Chapter 56

Simon Anderson sat alone at a table by the edge of the Loft’s roof and watched the chaos of the Seneschal’s Ball unfold all around him. Unlike most people who might use that phrase, he had a very specific definition of chaos in mind: a deterministic system with high dependency on initial conditions. Here the rich and powerful, the brilliant, and the beautiful caromed off each other at high speeds relative to their ordinary lives. In the course of a year, any one of them might meet an average of one or two people really important to their lives - more if they were in school, fewer if they were older. Because Max had drawn together a diverse crowd with small but distinctive overlap among its cliques, new meetings would be much more frequent and the difference between turning left or right at any given moment could be an entirely different life going forward.

He tried to model the number of significant connections a person could expect to make at a party like this, built a model in his head for such a calculation, ballparked the constants he would need to plug into it, started to calculate, and lost track of the numbers. As he tried to recover them, he lost his grip on the central equation in his head and imagined the whole elegant model as a half-built skyscraper imploding over a poorly-built foundation. Rather than try to reconstruct it, he decided to misapply Benford’s law and declare by fiat that it was probably a standard distribution around one with a coefficient for alcohol consumption. Even though Simon himself got more reclusive when he drank - hence sitting alone at a party - he knew this was one of the many ways he bucked the norm.

“Your girlfriend is strange.” Ceri sat down at his table uninvited and apparently immune to whatever anti-pheromone other people detected coming off of him at times like this, warning them to fuck off. She had a beer in her hand and, by the way she sat down hard in the chair - like it had been more of a controlled fall, it was far from her first tonight.

“Many aspects of my life are more than a few standard deviations from the norm,” Simon acknowledged. “I take it you mean Shelby?”

Ceri rolled her eyes. “You have more than one girlfriend?”

“No, I’m kind of an involuntary traditionalist that way,” said Simon. “Shelby is ... certainly unique, hopefully not entirely based on her ability to enjoy my company over time.”

Ceri narrowed her eyes at him. “On a scale of one to ten, how drunk are you?”

“Linear or logarithmic?” Simon parried.

She laughed. “Never mind. That answers my question.”

Simon made to gesture at the collection of empty beer bottles in front of him, but realized he only had the one bottle. “The wait staff have robbed me of a golden opportunity for vice signalling. I was building an army of fallen soldiers.”

Ceri sat back and smirked at him. “Even if you dress like one, you really aren’t a cop, are you?”

Simon held out one breast of his jacket, stroking the material with his fingertips. “Any cop in a suit this nice is on the take.”

“What’s the deal with that, anyway?” Ceri asked. “You may have noticed you’re the only guy in a suit at this party.”

“I sexually identify as a businessman. My pronoun is ‘sir.’” Simon said, an old joke among his friends. “I don’t see anybody wearing your dress but you, either. We’re all supposed to dress enough alike to fit in, but not identically because that would be weird. I started wearing suits as a protest against my grade school failing to require uniforms.”

“I used to do everything I could to subvert my school uniform,” said Ceri.

“You went to Catholic school?” Simon asked, only partly engaged.

“Twelve years of nuns, a lifetime of therapy. You?” Ceri asked.

“A path-of-least-resistance public school full of meth dealers, meth addicts, and teenage gangsters looking forward to a lucrative career in the meth trade,” said Simon.

“So, how’d you get so smart?” Ceri asked.

“I didn’t get smart. Schools don’t make you smart. The best they can do is find smart kids and stay out of the way while they become knowledgeable - something which my school failed to do on a daily basis.” Simon scowled at a whole plethora of memories and sipped his beer. “The question isn’t how I got smart. I started out smart. The question is how I managed to stay smart in spite of twelve years of my schools’ best efforts.”

Ceri was undeterred by the bitterness in his voice. “Fine, how did you stay so smart?”

“I wore a suit,” said Simon firmly. “First as a refutation of entropy, then as a honeypot for the chaos that swirled around me. When you grow up defiantly different from your peers, they will find something to torture you about. The suit took a lot of heat off of the things that actually mattered and it signalled that I wasn’t interested in suiting up for any of their reindeer games.”

Ceri’s eyes narrowed. “Are public schools even allowed to require uniforms?”

“They are and about one in six do. Mine only required them for gym class, which tells you where their priorities lay. We had these stupid little brown shorts and t-shirts with brown...” Simon gestured a circle. “Rings around the neck and sleeves. I don’t know what they’re called.”

Ceri shook her head to indicate she didn’t know either and leaned forward. “So, what was the important stuff - the stuff you wore the suit to protect from your classmates?”

Simon gave her a suspicious look and leaned in as well. “What’s with all the questions? Does this have something to do with why you think Shelby’s weird?”

Ceri allowed herself a small chuckle. “Aren’t I allowed to be curious? You and Shelby are the only people I know at this party at all and I barely know you at all.”

Simon sat back and shook his head. “Well, if you thought Shelby was too weird for your tastes, I doubt I’m going to be living up to a higher standard.”

Ceri sighed and rolled her eyes. “Shelby isn’t too ... I didn’t say she was weird. ‘Weird’ is insulting. I said she was strange - strange, but cool.”

“Shelby is indeed strange but cool - something I only learned fairly recently actually.” Simon acknowledged. “Just in time for her to move away.”

“Ah.” Ceri gave a knowing nod. “Is that why you’re sitting here alone getting drunk while there’s a party raging around you?”

Simon shook his head. “No, I’m doing it to avoid looking antisocial.” To the obvious question and Ceri’s raised eyebrow, he added. “I don’t really want to be at a party tonight. I already have more than enough friends and the chance of my making a new one out of this self-selecting group of the cliquish and socially awkward is far less than the chance that I will offend one badly enough that it becomes the stuff of legend. That leaves me with the choice of hiding in my apartment to try to get some work done or coming out here and glaring at people until they wisely veer off in search of better company. That strategy was working well until now.”

“Because I’m too dumb to take a hint?” Ceri’s tone of voice didn’t match her words. She sounded amused and there was a challenge in her eyes.

“I never got the impression you were dumb, Ceri,” Simon admitted. “I am curious as to why you’re talking to me now. If you’ve already hit it off with Shelby, you’ve achieved your success condition for this kind of party. One new friend is probably the mean.”

“The whole reason for my being here is to be seen spending time with you.” Ceri leaned in again, smiling. “ And besides that, Shelby says she thinks I would like you if I could get past the initial wave of go-fuck-yourself armor and get to know you.”

“Wow.” Simon winced. “I wonder what horrible character flaw she assumes you have that would make that true. That’s basically the opposite of what happens. Most people like me much better before they get to know me.”

Ceri gave a real laugh. “I take it this is more of the armor I’m seeing?”

Simon ran his hand through his hair and looked at the woman across the table from him. He suspected she had ulterior motives for trying so hard with him. But, he could hardly hold that against her. He expected everyone to have ulterior motives all the time. “Fine, welcome to the wallow. If you keep your feet up, you’ll splash less self-pity on them.”

Ceri gestured to a waiter by tapping on her mostly-empty beer bottle. “I’m not sure I’ve seen this combination of self-awareness and self-pity before.”

Simon weighed the pros and cons of opening up to Ceri about what was bothering and decided she hadn’t entered the small circle of people whose opinions he valued enough to bother keeping secrets from them. “I’m worried that I may have fucked up my ability to do math while drunk.”

Ceri laughed. “Drinking time and math time shouldn’t coincide. That’s why I never count how many I’ve had.”

Simon shook a finger of disagreement at her. “You’re talking about calculation. I’m talking about more interesting math. In the past, when I’ve gotten drunk, it usually gives me an opportunity to focus on whatever problem’s been eating at me in a more slipshod, undisciplined way and come up with a really wrong answer that nonetheless helped me break the mental block. Now ... my thoughts are all over the place.”

“Hmm.” Ceri tilted her head to consider him like he was some unusual specimen she’d never seen before. After a few seconds, she pointed out, “You said ‘usually.’ Doesn’t that mean you sometimes don’t get the desired result?”

Simon frowned. “Well, yeah.”

“So, have you seen a recent trend in negative results that’s concerning or are you overstating a single result for some reason?” Ceri asked, slurring her words a little.

Simon almost shot back that he knew enough basic statistics to spot the difference between a trend and a datapoint before he realized he’d been doing exactly what Ceri suggested. “Shit, yeah. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Why? I thought you were supposed to be a math guy,” Ceri pointed out. “Don’t you know basic statistics?”

Simon tried to shoot her a dark look, but the best he could manage was an amused smirk. “Yeah, I just changed one of the underlying variables and it’s got me worried. Have you ever heard of ayahuasca tea?”

“Ceri, did I invite you to this party?” Max’s high-strung little party planner April stood with his hands on her hips like she was trying to radiate annoyance, but she had the same smirk Simon knew was probably on his own face.

“No, bitch. I’m still not famous enough for you to invite me to any of your stupid parties.” Ceri rose and hugged April fiercely. “Simon invited me.”

Not willing to be left out of the snarkfest, Simon said, “I have much lower standards.”

April glowered at him for a moment, but then laughed. “As if. You just know a rising star when you see one.” She looked at Ceri. “So do you, I guess. Simon here is going to be a master of the universe one day.”

Simon raised an eyebrow. He and April had barely spoken a dozen words to each other. If she was saying that, it was because someone else had to said it to her. Max was the most likely candidate. Simon allowed himself to be a little flattered. He and Max would probably never compliment each other directly, but might praise each other accidentally via a ricochet off an innocent bystander. April said, “Listen, I’ve still got like a million things to do for this party, but we need to catch up stat. I guess you’re not with John anymore?”

Ceri shot Simon a side-eye look. “That’s ... complicated.”

April flushed and covered her mouth, looking at Simon. “Uh, forget I said anything. I said something else ... I said...”

As she thought about it, Simon’s mind raced ahead. “You asked it she was withdrawn anymore.”

“Right, withdrawn!” April raised a finger. “She’s really coming out of her shell these days. I have to run.”

As she took off, Ceri laughed. “I didn’t realize you knew April.”

“I’ve met her once or twice.” Simon shrugged. Glad to have something to talk about beside his own anxieties over tinkering with his brain, he asked, “How do you know April?”

“We went to high school together in Ohio.” Ceri said.

“Wait ... is Cerulean Blue your real name?” Simon asked.

“Cerulean Blue Katowitz. Unlike Miss April Ellsworth, I didn’t have to make up part of my name for it to sound cool,” said Ceri. “Do you know when you get married, you basically get a free pass to change your name?”

“I ... didn’t.” Simon said, not entirely sure he knew it now. People believed a lot of things that turned out to not be true. “But I always fancied myself less of a Simon Anderson and more of a He Man McGillicutty.”

Ceri gave him a genuine laugh and toasted him. Simon toasted her back. Maybe he would meet his quota for human connection tonight after all.

Dennis was starting to feel like he didn’t actually hate practicing his guitar skills. His music teach in grade school had told him he was a gifted musician, but that he had no discipline for learning the parts that didn’t come naturally to him. That had sounded about right to ten year-old Dennis and it still felt true to him. The difference was that, at some point, he’d learned not to feel guilty about his laziness.

That was before he’d agreed to tour with Tiffany Patton. Fucking up onstage at Paddy’s in Brownfield Mills meant that maybe fifty drunks witnessed it and nobody but his bandmates ever called him on his shit. Fucking up onstage with Tiffany meant fifty thousand people saw and a hundred people who made their living on your music got up your Kool Aid about their mortgages and putting their kids through college or something. Dennis didn’t actually know that for sure, but imagining the opprobrium was enough of an incentive to bear down.

On the other hand, Tiffany had been impressed with a certain punk rock ability Dennis had to play through a mistake. The rest of the band were studio musicians by trade. When they fucked up, they generally just stopped and started again until they got it perfect. Tiffany had been following their lead until Dennis fucked up a pedal change in You Don’t Have To Cry and instead of stopping had added a flourish and a bridge back to where he was supposed to be. Einav the bassist had gotten annoyed with him for “trying” to hide his mistakes and called him an “American Idiot,” but Dennis had smoothly segued into that song and Tiffany had sung along immediately. Within a minute, the whole band was following along. After that, Einav still called Dennis “American Idiot,” but it seemed to be more a title of respect than approbation.

Today, they’d started practicing at eleven in the morning and played through until eight at night skipping lunch. For the first time, the band seemed to be clicking on all cylinders and nobody wanted to stop. Even at eight, it was Tiffany who called a halt. “I’ve got a hard stop here, guys. I’ve got to meet with some big donors from the Nepal fund.”

“I thought the idiot was your biggest investor. Isn’t that why we’re throwing him this rock and roll fantasy camp?” Einav suggested.

Tiffany just smirked. “Let’s try to get another early start tomorrow. I want to hammer down a version of Hell Would Be Hell Without You that doesn’t suck. Take it easy tonight. Dennis, ride with me?”

Dennis followed Tiffany to the limo that would take them back to her townhouse on the outskirts of London. Both of them were sweaty enough for their hair to look flat and lifeless and their clothes to stick to them uncomfortably. As the car pulled away from the curb, Dennis quipped, “You know, when I signed up for the rock and roll lifestyle, nobody mentioned it requiring a strong work ethic.”

Tiffany laughed and grabbed a bottle of water from the car’s mini-fridge. “You were probably recruited by fucking artists who wanted it to be all about the music. This is a precision operation, man.”

Dennis smirked and reached across for his own water bottle. Once, he might have thought Tiffany was entirely serious or entirely kidding, but the truth was more complicated than either of those positions. She really did want to make good music and she really did want to make a fortune doing it. He was learning a lot from working with her. “Do you want to go over that tab you were working on after dinner?”

Tiffany shook her head. “Let’s play it by ear tonight. Who knows what might come up?”

Dennis didn’t think much about that comment until they got to the house and he headed downstairs. The people who’d owned this house before Tiffany had partitioned off half of the ground level to rent out as a separate apartment. It was now Dennis’s home away from home. As he came down the stairs, his living room light was already on and there was a moisture in the air that the air conditioning couldn’t entirely mask. He called down, “Hello...”

“In here...” called a woman’s voice from the bedroom.

Dennis thought he recognized the voice, but it belonged to someone who shouldn’t be anywhere near here and who had been unhappy with him the last time they’d spoken. It wasn’t until he opened the bedroom door and was met by Emily in a sheer black negligee that he was willing to believe he wasn’t just hearing her voice everywhere. Before he could think of anything to say, she leaned in, drew his head down to meet hers and kissed him in a way that made it impossible to doubt her intent. Dennis didn’t understand, but he wasn’t about to fight what they both wanted. He wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to his chest. When his fingertips brushed against the hard leather collar around her neck, he draw back and looked at her. “What are you doing in London?”

“We stopped by on our way home to see you.” Emily smiled at him.

“We?” Dennis looked past her. “Is there anyone else back there?”

Emily laughed. “No. Nick and Pilar are meeting with Tiffany now and we have dinner reservations at eleven.” She traced a finger down his chest. “That gives us a couple of hours if you want to catch up.”

Dennis swallowed hard, trying to keep his cool, a very difficult task when Emily King was practically naked in front of him. “I thought you’d be with Nick by now.”

“You were right.” Emily lowered her eyes for a moment. “With Nick and Tanvi and Pilar since we spoke last. I’ve been a busy girl, Dennis. But right now, I’m here with you.”

Dennis wanted to take what Emily was so clearly offering, but he’d acted rashly without considering the consequences once already this month. Even though the consequences hadn’t been as dire as he’d imagined, he didn’t want to keep pushing his luck. “Does Nick know?”

“Someone told Nick you thought he wouldn’t be willing to share a woman with his friends. He asked if I wanted to prove you wrong.” Emily was practically purring as her fingertips traced Dennis’s waist like she couldn’t wait to strip him down. “When I said yes, he decided we should stop in London on our way home from Angola.”

Dennis ran his fingertips over the cool, smooth patent leather of the collar. “What’s this all about?”

“Ah.” Emily blushed and lowered her eyes. When she spoke again, she did so slowly as if what she had to say was of great import and should be taken seriously. “Well, while I was being ravished in Paris, Pilar asked me if I wanted to be a slave to her and Nick and my other lovers. And I realized that was exactly what I wanted, so I said yes.”

She hadn’t looked up as she said it and Dennis found himself taking her by her chin to force her to look in his eyes. He couldn’t name what he was feeling in the moment, but he knew he was feeling it very strongly. “Seriously?”

Emily gave him a sly smile. “For now, anyway. They promised I could give the collar back and end the experiment if it didn’t work for me.”

Dennis had a million half-formed questions, but one shouldered its way to the front of his mind. He traced the smooth leather of the collar again. “So ... are you my slave, too?”

Emily got a wicked gleam in her eye. “No, I don’t think so. You left, buddy. You’re going to have to settle for being the first guy I have sex with because Nick told me to.”

Dennis chuckled at the bizarre mental image. “Did Nick really send you to me?”

“After I suggested he could.” Emily wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and pressed her body against his. “We thought this would be easier than starting with a stranger.”

Dennis cupped her breast and stroked her nipple through the sheer fabric with the pad of his thumb. “You don’t really think he’ll send you to a stranger, do you?”

Emily closed her eyes and pressed herself into his hand. “You didn’t think he’d send me to you, did you?”

Dennis leaned in and kissed the crook of her neck above the collar. “This doesn’t seem like something he’d come up with on his own. Nick’s too nice a guy.”

“Maybe.” Emily ran her hands down Dennis’s torso until she could untuck his t-shirt and draw it upwards. “But Pilar isn’t nice at all and Nick listens to her suggestions.”

Dennis raised his head so that their mouths met. As much as he enjoyed kissing Emily, he also needed a minute to process everything she was telling him. He’d expected Emily and her situation to be different the next time he saw her, but he’d also thought that would be around Thanksgiving. As the kiss went on, he guided Emily back until there was nothing between her and the bed.

After that, there were no more words. Women didn’t come to Dennis Anderson for words. And as much as he could enjoy talking to Emily, Dennis hadn’t been drawn to her for her conversational skills. They slowly undressed each other, relearning contours that Dennis at least had already been homesick for.

When Emily knelt to suck Dennis’s cock, she had a new assertiveness and certainty that he certainly wasn’t going to complain about even though he did have to draw her away or finish sooner than expected.

Later, their bodies moved in a beautiful synchronicity and their panting breath matched as their bodies grew slick with sweat. Emily locked her ankles together behind Dennis’s back, flexing her legs to drive him forward and deeper with each thrust. Dennis hadn’t realized how much Emily had held back with him until she wasn’t holding back anymore. Part of her earlier reserve had to have been her sprained ankle, but a greater part of it must have been an unwillingness to share all of herself with Dennis when she really wanted to be with Nick. Dennis could resent being used as a stepping stone and did a little, but he couldn’t complain about how thoroughly Emily gave herself to him now that she belonged to someone else.

After they’d thoroughly satisfied themselves with each other’s bodies, Dennis lay on his back catching his breath while Emily lay sprawled face down, pulse fluttering visibly in her veins. He reached over to trace her spine and felt her body vibrating with after-effects. Quietly, he said, “I am sorry I ran off on you without saying anything, Emily. I ... know it hasn’t been very long, but I feel like I’ve been doing some real growing since I got to London.”

Emily raised her head to smile at him. “I don’t think growth is restricted much by time. I’m not the same girl you left in Milan either. Sometimes, all it takes is a decision to grow into something more than what you were.”

Dennis knew Emily was talking about herself more than him, but he couldn’t help think how many decisions he’d been forced to make since leaving his friends behind in Milan. Taking music more seriously and himself less so were huge changes and still taking some time to consistently apply. Quietly, he asked, “How long will you be in London?”

“Just until morning, I believe,” said Emily.

Dennis had been glancing at the clock, doing the mental calculus of what they had time for before dinner and knowing he would cut things close if he tried anything else with Emily just now. “So ... just one night?”

“Maybe if you ask nicely.” Emily answered. “I’ve only been told to come here before dinner.”

Dennis couldn’t imagine asking Nick or even Pilar if he could borrow Emily for the night and was hoping Emily might ask them for him. He said, “You brought it up with Nick last time, but I guess I can’t compete with all of your lovers...”

Emily rolled on her side to look at him. “You don’t have to compete. I’ll go where I’m told.”

Dennis sighed. “I guess you’re taking this slave thing pretty seriously?”

“Completely.” Emily sat up and rose from the bed. “I don’t think it works unless I commit myself to it absolutely. You must understand the appeal of a total lack of responsibility for your own actions.”

“Touche,” said Dennis.

Emily rolled her eyes. “Not that kind of irresponsibility. I mean the kind where you can let yourself be tied up and blindfolded for a room full of strangers or sleep with the gorgeous guy who blew you off in Milan without worrying you’re being a pushover.”

Dennis allowed himself a laugh at that. “I can see the appeal of the whole blindfolded and tied thing, but the guy in Milan sounds like he’s kind of a jerk.”

Just before Emily disappeared into the bathroom, she turned back to look at him. “He’s a rock star. What can you do?”

Dennis lay on the bed and listened as the shower started. He closed his eyes and imagined the water streaming over Emily’s body, the droplets gathering on her skin one by one until they joined into streams that coursed down between her breasts and over the curve of her hips. The image in his mind’s eye was enough to make him hard again. If he thought he could get away with it, he would join her in the shower for another round, but he knew he was on thin ice with Emily in spite of her sudden reappearance.

He wasn’t used to wanting a woman this badly after he’d already been with her. Ever since he’d become aware of girls as an object of desire, Dennis had drifted from one obsession to another. His experience was that no one, no matter how beautiful, smart, or funny lived up to the fantasy he’d built in his head around them once you got close to them - not until he’d been with Emily King.

Allowing himself a sigh, Dennis kicked his dirty clothes into a corner of the room and threw on some nearly identical ones - faded blue jeans, a vintage Scorpions t-shirt, and the studded leather belt he’d bought at fifteen for his first band, Double Vengeance. He’d brought it from Brownfield Mills to New York without much consideration, then from New York to Milan with forethought, knowing he might leave directly for London. It was the only article in his old wardrobe that explicitly said he wanted to be rock and roll.

Once dressed, he went looking for his old friend Nick. Since Nick had come into his inheritance, he’d taken pains to assure Dennis and his other friends that he was still the same person and had no plans to let the money change him. Dennis had largely taken him at his word even as he suspected it couldn’t really last. He definitely hadn’t expected Nick to not only scoop up the most beautiful woman Dennis had met, but to put a slave collar on her within weeks of doing so. It wasn’t something he thought real people actually did. It sounded like something out of badly-written porn.

Even though he lived in an apartment attached to Tiffany’s house that the previous owners had rented out to boarders, Dennis knew his way around the rest of the house pretty well. He might have gotten the opportunity to meet Tiffany because she wanted Nick’s money, but they’d been hanging out nearly every day before or after rehearsals. When he heard the sound of Spanish guitar, it was easy to follow the notes to the receiving room even though it involved going upstairs and down again to find the place.

He found Nick standing and watching as Pilar performed some sensual dance that was all about moving her hips and chest while Tiffany played. At Nick’s left, Tiffany’s assistant James was showing him something on a pad. On his right, Tanvi held her own pad on which she looked up some fact or another to confirm what James was saying. Everyone was, to one degree or another, performing for Nick’s approval. As Dennis first entered the room, approaching from Nick’s back, he thought his old friend was wearing a suit, but it turned out to be a jacket, chinos, and a plain black t-shirt. It wasn’t a strange outfit, but it was strange to see Nick wearing it. Even though Nick’s wardrobe transformation had happened weeks before they left for Milan, in Dennis’s imagination, he was still wearing torn jeans, a t-shirt with something nerdy on it, and grass-stained sneakers.

Dennis felt his stomach sink momentarily at the idea that Nick was changing so quickly that they wouldn’t even know each other after a week. Then Nick turned and saw him, his face breaking out in a big, goofy grin. He strode over and clasped Dennis in a fierce hug. “There you are. That took ... a respectably long time.”

Dennis flushed a little. “I ... uh, guess I should thank you for that?”

“She wanted to stop by on the way home and we were originally going to stop in Paris anyway.” Nick patted Dennis on the shoulder so that their eyes met as he made a little gesture with his head towards Tiffany, probably as a reminder that Tiffany didn’t know anything about Emily’s enslavement. “Do you think Emily will be down in time for us to make our reservation?”