Chapter 2: A Pentagon

"Weird," said Joseph to himself walking around the five sided two story building that occupied a square block in an old industrial park on the outskirts of Washington DC filled with desolate factory and warehouse buildings. The one side that abutted the street seemed the likely main entrance. A chiseled "Y" and a square knot adorned the stone above the black door. Before pressing the odd alighted doorbell shaped in a skull and crossbones Joseph followed the uneven gray stones and softly curved wood--not planks but the semicircular convexity of logs--which constituted, along with a sparkling grayish white concrete serving as mortar, the material of the walls, letting their amorphous shapes guide his eyes to flow around the entire building. A second circumnavigation he discovered a large subtle shape on each of the four angled walls which, when he defocused his eyes like hunting for imagery in a puzzle, turned out to be letters. Traveling right to left, they formed the word: FITZ.

At last he pressed the forbidding button. He could hear a resonant note sounding like a gong struck and reverberating. He could swear the wall trembled with the tone. It faded and he waited. A minute later, seeming like several, the door opened.

A young man appearing to be barely drinking age peered through his small round wire rimmed spectacles at Joseph. Small and skinny and fragile looking with lank brunette hair in a chaos of waves surrounding his thin pale face that featured an impressively long nose, dressed in a worn chambray shirt with frayed cuffs tucked into once black jeans that had become more shades of gray, the man looked serious when he spoke the word, "Yes?"

"Gina sent me," said Joseph.

The serious young man smiled, making him look even younger. "Come in."

Past the door quickly shut by the skinny man, Joseph found himself in a large space lit red and dim by a neon structure attached to the right wall, a pirate flag in a curving wave, skull and crossbones like the doorbell. A couple feet in front of the tubing sat a large oak desk facing front with two padded steel chairs facing the desk. The young man gestured to a chair. "Have a seat."

The man pressed the round dial beside the entrance and the dim red space become a well lit white via frosted glass spheres hanging at various heights above their heads. The ceiling had to be high—15 feet to be exact—to accommodate the spheres' display.

"Name?" asked the young man, sitting at the desk, the chair high backed and regally spread wide around his head. He stroked keys on a laptop on the desk.

"Uh, Joseph."

"Welcome FITZjoseph, my name is FITZwilliam."

"Just Joseph."

FITZwilliam smiled. "Formally you are FITZjoseph here. Informally I'm Billy. How did FITZjean come to invite you?"

"You mean Gina of course. Well ... After she gave me a massage and..."

"No need for shyness. I understand. I found her audition to be most invigorating, most relaxing and most satisfying."

"Yes. She's quite good at it." Joseph found the matter-of-fact discussion of sex refreshing. Billy neither blushed nor stuttered.

"So she interviewed you."

"Briefly I guess."

"What did she ask?"

"If I ever killed anyone."

"She's direct," said Billy a little tensely. "And?"

"Never have."

"What else?"

"She asked about my martial skills. I'm fast and box and perform Tae Kwon Do pretty well, though my training ended abruptly."

"I see. And weapons?"

"No."

"Ever shot a gun, wield a knife or stick?"

"Never needed to. Never wanted to."

"What else did she ask?"

"She asked if I would defend a loved one to the death."

"Good. And?"

"I wouldn't know."

"I see."

"But..."

"Go ahead."

"I think I would. When I saw that scar on her face and the bruising, I wanted to kill the man who did it."

Billy smiled. "Interesting. Why do you think that was?"

"I don't know. She seems ... good somehow. Pure despite her ... occupation. She would never give anyone cause to disfigure her unless he was evil. I wanted to rid the world of such a monster."

"Did it work? Did he make her ugly?"

"No. She's ... radiant."

Billy chuckled. "Love," he said within it.

"Well, I just met her and..."

"You're right my friend, it's a bit quick. Could I tell you a story?"

"Would it explain this?" asked Joseph gesturing to his surroundings.

"Indirectly perhaps. We'll get to that when the others come together."

"Others?"

"The other FITZ."

"Oh. Okay. Go ahead."

"A few years back while I attended undergraduate school at Princeton..." Billy began.

"A few years? How old are you?"

"Older than I look. I started college a couple years early, but..."

"I'm really curious."

"I'm twenty-eight."

"Wow."

"Yeah. It used to bother me inordinately, but I find it useful now. Lowered expectation can be helpful. Anyway, I had a classmate there, a most popular fellow named Nelson. His group of preppy friends found me an odd addition, too young, too small, too nerdy, but I managed to charm them. And I became Nelson's closest, his Lieutenant if you will.

"Nelson had a knack for collecting coeds. He'd use them, please them—his bedroom skills had been well honed from an early age—and he'd abuse them in the end and toss them out like tissue after masturbation. I had first hand knowledge because I'd end up with the girlfriend of the girl, the one not chosen, and we'd play in the same room. Sometimes I joined Nelson in pleasuring his latest conquest. I deflowered more than a couple anuses. Different as night and day, Nelson and I shared one aspect: we both were omni-sexual, not put off by the male genitals, though neither of us enjoyed sex without women present. I've since lost such objections. Sensual couplings can be most interesting and intense when silly fears and prejudices can be set aside. But that discussion's for another time.

"During Sophomore year—such an appropriate word: foolish wisdom—I met the woman of my dreams. I took dance. She stood out like a rose in a jungle of thistles. A freshman, she obviously had far more training in dance than anyone else. Immediately attracted to this lush, cute, bright, dirty blonde young woman with soft curves and impish grin, I befriended her. Even without the attraction, being the ambitious student I figured her obvious skills would help my grade if I partnered with her.

"After several post class discussions where our friendship blossomed, and late parties with smuggled booze in the coed dorm which added intimacy to our friendship—it took awhile to consummate our relationship because she had broken up with her hometown beau and he ended up stalking her, even showing up on campus fortunately without me in bed with her, and she wanted to avoid such insanity—I insisted we partner for the final piece of choreography. I remember her visage changing from doubt to her adorable impish grin as her mind puzzled out possibilities. She actually laughed and told me I'd hate her idea.

"I understood her amusement and warning when we began working with two others, a cute freshman of Asian parentage barely five feet tall and a large man, gay as can be. It was a study in gender and convention shattering. Lindy, my lover, had an inch of height over me and a much fuller and stronger body. The piece explored various permutations of relationships and sizes: boy/girl; girl/girl; boy/boy. By the end, while the gay man lifted the petite woman and caught her, Lindy lifted me and caught me.