hoped they didn’t have too much in common.
         “Sometimes,” Simon said. He nodded and looked down at his glass of strawberry daiquiri with a wry sort of smile. Inside he was probably laughing at his own expense. “Yeah.” The kid sighed then and turned back to face the room, the miniature orchestra playing on the other side.
         “That bad?” Gage felt sorry for the kid. If his guess was accurate, he could only imagine the number of jokes that these sort of people made about him.
         Simon sighed again and sank back finally against the chair. His shoulders slumped, and he stretched out his legs. But he kept his knees together so that he could settle the bottom of his glass on his knees. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”
         Oh lord. Gage knew what that meant. He knew it before the kid could even admit it. If he had seen Simon before the kid snuck up on him, he would have likely known it immediately and suspected this sort of interraction. He wasn’t sure why he was struck by the urge to do so, but he leaned forward and reached to settle his hand on one of Simon’s. He spared a glance aside to make sure nobody else was watching, and as far as his liquored up mind could tell they were alone. “Hey,” he said, lowering his voice. “It can’t be that bad.” He wanted to say that he knew what Simon was going through, but he really didn’t. He wanted to reassure the kid that he had nothing to worry about. He even wanted to tell him, Hey. I’m a whore. But he couldn’t do that.
         Simon’s hand twitched underneath his, and for a moment he saw a spike of panic in the boy’s expression. There was probably an argument going on in his head about pulling his hand away. What if someone saw them! Gage only slipped his fingers under the boy’s hand and gave it a squeeze around the palm. He also smiled. For a brief moment, Simon smiled too. Likely comforted by that gesture, but he pulled his hand away abruptly after a few seconds had passed. “Oh god!” The kid sat bolt upright and forced Gage to lean back in surprise. Then Simon turned to look at him. The panic had won out over anything else. “I’m sorry. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
         “Don’t tell anyone what?”
         “Don’t tell anyone I came over here. That I talked to you. That you...” His words trailed off. It must have dawned on him what he was saying, and then the realization probably struck. Gage hadn’t pushed him away. Gage had actually made the first move. Gage had stunned him. “You didn’t...”
         Gage laughed and shook his head. He leaned back in the chair, still angled, and made himself more comfortable. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
         “And you...”
         Gage nodded and maintained his smile. This was actually all rather amusing. “Yes,” he said. “I did.” Inside he heard himself laugh. The poor kid. How old was he?
         Simon held his breath for a few minutes, and then he let it out as a very relieved sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said, again. “I saw you sitting over here. And ... well, I think you’re very ... pretty.” He looked as if he expected to be slapped across the face when he said that, so he quickly changed his mind. “I don’t mean pretty. I mean—“
         “No. That’s fine.” Gage cut him off and still smiled. “I hear that a lot actually.”
         “Oh good.” Again Simon sighed, relieved once more. And finally he smiled as well. Though his cheeks were flushed from embarrassment. He probably finally felt the heat in his cheeks, because he turned to look down at the floor on his other side. “I thought for sure you were going to laugh at me and chase me off like everyone else has.”
         “Nah. Can’t ever be too sure who is and who isn’t, right?”
         Simon nodded and chuckled half-heartedly. “Yeah. So. You are? That’s good.”
         So you are. That tumbled around in Gage’s brain and threatened to shatter his pleasantly numbed sensation from too much alcohol. It felt like icicles stabbing into the back of his brain and all the way down his spine. He wanted to scream at the kid. No! I’m not gay! But he’d had this conversation with Maddy earlier. He was whatever anyone wanted him to be. Gay. Straight. Bisexual. What he really was wasn’t important. “Sort of,” he heard himself say.
         “That’s better than not,” Simon said. The kid turned back to look at him again and smiled. “That’s all I ever hear. No. I’m not. And then my parents.” His mouth hung open as if he had been about to finish that statement and then found himself incapable of doing so. His teeth clicked together and color lingered on his cheeks. He must have really been embarrassed about it all. Too embarrassed.
         “I bet they tell you there’s something wrong with you, right? Like it’s an illness they can cure if they hook you up with enough girls?” Shit. Those were words Gage had told himself countless times before. Close to that. Not completely. Mostly he had just reminded himself that it was all for the money. He didn’t like sleeping with men, but they paid him to do it, so he pretended he did.
         “Something like that.” Simon laughed into his statement. He also nodded again, several times. The kid sucked in a breath and let it out as a more relaxing sigh. “My mother more so than my father. My father agrees with her, though, and thinks if he sends me to some special school they can fix me.” Then Simon sighed and displayed that more depressed demeanor as he had before. The boy shook his head. “Sometimes they have me convinced, you know?”
         “Oh yeah,” Gage said. “I know exactly what you mean. People paint this perfect picture of you, and they tell you how you are, even if they’re wrong, and eventually you start believing them.”
         “Yeah.” Simon nodded yet again. He nodded often. Gage noticed. In a way that also made them similar. Nodding and agreeing to anything everybody ever said to them. “Yeah.”
         They sat in silence for several more minutes then. Simon sipped his daiquiri, and Gage gulped down the rest of his whiskey. He let the empty glass settle on his lap and just enjoyed the company. He suspected he had completed his good deed of the year, maybe even his life. He’d given this kid a small shining light of hope by just talking to him. Helped him realize that it wasn’t bad being gay. Gage had no problem with gay people. They paid well to act out their fantasies and keep them secret. Shit. Maybe some day this kid would pay him well too. That had him laughing again, and his laughter broke their communal silence.
         “What?” Simon had turned to look at him again, blinking suspiciously.
         “Nothing. Nothing,” Gage assured him.
         “You do that a lot? Laugh for no reason?”
         “All the time,” Gage said. “There’s a little comedian living in my head that keeps telling me jokes.”
         Simon smiled. “You should share them with me. I don’t hear enough good jokes. Not many that aren’t about me anyway.”
         “Maybe I will. Some time.”
         “Good. You’ll be here at least a week, right?”
         Gage blinked, startled by the question. Oh no. He realized suddenly that he might have made a tremendous mistake. “Ah, yeah,” he said. “One full week.” That was probably the first bit of truth he’d said all night, though even that was incomplete. He hadn’t told anyone why he was here for the week, nor did he intend on doing so. Telling the truth would have been a bad thing anyway, as Gideon Langston had pointed out succinctly.
         “You should come over to our house some time. We throw parties every once in a while too. The Brandt estate? Maybe you’ve heard of us. My father’s pretty popular, but his parties are never as good as Mr. Langston’s.” Simon smiled and pushed up out of his chair. He didn’t give Gage any chance to protest, though he had been about to tell the kid he’d probably be too busy to attend any parties. “We’re having one this weekend, actually. I’ll send you an invitation.” That posed as a farewell, because Simon Brandt walked away immediately afterwards. The kid left with a satisfied smile on his face, and Gage didn’t have the heart to stop him and decline the offer. Poor kid probably needed a reason to smile for once.
         Once he was alone again, Gage groaned and slapped a hand against his own forehead. “Great,” he grumbled to himself. How was he going to get out of this situation when it presented itself. Gideon probably wasn’t going to be very happy discovering that Gage had been invited to a party elsewhere. He was doomed. He imagined he probably blew any chances he had on winning the extra fifty thousand Gideon had promised as well. Isaac was going to kill him.
         Deciding he needed another cigarette, Gage pushed up out of his own chair and practically stumbled back into the parlor to get another drink from the bar. The entire house ebbed like an ancient temple that had been submerged for centuries underwater. And here he was wading along investigating the mysteries of the civilization that had once built its wonders. He heard the grandfather clock in the ballroom chime the hour. It was midnight. He only had three more hours to wade through the sea of strangers, and he was feeling far too intoxicated to even try.
         Instead of mingling, Gage took his glass of whiskey with him through the crowd and into the front hall. He decided the best place to indulge in a cigarette was his prepared room upstairs. Maybe he could take that nap he had been thinking about earlier as well. Hopefully he could remember to set the alarm clock to wake him up. So at midnight, he walked up the stairs of the Langston estate and stumbled his way into his week-long temporary room. That was Monday.