Sex, drugs, and theological schisms....

Demimonde is the story of Brandon Arthur, a freelance industrial designer whose introduction to a glitzy, invisible subculture precedes a holy war that tears this secret society asunder. As the conflict worsens, Brandon and his paramour murder his other seducer, which brings the schism to its flashpoint. Over the course of the war, Brandon struggles with his understanding of the secret world, remaining unconvinced of his relationship to it and what he wants from it. Along the way, he encounters an unorthodox priest, a sect of neo-fascists, an underground casino that finances the war, and the animated corpses of soldiers he watched fall in battle.

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1.

There is a world out there you don't know because you don't see it. You don't see it because you don't want to see it. It's not safe. You're better off not knowing it's there.

I don't mean to come off as a prick, I promise. A lot of what I was up to is going to sound bad, and it may sound a little like I'm suggesting that your safe world is a comfortable denial. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that sometimes you learn something horribly fucked‐up by landing in the middle of it. You're not a part of that, so good on you.

I knew I was in the company of the crazies from the moment I started cutting up the coke on the hotel bathroom counter.

The hotel room was a nineteenth‐floor suite, not cheap. It was full of A-list nobodies, people who are at the apex of their own small worlds but invisible if you didn't care to look for them. Models, rockers from bands nobody ever heard of, drug dealers, socialites, hookers, the alderman's daughters. It was that sort of scene. We were all drunk and high, kissing each other's tits or dicks, throwing lamps out the windows and shouting curses off the balcony. I saw an unsigned pop starlet attempt to put her CD into the player, then I saw a guy with a choppy haircut unplug the whole damn thing and plug his iPod into the stereo instead. He liked Gary Numan.

It was a sordid scene, so I ran with it. I wasn't really sure how I ended up here — I was at Circle/Square for Pretty Jenny's DJ set when all of the sudden this 300‐person cloud of vodka fumes and meth dust blew through the place, carrying me along in its wake. Next thing I knew, hotel suite.

I was there, cutting up coke with someone else's credit card. There was a girl in the bathroom with me, keen to the idea of my drugs, which I planned to give her for free, of course — well, actually, in exchange for a little company. Her shirt was open, showing her small breasts and skinny arms. The shower curtain had been pulled shut next to us, the seat was up on the toilet, and two obviously used hotel hand towels hung askew on the rod. The drinking glasses were gone, no doubt in someone's hand in the chaotic room. A coffee maker also stood on the bathroom counter, but the carafe was gone.

Chop, chop, chop. She tooted a line. Me, too. I bumped a stray from my sloppy cut. She rubbed some of the scattered bump on her gums. Then my hands were on her tits, her hand went toward my crotch and our mouths made some half‐assed attempt at a French kiss. I remember being pretty proud of myself because I'd been coked for three hours and somehow still managed a hard‐on.

Then something suddenly stole my attention, like somebody else had just walked past the room, even though I didn't see anyone there. I closed the door — I didn't want to share the coke with some freeloading stiff‐dick or let him cop a grope on what's‐her‐name here.

The shower curtain. A tiny voice, just a whisper. Part of a conversation, it must have been, an inaudible conversation from which only the last few muffled words emerged: "Sanctimonious whore."

What the hell did that mean? Who did it refer to? The girl I was with? It didn't make any sense. The strangeness of it captured me and I missed a beat, fucking up the rhythm of the make‐out. "Oh, shit," the girl said as she pulled away from me. "You're gay, aren't you?"

I laughed. "No, I just— I heard something. I thought I heard someone... somebody calling me." Lame. She wasn't having any of it. She thanked me for the coke, buttoned up her shirt crookedly, and walked out of the bathroom with a reticent look back, muttering something about fags.

I looked around and shrugged at nobody in particular. Then I pulled the door shut again.

A slim hand emerged from inside the shower stall, pushing the shower curtain aside. The hand belonged to a girl. She said, "Sorry," but she had a quizzical look on her face.

She repeated, "Sorry." The girl was maybe five‐and‐a‐half feet tall, with brown hair cut severely across the nape of her neck. A shock of vibrant, artificially pink hair bordered either side of her face. Ramones t‐shirt. Sunglasses that covered a third of her entire face. Pegged plaid bondage pants and chewing gum. She smelled like lavender.

Something wasn't quite right about her. In my mind, I saw a mannequin. All the proper pieces were in the right place, but somehow they didn't add up to a person. The face was there, yes, the eyes, arms, legs, and body of a human shape, an attractive human shape, but they felt unright.

"You were at the club," I said to her. I mentally blamed my lack of conversation skill on the weirdness of the situation.

"Yeah, I go sometimes." Either she was shit for conversation or she had been caught off guard, too.

"Do you know whose suite this is?" I asked. That always broke the ice well: the cool‐enough‐to‐be‐here‐but‐can't‐be‐bothered‐with‐thepleasantries routine.

"No. Well, yes. Do you have any more of that?" She motioned to the countertop. I did. She may as well have it, I figured. She was a striking girl, and maybe I could switch one for the other. Also, I wanted to see if she had actual nostrils or they were just painted on her ceramic‐seeming face. I cut more on the counter, four skinny rails. She looked up at me, almost accusatorily, then hit a line.

While her face was over the marble countertop, I looked into the shower stall. A faint bulb of pearly gunk slid down the drain. Spit? Soap? I didn't know what the hell it was.

"What's that shit?" I heard myself say. Fuck. Too much coke. I'm talking faster than I can think. I offered a weak smile.

"It's Jill's... you know. That shit she always leaves behind."

I smelled lilacs. "Jill?"

"Jill. Shanky Jill. Don't tell me you don't know her? It's her suite."

I didn't know any Jills, in fact. Maybe one from some boozy school year, but I didn't recall any inherent slime associated with anyone. I hazarded a dubious question: "She's the slime?" So cool. So collected. A master of my environment.

The girl stopped in the middle of her second line. "No, dumbfuck, she just went down the drain, gone as gone. How much of this have you had? Oh, shit, this is just coke, isn't it?"

My brain went two different directions at once. First, I was worried about the matter‐of‐fact way in which she described this phantom Jill's travel by way of shower plumbing. Second, I was offended that she thought I was fucking around with something steeper than coke. It's not like I'm a goddamn junky.

"It's just coke."

"You don't know Shanky Jill." It wasn't a question anymore.

"I know Jack and Jill." Which I did. Up the hill.

A look crossed her face, but whether it was fear or just shock, I didn't know. "You can't be serious. Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?" She waved a hand in front of my face. Then she turned her body a little sideways, looking at me out of the corner of her left eye. "You can see me?"

What the hell was this conversation? "I just cut you some coke, didn't I?"

"Yeah. I guess you did."

And then she spoke in tongues.

I have no idea what she said. The language — which I later learned was Latin — didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before. The syllables didn't form real words. They were more like a continual roll of musical tones or lyrics pouring out of her mouth.

"I have no idea what that means," I replied, fighting a bit of fatigue that had just pressed itself over me. Suddenly getting tired didn't make any sense, either, as I had just snorted blow off the countertop. Even under the sleepiness, I could still feel the electric snow in my lungs and charging through my veins.

"I'm sorry. Just checking," she said. "This is... weird."

"You're telling me. Look, uh, I'm going to leave. I'm going to pretend this is a minor freakout or a flashback or maybe coke paranoia. I'm going to go out there and dance to Gary Numan or Black Kids or whatever's playing out there now."

She took on a falsely coy air all of the sudden, that postured demureness that slutty girls paint on their faces to make you feel like you're going to have to put forth an effort. "Don't be rash. Do you think I want you to go?" She moved forward a bit, into my space, and grabbed the lapels of my jacket. A tiny smile crossed my lips. She closed in further, her thighs on either side of my leg, and maneuvered me back into a half‐sit on the countertop.

I tipped my head to one side and closed my eyes, leaning in for the kiss. Her mouth tasted like the scent of lavender. It was a titillating experience, with her taking a more aggressive role than me, and the strangeness of what had just gone on made the whole thing that much more sensory. The coke moved through me, the inexplicable details of a few moments ago added a shade of the dangerous unknown, and the flavor of her mouth washed over me like a wave. I gave up to it, let the experience pull me out on its own terms, let her guide me where she wanted me, which turned out to be inside her.

In contrast to the moment's delicacy, I was glad I hadn't wasted the hardon. Still, the whole thing didn't feel as tawdry or sordid as bathroom fucks tend to be. In the afterglow, I felt that somehow, I had just done something that was important.

"Is it going to spoil everything if I ask you your name?" I probed, after our impromptu closeness.

"Gloria. Gloria Casares. Yours?"

"Brandon Arthur."

She paused a moment, losing her confident air for just a fraction of a second, but then regained herself and rolled her eyes. "Of course it is."

I cocked an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

"If you don't know already, I'm sure you will soon."

It wasn't the answer I was looking for. It was almost like the question meant something different to either of us.

Then she walked out of the bathroom and back into the party. I couldn't find her again for the rest of the night.

2.

Almost two months after that night, my cell rang, and even before I knew who was on the other end, I felt a tremendous sense of foreboding. It didn't help that I was nursing a vicious hangover, lying in bed, debating in my mind whether or not to go ahead and give in to the inevitable dry heaves I knew were coming.

My apartment was a wreck. Design magazines scattered all over the coffee table. A little baggie of coke spilled on the dresser. Winestains on the desk. Wrinkled pants thrown over the back of the chair. Shaving stubble in the sink. Some half‐assed attempt at a schematic taped to the drafting board. There was a mostly‐gone bag of dog food next to the counter. I didn't have a dog, but every now and then this street dog I had taken to calling El Sketcho came snuffling around the front door and I brought him down a bowl of kibble. He seemed like a decent sort.

"Hello?" I croaked into the phone.

"Good afternoon, Brandon. This is Gloria. We met at a party a few weeks ago?"

"Gloria? Hi, Gloria. Yeah. That party. In the hotel." Something wasn't right.

"That's right. You don't sound well."

"A bit too much of a— things got out of hand last night."

"Well, I hope you're not too broken down."

"No, not too bad. I'm human. I'll heal."

"I'm glad to hear that, Brandon. Listen, do you think you might be able to meet me for lunch sometime? I was hoping for this week."

I sat up, a little more interested in where this was headed, but still nervous about the seeming out‐of‐nowhereness of the call. "Yeah, I can probably do something this week. What time is it?" Play it cool, Brandon. Be nonchalant. Make her work for it.

"It's two‐thirty. Listen, I have to run. I just wanted to make sure I called you while you were on my mind. You have my number now. Give me a call this week when you're feeling better."

"M'kay. See you soon, Gloria." Click.

An hour later, with tears in my eyes as I hunched over the toilet, I recalled that I had never given Gloria my phone number.

---

I called Gloria back early in the week to make a date for dinner, since I was so busy with one of my industrial design contract projects during the day. Having dinner would be a welcome break from computer modeling scissor axle assemblies for ten to fourteen hours. I didn't mention the mystery of how she got my phone number because I didn't want to put her on edge going into the meal. Something was weird and I wanted to know what it was and I wasn't going to find out by going in with guns blazing.

We agreed to meet at Verdad, a hipster bistro with a very real faux-asshole mentality. The food was bad, the service was worse, it was offensively pricey — and it was always inexplicably full. Verdad wasn't really much more than a glorified bar, with its one‐cook kitchen open to the dining room and lounge. Whenever the cook fucked up, which was
often, the whole place smelled like fish or grease fire.

It was a safe place, though, very visible so as to reduce the potential for embarrassing dramatics. I chose it because it would work well, whatever my agenda ended up being. If I had that thrill of giddiness when I saw Gloria again and wanted to try for another go‐round, the place would make me seem sophisticated. If I didn't want to pursue anything with her, it was a nice and expensive enough place that Gloria wouldn't dog out my personal worth to her girlfriends. You know — in case I ended up going out with any of them at any point. It never occurred to me that Gloria might have had a reason for seeking me out that didn't involve my unbridled desirability.

I put my best foot forward for the impending reunion. It took twenty minutes spent carefully mussing my hair to impart the proper degree of indifference. Distressed jeans and a brown pinstriped Zegna blazer, square‐toed brown shoes.

Most people I know would go casually late to such an event. I hate that shit. I went to all my events whenever I got around to them, usually about fifteen to twenty minutes early. Going a little early also made it possible to do some valuable social recon. There might be another girl there worth the effort if things went south with Gloria. I might run into someone I knew and be able to use the early minutes catching up with him. If Gloria herself was there early, I could mentally prepare for trouble, because that meant she'd have something grave on her mind. If nothing else, I could have a drink to relax myself. Not that I didn't have a couple Miller High Lifes before leaving my apartment.

I arrived and the half‐Asian hostess rolled her eyes at the prospect of me getting a table for two. The lounge was loud with conversation and Brazilian Girls' "Homme." I ordered a gin and tonic, which came heavy on the tonic and pulpy with lime.

Gloria arrived unapologetically half an hour later than she said she would.

"We're never going to be able to get a table now," I admonished with exaggerated disappointment, three drinks up.

"I would never eat here anyway," she replied.

"Then why'd you want to meet here?"

"So we could leave." It was a sultry statement, laden with innuendo. Leave with me? Be seen leaving? Some subtle snub to someone else that I didn't understand? I didn't care, really. Gloria looked great, all plunging neckline and retro‐feathered auburn hair, an as‐yet‐unknown new‐breed darling channeling 70s‐era Farrah Fawcett.

And we left, taking a cab across town to a place near Farris Park, next to St. Oda's church. I paid in cash.

The place was nothing, really, an Italian joint that was as close to a pizzeria as you could get without having pizza on the menu. Gloria didn't want to have much dinner anyway, just more drinks and some caponata. The bar was sticky and held onto my glass when I set it down.

We made small talk that diverted into something arguably more serious halfway through a plate of beets, goat cheese, and walnuts scooped into endive leaves. Gloria asked me, "Do you believe in God?"

I cringed inwardly. Things had been going so well... and now this. In my experience, "Do you believe in God?" means one of two things. It means either the girl you've been cozying up to for half the night isn't going to put out (it's used either as a fuck‐off line or it's sincere, which is arguably worse) or it means that the girl is as dumb as a bag of hammers and is going for the heavy topics to seem deep. I ruled the first out, as I'd already screwed Gloria on a hotel countertop while we were both high on coke. She seemed too well‐spoken and savvy for the latter possibility to apply, though. Was this genuine?

"I don't know, really. I don't go to church, if that's the question."

"No, that's not the question. Straight up, do you believe in God?"

"I guess I believe in a god, probably. Not necessarily the Christian God. I've got a friend who's Jewish—"

"What does a god look like? Is it a he? A she?"

"This is a weird conversation all of the sudden."

"Answer me, Brandon. Trust me. I'm going to take this somewhere that doesn't suck."

"Well, I guess it's a guy. White hair and a beard and all that shit. Rays of holy light and a white robe and fat little angel kids flying around. Cherubs. They have trumpets, I think."

"Do you really think that or are you just projecting?"

"Whoah, what's with the pop psychology?"

"It's a legitimate question," she said. "I want to know maybe if this god looks like a specific god or if it's just a jumble of pre‐built ideas."

I looked around for the bartender or a waitress, to see if anyone else was hearing this distressing line of discussion. The waitress was nowhere to be seen and the bartender was watching a soccer game on the TV.

"I'm not a believer in one specific... I mean, I guess growing up as a white guy in the United States makes me have certain, I don't know, expectations."

"Preconceptions."

"Okay," I relented.

"Don't patronize me. Look, I can tell you're kind of swerved by the conversation. Let's go for a walk in the park."

"Farris Park? It's closed by now, isn't it? Anyway, it's all full of junkies and bums."

"Oh, well, pardon me. I didn't know I was in the company of the sheikh."

"Fine. We'll go for a walk in the park. Can we get these drinks to go?" I shook my glass at the bartender, who seemed jolted from his soccergame reverie by the reminder that we were still there. He poured our drinks into plastic cups and mumbled about open container laws while I settled the bill.

We crossed the street into the park as a dozen or so blackbirds flew out of the church tower. The bushes were just a bit overgrown, intruding a tiny bit into the circular courtyard where a few weeds pressed up through the cracks in the concrete. No sooner were we into the park proper than the bums came crawling out, like zombies from a late‐sixties horror movie. Instead of chopping them with machetes, though, we just pre‐empted their requests for change with "Sorry. No cash." When we finally found a bench and took a seat, the press of zombie‐bums abated.

"It's a pretty night." I admit, I was trying to force the conversation into something more pedestrian.

Gloria agreed. "It really makes you take notice of what's around you. Look at those trees over there. And listen to the water running under the bridge."

"And those tweakers flipping out."

"Don't ruin it," Gloria countered, but smiled her stunning smile at me anyway. Then she took my hand in hers. Her hands were small, smooth, without any of the lines at the knuckles that other people have. I thought that was a fine detail to notice in the relative darkness of the park's lamplights. "I think we're a lot alike, Brandon."

Oh, shit. "What do you mean?"

"I think you and I have a lot in common. I just think you don't know what that is."

"Okay, Gloria, that's enough. Drop the cryptic bullshit. It's been going on too long. What are you talking about?"

"Direct. No nonsense. I like that about you, Brandon. So here you go: You've got an old curse on you that goes back to before you were born and before your parents were born and way back before even their parents were born."

I blinked. "You are one whacked‐out broad."

"I have the same curse. Hear me out. You ever notice that other people don't notice you unless you force them to?"

"Is this some kind of post‐modern urban alienation trip?"

"People don't make eye contact with you. You never get wrong‐number phone calls. The pizza guy gets lost on the way to your apartment even though he's been delivering to you for three years — and he doesn't remember your name. You don't get pulled over when you're speeding. They don't look at your ID at a bar. You get cable but you've never paid
for the installation or the monthly fee."

Well... yeah. That's all true, actually. "There's a long way between having a shitty pizza guy and being cursed," I said.

"At the restaurant, the bartender forgot we were there. You startled him when you asked him to pay the tab."

"Okay, but the bums came to hassle us the moment we came into the park. Why didn't they overlook us, too?"

"Because you said they would. You wanted them to see you, to prove your point. You invited them in, so to speak."

In my mind, I was screaming at myself to get the hell away from this crazy slut, but part of me itched at the truth of what she was saying. It had a strange ring of truth. I'd coasted through schools. I'd had to file three change‐of‐address forms and finally complain in person at the post office when I moved from my previous apartment to the one I lived in
currently. The fucking pizza guy. "You're saying I'm invisible? We're invisible?" I pointed back and forth between us.

"Not in so many words. People don't see us and don't react to us because they don't want to. It's not that we can't be seen — we're not invisible. People see around us. They forget we're here within moments of seeing us. They blot us out. We're more like unvisible. Consciously or subconsciously, regular people want to pretend we're not here. That's
the curse."

"It's metaphysical or something?" Goddamn, but it bothers me when creepy shit makes its own oblique sense. I put some of the other pieces together, too. The other girl in the hotel bathroom hadn't noticed Gloria in the shower. That Jill woman who had the suite in her name, who I hadn't even seen. Gloria talked like she knew her, so she must have been invisible, too. Unvisible. The curse. Sweet Jesus, it was so weird that all the details supported such an absurd suggestion — and I could feel myself understanding it.

"I wouldn't try to look at it too deeply. There's no scientific answer. It's one of the strange ways the world works and that's just how it is."

"How do you know, then? If there's no way to... I don't know, quantify it or whatever, how do you know that people aren't just ignoring you actively?"

"Don't make me out to be an asshole. Everything I just told you is true. I could stab you in the throat right here in the park in front of all these bums with one of the dirty syringes on the ground and they wouldn't even see it, let alone call the cops, let alone remember anything about either of us if you actually made a police report yourself or ran screaming from the park."

"Jesus Christ, calm down."

"I'm not upset, Brandon, I'm just explaining what you asked me as best I can. I'm not going to stab you. Well, I'm not going to stab you now. Piss me off later and I reserve the right to do what's appropriate then."

I was so taken by her grace, then, that despite the sketchy story she'd just told me and whatever lunacy was sure to go along with it, I couldn't help but like her. It was more than just the physical lust we'd shared in the hotel suite. I felt drawn to her.

"You know this is some pretty rich shit to lay on me, Gloria."

"You're going to learn about it all one way or the other," she smirked at me. "In fact, I count us both lucky that it was me who found you and not one of the other people who are part of this little shadow‐life. Better to learn it from me than to have it forced on you by somebody further up the chain. They'll get positively bizarre on you, you'll see. They'll make you kiss rings or kneel before them or call them 'your excellency' and goofy shit like that. They'll try to bring you into weird cults. They'll have you observing all sorts of superstitious idiosyncrasies. That's why you're fortunate to have met me first. I won't make you jump all those hurdles."

"Weird habits for weird people, I suppose." This had better pay off. The only reason I didn't cut all this bullshit off at the source was because she said everything with such conviction. Of course, she was in extreme peril of occupying crazy‐woman territory, but some aspect of what she was telling me struck a chord.

"You don't know the half of it. That feeling you had in your gut when I started this whole line of conversation? When I explained what it was and called it a curse? Get used to that feeling. You're going to have it a lot, at least when you meet the eccentrics among us."

I knew she was right. Visions of invisible kings and ghostly nightclub bouncers, sunglasses‐wearing genies and demonic skinheads spun through my mind like half‐captured dreams at the moment the clock radio goes off in the morning. The flattering confirmation that Gloria had indeed wanted to see me again because of something she found desirable also left me gratified, even if it was my value as a resource that was desirable, as opposed to the power of my charisma. I desperately needed another drink to clear my head.

3.

The next several days passed very quickly, with Gloria staying at my apartment through the weekend. I bought some weed and some wine and we had carbonara for dinner and French toast for breakfast every day mostly because we didn't feel like leaving. We were undressed and all over each other as often as not. Gloria had a tattoo — not the stupid, lower‐back slut stripes that so many girls have inked just above the waistlines of their pants, but some quiet, red calligraphy above her left shoulderblade that proclaimed "Et In Arcadia Ego."

"What's that mean?" I asked.

"Latin. 'I was there, too,'" she answered.

"Really?"

"Something like that. It's a loose translation."

I was surprised at how readily I adapted to this sort‐of domesticated lifestyle. I'm the kind of guy who's out every night, weekend or otherwise. Normally, I'd like to be seen around town with a gorgeous girl like Gloria, but in learning that nobody would really be seeing us anyway, at least in the conventional sense, it didn't seem to matter. Honestly, I was happier at home with Gloria than pressing some bullshit social agenda at one club or another. I hadn't written it off entirely, but I was so infatuated that for the time, at least, it just didn't seem very important. Power make‐outs, cutesy talk, shared joints, and marathon sport fucking replaced those other concerns readily.

"You don't have to be at work?" I asked Gloria, wondering how she was able to just vanish from the rest of the world for a week. How she was able to vanish more than usual, that is.

"Not really. I haven't been in a while, actually. What do you do? You don't have to be at work, either?"

"I'm on contract. Paid on delivery. I, uh... I make scissor hinges. You know, the things that hold the two separate blades of scissors together."

"A lot of money in that?"

"Enough."

"I didn't know they paid people to do that. I'd figure one scissor hinge is as good as the next."

"Hey, maybe for your mass‐market, discount‐store scissors. I don't do that shit. I'm high‐end, baby. Kyocera Ceramics. Wusthof. The good stuff."

"You go to school for it?"

"Four years of industrial design and two of engineering."

"Hmm."

Which is why I don't typically tell people what I do for a living. I usually just leave it at "industrial design," but I wanted to be open with Gloria. Maybe this had been the wrong thing to lead into full disclosure. It's not very exciting to talk about, or do, actually.

"That's it?"

I really didn't know how to answer that. On a plain, literal level, yes, that was it. I made scissors. That didn't seem to be what Gloria was asking however.

"I'm not sure I take your meaning."

"I mean, is that all there is to you? What does Brandon Arthur do? He designs scissors. With the money he makes designing scissors, he buys pot and beer. The end."

"Well, no, I don't think it's the end—"

"You don't ever feel the urge to be a part of something bigger? You don't ever want to do more with your life?"

"Hey, Gloria, this is taking a very mom turn all of the sudden. And I didn't hear you complaining when I was rolling joints for us."

She sighed and crossed her arms. "We should get out of this apartment for a little while. It's starting to stink of stale sex." She wrinkled her nose.

I affected a frown. "I was thinking that it's starting to stink of us. The commingled brew of our lovers' scent."

"Ugh. That's enough of that, Death Cab for Douchebag."

So much for staying in and not working a social agenda. "Fine for me. Let me shower and shave and we can go. Where did you have in mind?"

"There's a party tonight. It's sort of an insider thing. Our people, if you take my meaning. No rush, really, it's just... this is something I have to do."

That perplexed me. The sum of the impression I'd received thus far was that Gloria didn't have to do anything. She didn't answer to anyone. She could vanish for a week into the dark recesses of my apartment without so much as a "Hold my calls." In fact, the simple lack of a cell phone call questioning "Where are you?" testified to her importance and the principle that her time was her own.

Or, you know, that she was just some unemployed weirdo. But she was too well put‐together for that. She hadn't sent the crazy meter into the red before now — though she'd come close — and her focus still led me

to believe that she was the real deal.

That was also the first insight I had that really scared me — but whether it scared me about her or about what I saw happening in her world, I don't know. That's an unpleasant feeling, being scared: the sense that a sudden, suspenseful thing might happen.

I asked her, "What's this about?" Before I had a satisfactory answer, we were on our way.

We were scheduled for dinner uptown, and when I say "we," I mean everyone. All the people who were like us, overlooked, unseen, beyond the care or interest of anyone else. Anyone real. The thing is, we — and I use "we" in the same context here — really like to put on a spectacle for each other, apparently.

Likewise, when I say "dinner," I'm talking about something just shy of a full, formal cotillion. Nobody, Gloria told me, was actually going to eat anything. Too base. Rather, some people would eat, but those were the people explicitly not worth knowing. I asked, rhetorically, if unvisibles had untouchables. It stood to reason.

"Who pays for this?" I wondered on the way over.

Gloria smiled at my naivety. "Nobody pays for it. It just happens. Pulled together from the world around us because nobody notices us taking it."

My mind reeled. I don't know what I expected. From Gloria's description, it sounded like some kind of homeless person's pot‐luck smorgasbord, or something similarly shabby like an art fair or craft show. I knew that wouldn't be the case, though, because she dressed me in my Prada tuxedo just before we left the apartment. "Put your bow tie under your collar," she said.

"Aw, I can't do that," I said. "I'll look like a twat. Hey, where did your clothes come from? Jesus, did you bring that whole thing to my apartment? Even the shoes?"

"Don't be an asshole." I marked this as good advice.

---

Dinner was on the 42nd Floor of the Waterhouse Tower. We were received. More accurately, we were announced.

The 42nd Floor, in its entirety, was a diamond‐gala penthouse ballroom appointed for lavish‐crooked Boss Tweed‐type receptions over a hundred years ago. A dozen crystal chandeliers hung from a buttressed ceiling at least 25 feet high. I suppose we were fashionably late, because when we exited the elevator into the foyer, there must have been a thousand people there, all in Chanel and Balenciaga.

Bear with me here. A herald announced us. A herald. A guy in an eighteenth‐century surcoat, who rapped his staff — his fucking staff — on the floor and boomed flawlessly from the full capacity of his lungs:

"Miss Gloria Casares and Mr. Brandon Arthur."

The whole room stopped, silenced, no shit, with only the chamber music continuing to provide background sound. It was like a Jane Austen novel. I never told the herald my name, but I'd seen that trick before. Gloria probably RSVP'ed for us in advance, anyway.

She whispered sideways to me, "Remember, don't be an asshole."

"I'll do my best."

A thousand people all bedecked in their own opulence and glitter, all unvisible but magnificent, stars at the center of their own discrete corners of the sky, looked at us. They looked, I felt, at me.

At the same time, I wondered how much of it was me. As the days and events had progressed, I suspected that Gloria had more to her than initially presented itself. Unless she had known about this party far in advance, she had learned of it at some point during our mutual time together. Like I said before, that mutual time together didn't involve any outside phone calls. Neither did it involve any mysterious letters forwarded to my apartment, or messenger‐birds landing on my windowsill. So, then, maybe she didn't RSVP for us after all.

Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe this was the event of the decidedly Georgian season, planned previously or occurring every year at the same time.

Maybe Gloria was better connected than she seemed, though. She had pulled that confection of a dress out of my closet — my closet, and I promise that it wasn't there before she had arrived. I didn't even notice it in there when I got dressed that evening. Hell, maybe a messenger‐bird did land on the windowsill and I just slept through it.

Only later did it occur to me that this silent fanfare was for the both of us. Gloria's trumping, triumphant return to this needful society and my own surprising significance to a culture I hadn't even known existed until recently. I also learned later that there's always more to this bizarre quasi‐culture than presents itself superficially. Some untold story always lurks beneath the surface. Some hidden, historical treachery always

colors the course of interaction between these people. This seems to be the truth throughout the full length of their existence, however long it actually is.

Dramatic! I digress from the actual party as it occurred, however.

Gloria motioned me to lead her down the aisle that had formed at the announcement of our attendance. I kept one eye on her and one eye at the end of the processional. She smiled confidently but demurely at the people on either side of us. Some of the onlookers wore expressions of surprise while others had furrowed brows of either anger or consternation. A good third seemed enthusiastic to receive Gloria, suggesting that they were on amicable terms but hadn't seen her in a while. At the end of the aisle stood twenty or maybe twenty‐five of who seemed to be the most prominent people at the party, with the vast, full windows of the 42nd Floor framing them with the expanse of the city behind them.

"I hate to be like this, but I feel ambushed," I whispered to Gloria.

"Please, Brandon, not now. I promise I'll explain everything later. Just go along with what I say."

"Within reason."

"That's a broad statement. Think about what brought you here," she said.

By the end of this exchange of words, we had traversed the aisle. It was a real rogue's gallery at that end, with all of the attendant important people and what were, I guessed, their entourages. There was a guy in a very severe looking, almost military uniform with two, I guess, sergeants at either side. Next to him stood a woman with the most vibrant red hair I'd ever seen. She looked to be about middle age, a little heavy, and she wore a long, green satin dress that matched her eyes and really set her hair on fire. In her vicinity stood four or five men and women dressed in similar colors but without the same striking countenance. There was also a really tall, really pale‐blond guy who wore glasses and one of those James Bond white‐jacket‐black‐pants tuxedos. He had two people with him who looked like smaller versions of him, only one was a woman, I think. In contrast, next to him was a black man about my height with very closely cropped hair, also wearing glasses. He was wearing a severe black suit rather than a formal tuxedo, but nobody seemed to want to call him on it. At the front of the group, in a position of the most apparent regard, stood another woman of flawless beauty. She was perhaps in her mid thirties, with long, black hair bound under a wreath of some kind of purple flowers. She looked straight out of a modern fairy tale, bound up in a dress even more elaborate than Gloria's but with a look on her face that said expressly, "I know what's going on here and I'm not happy about it." As I looked at her, she wavered or rippled or something, like my eyes were receivers and for the briefest second, they took in too much signal and had to correct.

The tall, blond guy in the back spoke. "This is going to make things complicated." He had an accent. Something Scandinavian.

Then the perfect woman in the front spoke. "Ah, Gloria. It's been such a long time. I'm glad you feel up to the task of joining us again." In retrospect, it sounds like a bitchy thing to say, but the woman's voice was earnest as she said it. The two of them shared an accusatory look. "It is certainly a pleasure to meet you in person, Mr. Arthur," she continued, turning to me.

Call me corny, call me gay, call me a theater fan, whatever, but let me tell you that I had the sudden idea that I was supposed to take her hand and kiss it. So I tried, wanting to take her introduction and run with it.

The problem, though, was that she withdrew from me when I tried to take her hand. It was a lightning response, a reptilian recoil that might just as well have be a rearing back to strike. "Let's not exceed ourselves, Mr. Arthur. Personal boundaries are to be respected, of course."

"Er, of course. But, uh, I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. Do we know one another?"

"Oh, my dear Gloria, you haven't told Mr. Arthur about me? Such a shame to have spoiled the introduction this way. Brandon Arthur, I am—"

"Narcisse," Gloria cut her off. "First Lady of Albion, Matron of Venta Icenorum, and Lady Chosen of House Iceni. My lady, good evening, and I bid good evening to you all." Then she turned and walked her way up the aisle we had just come down, dragging me by the arm but forcing me a bit ahead of her so that it looked like I, as her escort, was actually leading her. I doubt anyone was fooled by the demonstration.

Okay, holy shit. I wasn't ready for any of this. As we worked our exit from the aisle, I noticed a few waves made toward us (or toward Gloria, I assumed) as well as a few nodding heads and a strangled giggle or two. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear a "Well, I never...!" or other stock fripperies from period movies. Gloria pulled me out of the aisle about two‐thirds of the way out of the room and toward a bar. Half of the room still seemed to be paying attention to this quiet faux pas or whatever was happening, but the other half eagerly returned to their previous party attentions.

Gloria ordered a glass of wine from the bartender and I asked for a whiskey and water. He obliged. As we sipped from our drinks, Gloria muttered to herself, "It's too soon," and I knew better than to interject any of my own ignorances into her conversation with herself. Nothing's worse than when a guy tells a woman, "Baby, it'll be all right" when he has no idea what's bugging her but it's plain to see that, no, not everything will be all right. In fact, probably very few things would be all right. That's the feeling I was nursing, along with my whiskey. I saw another black guy come pushing his way through the crowd toward us, his hair in cornrows and wearing the same sort of black suit I saw the other black guy at the front of the room wearing. Gloria saw him, too.

"You could've handled that better," he said to Gloria.

"Fuck you. Didn't know you'd switched sides, or that Narcisse put the council back together," she replied.

"We didn't switch sides. We're just following the way the wind blows right now. And you shouldn't be surprised about the council. Revolutionaries love to suck each other's dicks," he continued.

"Hey, Gandalf said I could join the council, too, after I throw this ring into Mount Frodo," I cut in. "What the fuck is going on, here?"

The black guy smiled at me, "I'm sorry, man. Miss Casares here pulled you in without letting you know too much about what's taking place, I guess."

"Too soon," Gloria said to herself again.

"Good guess. I'm Brandon," I said. The guy had a trustworthy manner, so I extended my hand.

"Brandon, good to meet you. I'm Rock."

"Just Rock? Not Rock of House P‐Funk, Incarnadine Combobulator of the Renegade Masta?"

"If you want to get technical, no, it's just Rock Baker. What are you drinking? Let's have another. Gloria, Brandon and I are going to have a drink."

"That's fine. I'm going to mingle," she said. Resilient girl, to rebound so quickly. I thought the whole situation had caught her completely flatfooted, but after that brief period of distraction, she was ready to wade right back in to... whatever the fuck this was. She took her wine glass, and away she went. Not ten steps from the bar, some guy in an anachronistic soldier's uniform took her arm. She smiled that smile of hers that had so enraptured me the first few times we met, and I have to admit, I felt a little jealous.

"Whiskey and water," I said to the bartender.

"Bourbon and Coke," Rock said.

"Indeed, sirs," the bartender replied.

"So what we have here, Mr. Brandon Arthur, is the return of the prodigal daughter. I don't know how much Gloria Casares has told you, but she was a one‐time heiress to all this and she lost it in a falling out between the houses." Rock swept his arm before the whole room, emphasizing "all this."

"Hang on. What's that all mean? She's heiress to all this?"

"Just what I said. This is all hers. These people are her subjects. Narcisse has taken them away from her. I know, I know; you're thinking, 'What the fuck is this crazy nigger talking about?' and then you're thinking, 'Oh, shit. What do I have to do with this?' That's the key. You're going to help her get it all back, or you're going to keep it all out of her hands. She found you first, so she's trying to lay some groundwork with you. You get to pick one side or the other and you get to make the difference."

"And a party like this is how you learned about the whole thing?"

"No, of course not. They found me when I was 14, sticking up liquor stores with some kids from the block. Everybody else got taken down to the seventeenth and I just walked home with my hands in my pockets. One of the cops was one of us and just crawled his car along behind me. Told me to get in the car, and took me to

talk to some people who turned out to be us."

"That's so stereotypical, I need another drink to help wash it down."

"Not a stereotype," Rock said. "An archetype. You'll see a lot of that around these people."

"Is it too early for me to call bullshit on it all?"

"Most definitely. Give it some time to show you what it's all about. Let Gloria show you."

I rubbed my temples idly and ordered another whiskey and water, since mine seemed to have vanished down my throat.

"Don't let it worry you, though," Rock added. "You don't have to do anything. This isn't some scripted prophecy or any of that shit. You got free will, son," he said, tapping my chest. "That's going to shape a lot of your outlook, I suspect."