The Gamer’s

Inheritance

ALSO BY STEVEN FRANSSEN:

Coom, Consume, Comply

Torturing The Villagers

Fire In The Pines

Dead West Walking

The Gamer’s Inheritance

STEVEN FRANSSEN

stevenfranssen.com

youtube.com/c/stevenfranssen

All text, Copyright ©2019 by Steven Franssen
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious or parody manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental.

“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before you.”

-John 15:18

Table of Contents

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 1

“Oh my gosh. You’re Tom Irby, aren’t you?” a beaming woman asked David as he stood in line at Starbucks next to his security guard.

“Ma’am,” began the towering black man in a silver suit.

“It’s alright, John,” said David, placing a hand on his bodyguard’s arm. “Actually, I’m David, his younger brother.”

His older brother was the youngest ever member of the United States House of Representatives, carrying on the family’s tradition of holding national political office every generation back to the post-Civil War era. David’s uncle had served as Senator of Rhode Island for more than twenty years, paving the way for Tom Irby’s current success and celebrity. David was commonly mistaken for his brother, especially in his home state of Rhode Island. He had learned to take these cases of mistaken identity in stride, thanks to the public relations firm his fabulously wealthy father had hired.

“You look just like him,” said the woman. “Are you helping your brother fight climate change?”

David hadn’t thought to take up the cause yet. He was beginning to feel irritated with the woman. He raised his eyes at his bodyguard John, who proceeded to step between him and the woman. She was surprised for a moment but walked back to where she had been sitting, very much aware that David’s family had high standing in society, and that she’d been lucky just to get a word in.

David got to the order counter and the Starbucks employee greeted him, asking him what he would drink. He fidgeted and nervously scanned the café for the sight of his handler, Levi, who had gone to the bathroom. The cashier began to ask David to step aside, not knowing who he was but intimidated by the large bodyguard, when Levi returned from the bathroom in a huff.

“Sorry, they ran out of toilet paper,” he said. He ordered for David, who eagerly seated himself and ordered John to sit at a booth closer to the doorway.

Levi brought the coffees when they were completed. No coffee was offered to John, who had grown accustomed to the trademark Irby stinginess. He was paid a good salary, given a generous per diem and uniform allotment, but David had insisted at every turn that John pay for petty considerations such as gasoline, coffee, and whatever other fixings came with being David’s day-to-day bodyguard.

Levi was a diminutive man seven years David’s senior. He wore thick framed glasses and had been hired as a kind of handler by David’s father, David Sr., in order to keep David out of trouble while he earned a degree in journalism from Brown University. Levi was David’s biological cousin whose family had fallen out of the Irby inheritance. His desperate need for the salary paid to him by David Sr. kept him from curtailing David’s behavior much at all and now that David Sr.’s health was failing him Levi had become David’s lackey more than anything. David would be splitting the Irby fortune with his brother, Tom, and promised Levi his continued salary upon David Sr.’s death.

“Did you see the brunette over there? Lovely curves on her,” Levi said in a low voice.

“She talked to me,” David said proudly.

“Did she ask about me?”

“Levi, you ass, why would she ask about you? She could see that I am the manlier one. She offered to have sex with me.”

Levi was much stupider than David and believed anything he would say. He listened intently to hear the rest of David’s story, wiping a smudge from the thick lens of his glasses.

“I turned her down,” said David. “She’s too old.”

“She’s like your brother’s age.”

“Mid-twenties is too old, Levi. I’ve told you. I must have a young virgin. That’s the advice father gave me. This place stinks. Why did you bring me here? Everyone is so poor and ugly.”

Levi had brought David to the Starbucks so David would be in a public place when he received the phone call from his father that Levi expected would come. David would thrash Levi on occasion when a bad mood struck.

David’s cellphone rang. He gave a self-satisfied smile to Levi. Today was his birthday and the first day after his graduation from Brown. He expected a windfall from David Sr.

“David,” a weak voice trembled its greeting.

“Hello, father. What now, father? What’s the good news? Your boy is all grown up. My 4.0 GPA remains intact. I graduated with full honors!”

“Yes, boy, I am happy for you. However, it pains me to say that I have evidence here that you had Levi write your thesis for you. He told me so himself.”

David flashed a murderous look at Levi, noticing for the first time Levi’s exquisite new wristwatch peeking out from the coat he’d kept it concealed beneath. Levi froze in terror.

“Don’t be angry with him, my boy. I know you cheated your way through most of your degree. I know the book you’re shopping around was ghostwritten by the Burstein kid. I needed you to get this degree for the honor of our family. I turned a blind eye for too long,” the old man’s voice stopped to cough. He resumed, “You are a man now and I will not have you embarrassing the family name, whether I am here to see it or not. Therefore,” he paused, audibly wheezing. “I have decided to place your inheritance in a trust.”

David punched Levi on his small shoulder, as hard as he could. Levi yelped out in pain. David put his hand over the phone’s receiver and hissed, “Shut up, shut up!” at his cousin.

“What was that, boy?” the old man asked.

“Nothing, father,” responded David. He knew for many months now that his father preferred his older brother, Tom, and thus his inheritance was in jeopardy. His father’s net worth was estimated at eighteen billion dollars and Congress had just axed the inheritance tax. “Surely, you understand my disappointment, father.”

“I didn’t raise my boys to be liars and cheats!” the old man thundered. David could hear his bedside nurse attempt to dissuade him from the anger that had so long degenerated his now-feeble heart. “Look at your brother, Tom! He’s made the family damn proud. Your mother, rest her soul, would weep if she saw the trouble you’ve been into. Thank Our Lord that Levi has been at your side these last two years. I should have sent you to military school like your brother. I was too soft on you and now, look, I hear you cheated your way to that degree. I paid two million dollars to the endowment to get you into that school! I have half a mind to leave you with nothing. All you do is play video games and chase tail,” David Sr. broke off, wheezing and sputtering.

“I’m sorry I have disappointed you, father.” David silently punched Levi in the shoulder one more time. Levi tried to move away but David cast him a look that froze him in place.

“Are you listening to me, David? David?”

“Yes, father. Please continue.”

“The terms of your trust are simple: you must achieve national or international renown for a good work by the time you are your brother’s age now or the majority of your inheritance will go to your brother. You must do something like attain national office, win a prize that you cannot bribe your way to, or marry our family into European royalty. David…are you listening, David? Damn you, boy, answer me.”

“Yes, father, I am shocked is all.” David was not shocked. He expected something like this. He was livid. “What do you leave me if I don’t do a good work?”

“You get the same I bribed your school with: two million dollars.”

“For my whole life?! You exile me to poverty!”

“And don’t think you’ll get a penny out of your brother. You’ve embarrassed him enough. He is more than capable of taking over our business affairs on his own. If you’re lucky, he’d give you a job like Levi has.”

“Father, Levi makes only a hundred thousand a year. Please, father, don’t. Levi is a peasant!”

“Enough! Not another word of protest, David. You are a Brown graduate now. Cheer up, you have more opportunities than your great-grandfather could ever dream of when he came to this country and made our name what it is today. You have your little book. You have your friends in the media. You’ll do well for our family or you will have a quiet little life like your sister,” the old man referred to the eldest sibling, who had been cut entirely from the will when she married a black man in France. “She’s dead to me. Now you know the stakes. Tom won’t help you. Good luck, my son. I may yet pull through this so let’s count on speaking again in a month. Farewell, boy. Pursue a good work!”

The call ended and David immediately dialed his brother’s personal line at his office in Washington D.C.

Pearl, his assistant, answered, “Hi David, Tom doesn’t want to talk to you right now. He already talked to your father. They agreed on this months ago. Tom expects you to keep Levi in one piece. You can’t fire him, David. He’s your cousin, after all. Okay, David, Tom will reach out to you.” She hung up just as David began to protest.

David called his brother’s cellphone, disregarding the warning that he was only to call in case of an emergency.

Pearl again answered, “Sorry, David,” she said.

“Please, please, please I’m begging you, Pearl. Put Tom on, please!” he whimpered in his most pathetic voice.

“Not going to happen, David. Come on, you didn’t expect something like this?”

“You bitch! I’ll have your ass,” David switched instantly from pleading to screaming. The other customers in Starbucks looked on in consternation. A barista came over as David continued to scream at Pearl. The barista laid a hand on David’s shoulder. Being the germaphobe he was, he went ballistic and shoved the barista over, storming out of the Starbucks while continuing to scream on the phone. “You’re lucky my brother is protecting you, Pearl. I’ll never forget this. Tell Tom he’s a piece of shit. Oh wait, no please don’t tell him that. Please, Pearl, don’t say I said that. I’m sorry,” he switched back to pleading as he stepped into the SUV, John shutting the door behind him and resuming his place behind the wheel.

“I won’t tell your brother, but you owe me, David,” said Pearl. “Tom doesn’t want to talk to you. He’s too busy with the impeachment trial. Try him again in a few months. Play some video games or something, David. You’re too heated.”

David ended the call and yelled, “Fuck!” into the spacious confines of his father’s SUV. “John, take me to the bank – now!”

“Sir, we have to wait for Mr. Levi,” said John.

David rolled his window down and berated Levi as Levi bent over to tie his shoe just outside the Starbucks. Levi concealed a chuckle, still smarting from the thrashing David had just given him. He pretended to hear David for the first time, after his shoe was tied, and scampered like a mouse into the front seat of the SUV. John stepped on the gas and they made their way to the prestigious investment bank where David’s allowance money sat.

“That’s it?” David said in a stupefied voice upon hearing from his adviser quote the remaining balance in his accounts. These being shared accounts, his father had withdrawn the amount he saw fit.

“You can live off of the interest,” offered Levi.

“What’s the interest on that?” David asked the banker.

“At current rates, it comes out to… $85,352 and twenty cents.”

“That’s less than you make a year!” David thundered at Levi.

Levi hid the smile coming over his face by pretending to cough into his coat sleeve.

“Don’t think I don’t see that new watch my father gave you, you Judas,” howled David as they walked through the great lobby of the bank and back out onto the sidewalk where they awaited John, who was driving circles around the block. They went on a clothes shopping trip to allay David’s anxieties. However, this only exacerbated them when the bill was due, and he realized he’d spent a not insignificant amount of his annual income.

During an all-expenses paid trip to a high-end spa in Taos, New Mexico, David Irby II set to work on his media contacts. His name was bankable, despite his public foibles of the past. His father funded several foundations in the Irby name that kept the careers of many a journalist afloat in the lean years since trust in the media across America had dwindled. David had interned at the New York Times, done a summer internship at the L.A. Times, and sometimes wrote op-eds for various other publications, highlighting the one public cause he’d even remotely considered to take up thus far: climate change.

He paid Levi to ghostwrite a book in his name. David then shopped this to screenwriters and producers in Hollywood, hoping one of them would take him up on his asking sum of $1 million. His father had spread word to the Hollywood higher-ups that there would be no “easy out” for his son. The door was shut. He relented when even his “uncle” Horace Goldsmith refused a meeting, saying, “Good luck, kiddo. I’m with your papa on this one.” This was the man that had given him an exotic luxury supercar for his eighteenth birthday, which he’d totaled during a pleasure cruise through the Italian Alps. If Horace had cut him off, nobody else in Hollywood was going to be interested. Horace was the kingmaker in Hollywood.

So, then he shopped his book to east coast publishers through Levi, as Levi knew the particulars of the story and David did not. Penguin Books gave him a modest deal on the strength of his family name and the fact that everything that Sal Burstein touched was turning into gold. The distribution and marketing would be robust, even if the money David saw in return was underwhelming.

With his book deal secured, David returned from his weeks of pampering in Taos to the upper Manhattan brownstone he had begged his father to gift him while he was an intern at the New York Times. The brownstone was both in his and his father’s name and David had had to settle for an extended lease. Sitting in the empty living room, drinking whiskey from the bottle, he pondered subletting the brownstone but felt a strong trepidation at the prospect of going against his father’s will. His father had sued him previously when he’d given his father’s prize race horse to a Saudi princess in the hopes he would get laid. Levi was up in Providence, bringing David’s things down in a moving van. It was John’s week off as he worked five weeks on, one week off. He was visiting family in North Carolina. David was alone and bored. The whiskey was emboldening him to go out and do something. He swiped through his phone, looking at the various events that were set to take place that evening. He decided on a major concert at Madison Square Garden.

He called his friend Mark from his private school years at one of Manhattan’s prestigious academies for the children of the super wealthy. Mark was David’s “grease guy” and could always put David in touch with what he needed when he was in town.

“Hey, it’s me,” said David.

“David? Back in town, I see,” said Mark. He was wearing a Bluetooth headset and examining a diamond ring flown in from Switzerland for his personal inspection. Mark was getting married to a jeweler’s daughter and he wanted to show her his good taste. “Tough break with your father.”

“What do you mean?” David stumbled over his words.

“It’s all over the news, pal. Your pop is dead. Your brother gave a statement already.”

David seethed in silence. He set the bottle down on the hardwood floor and realized he hadn’t shaved since Taos, a week earlier. He’d holed up in the brownstone, eating pizza, drinking some, and waiting on news of his book deal. He opened his lone social media account to discover a parade of messages awaiting him.

“Turn your phone off silent, David. I tried calling you earlier,” Mark commented.

“I’m looking for tickets to the show tonight at the Garden.”

“Sure, no problem. Got all the club seats you could want.”

“Will you bring girls?”

“The Sabbath is tomorrow. I can’t be up late.”

“Bring some girls, Mark. I got them last time. Come on, do me the favor.”

“You don’t do well with girls, David. Remember last time? Besides, I can’t be out late. The show doesn’t start till ten. I’ll send girls over though.”

“Come on, please Mark. My father just died. Come out with me? I’m lonely. Please? Pretty please?”

“Where’s your cousin?”

“He’s in Providence.”

“Alright, David. I’ll come. But you gotta have John drive me home.”

“John’s out of town. Come on, Mark. Please? We’ll get an Uber. I’ll pay. You’re not gonna leave me with some whores on the night after my father died?”

“Okay, okay, I’ll come out. Busy now. I’ll chat you later.”

“Thanks a million.”

David spent the rest of the afternoon gnawing at a pizza and thumbing through the messages he’d received in the wake of his father’s passing. Most of them were media inquiries. His brother hadn’t called or written. His sister had written him, asking for money as was her quarterly custom. He was the only member of the family that had given her money. She had no idea he was on the verge of joining her in disinheritance. This book deal could lead to great things. Rumor had passed his way that the book was already picking up buzz with the right people. He had friends from his academy days that had gone on to work with various NGOs, the UN, and media outlets. The more he thought on it, the more confident he felt. His mood buoyed, he decided to shave and get dressed for his night out.

“There he is!” Mark called out to David. He was seated in a bar stool at a round table, flanked by two Eastern European women and a black woman – all wearing tiny cocktail dresses and adorned with surgeries in the right places.

They spent the evening carousing, pausing now and then to take in the concert taking place down below, and getting as handsy with the women as public decorum would allow. After seeing her throw a napkin into the trash and seeing her hand brush the rim of the trash bin, David made it a deliberate point not to touch the black woman. After a while she caught on.

In a thick Barbadian accent, she confronted David, “What, honey? You donta like these curves. Come on, I won’t bite.”

Mark intervened and said, “It’s alright, baby. He’s just shy. Never had a black girl. Go easy on him.”

Their banter continued but David would not place a hand on the black woman, despite her renewed efforts at kindling his interest. The tension rose subtly, and Mark became too inebriated to pick up on the subtext.

The two men and their three women stood out on 8th Avenue, awaiting their Uber ride back uptown to Mark’s apartment. They piled into a luxury van. The Barbadian woman had enough with David and decided to put her hand firmly around his crotch. He’d had enough of her as well and slapped her hand away. She escalated by slapping at his forearm. The other women were preoccupied with Mark and the exchange went unnoticed. The group made it up to Mark’s apartment, staggering in a stupor to the living room couch. The Eastern European women turned their focus onto David, at Mark’s prompting, and Mark took the black woman aside to a loveseat where she straddled him and began undressing.

The two blonde women started pulling David’s pants down. They cooed at his muscles when they managed to get his shirt off. He thought they were meager as Taos had softened him up and John, who doubled as his personal trainer, had been out of town for much of the past week. The women began to undress themselves, slowly as there was little for them to undress themselves of. They playfully kissed and then started in on David.

Just as David was getting a blowjob from the pair, he felt a hand tug at his wrist. It was the black woman pulling his hand to her bare breast while she rode Mark. He ripped his hand away, still unnoticed by anyone but her. She pursed her lower lip tightly and shoved an accusatory finger in his face.

“You bitch,” he mouthed softly, hoping to keep the conflict quiet.

Her eyes flashed in anger and she pressed his head back with the tip of her finger.

He jumped up, kneeing one of the blondes in the face, and roared, “You know what, this bitch has to go.”

Mark lolled his head to the side to face David and said, “Be cool, man. I got this.”

The black woman dismounted and stood up. She started in with her accent, “This bastard is a racist. I know you are a racist, Mr. David. Either dat or you’re an auntieman.”

“A what?”

“A homo-boy!” roared the woman. She towered over him, the other women sitting on the floor behind her.

“I’m not racist!” David roared back at her.  “You don’t wash your hands. That’s why I don’t want you touching me.”

Mark groaned and buried his head into his hand. He had completely forgotten David’s phobias.

“What the fuck?” screeched the woman.

“You’re dirty!” was all David could think to howl in response.

The escort punched him in the eye as hard as she could. He did not take this in good humor and rose to kick her straight in the back as she turned to storm off. This sent her tumbling over one of the other escorts and she crashed right through the glass top of Mark’s coffee table.

“Gotcha, bitch!” David taunted as the Barbadian woman groaned and then screamed hysterically when she realized bits of glass were embedded all over her body. She clutched at her face and he roared, “What now? Not so tough, huh?”

This was not the first time David had a physical altercation with a woman in Mark’s presence. David had developed a strong resentment toward women during his years studying journalism. He had seen them, time and again, use their looks to get ahead. Meanwhile, he was maligned at every junction for being a white male. The contrast was not lost on him, even if he remained a sincere advocate for combating climate change. His father’s fortune had sheltered him in the past. Mark’s quick thinking would save him on this occasion.

Mark made the other women dress the bloodied woman, whose screeching had subsided into whimpering. He called the madame and explained what happened. She said not to worry this time as this escort was a foreign national and she had possession of the woman’s passport. But David was not to use the escort service any longer. He would be blacklisted from the other escort services as well, based on physical description and germaphobia. David overheard enough bits and pieces of the conversation from Mark’s end that he began to loudly protest to the madame, promising her he wouldn’t harm any more escorts. She was not having it and hung up. Mark whisked the women out of his apartment building, handing them several thousand dollars before trotting back to the elevator and returning to his living room to clean up the mess.

David stood looking out the windows on the city scene below.

As Mark swept up the glass he said, “I hate to say it, pal, but you better hope your book does well cause there’s no way you’re making it in politics.”

“I’m not worried,” said David. “My dad has so many friends in this town.”

“He’d have more if he went to synagogue. And so would you.”

“My family’s not Jewish.”

“Don’t I know it. David, you gotta pay me back for this coffee table.”

“I know. It’s no problem.”

“You’re really sure about this book, huh?”

“Levi is. That’s good enough for me. Whatever he likes, everybody likes. Besides, I don’t have a backup plan.”

“No journalism?”

“A man from my background should never have to work.”

“You haven’t yet.”

“And I never will. The book is going to put me in with the right people.”

In less than a year, David’s book, titled Dying Planet: How Capitalism Is Killing The Climate, was a smash hit with the global intelligentsia. He did a speaking tour with the ex-prime minister of Bhutan and a CEO of a major software company based out of Silicon Valley. He appeared at every major Democratic fundraising event. He spent the maximum allowable by law on over a hundred Democrat politicians at the national level, taking meetings with them at a lavish apartment he rented in Washington D.C. His brother was in no mood to speak to him, but he did avail himself to David’s political ambitions by making connections for him when necessary. David was on his best behavior and while there were rumors that floated around about his checkered history with women, no significant evidence made it to the press. David had no idea that Tom had a hand in squelching these stories in order to protect his own political ambitions. To deal with some of the pressure, David played video games. Sometimes he played night and day.

Dying Planet earned David the UN Global Climate Action prize, a prize generally reserved for activists, but strings were pulled in his favor. The awards ceremony was held at the United Nations Visitor Centre in front of hundreds of students who were visiting from outside of the United States. David and Levi sat in a backroom waiting for David to be called out to receive his award. There was a finger food banquet for prize winners and presenters to eat from as they pleased. Levi rose up to get himself a plate. David stopped him and asked, “Do they have a hand sanitizer station?” trying to peer around the people milling about. Levi said that he would look. He did and replied in the affirmative.

David noticed a woman in a hijab was grabbing shrimp from a platter without using the tongs. He grimaced in disgust. He rose from his seat, filled with loathing for the woman’s behavior. He’d counted thirteen other people thus far, from varying cultures, using the tongs. She was the first to touch seafood with her fingers. He thought about telling her about the dangers of germs, especially ones from seafood. He eyed the sanitizing station that Levi was standing next to, eagerly demonstrating to his boss that he’d found it. A voice in David’s head told him to calm down. He chafed against it when an Asian man with a strong British accent stepped into the backroom and announced that the prize winners were to come on stage. He winked at Levi and then glanced over to see the Muslim woman licking her fingers after throwing her plate of food into the trash.

He cursed his bad luck when the woman took the seat right next to him on stage. The presenter gave a long speech with a slideshow presentation, discussing the backgrounds of the eight award-winners on stage. David’s story was told and he was described as a feminist, which surprised him. He hadn’t given the matter much thought, but he remembered in skimming the book written under his name that there was a paragraph or two in there about the plight of women earning less than their fair share. He remembered his father had funded many trips for American businesswomen flying to Africa and the Middle East to champion women in the workplace. A lot of the charities and foundations formerly in his father’s name were now transferred to his name by Tom, who had been openly impressed with his younger brother’s rapid progress. David smiled when he was applauded, hoping this would be the “good work” that put him over the top on his inheritance. He’d been on his best behavior and this awards ceremony was the culmination of that hard work. Of course, his “hard work” had consisted of a scripted speaking tour and a lot of glad-handing. Still, it was honest work and he felt pride at hearing so many young people applaud him.

He was presented with his award, waved to the audience, and resumed his seat next to the Muslim woman – who he did his best to smile at despite glancing down rapidly at her hands. He hoped she wouldn’t notice but she noticed right away and furrowed her brow.

The last prize winner was the famous Eliza Gunther, a seventeen-year old climate change activist who had received non-stop press coverage for sailing from England to New York in order to receive her prize. David eyed her and thought to himself how plain and stupid she looked. She refused eye contact when she was called up to receive her award but when she sat back down, David could have sworn that she had flashed him a dirty look. He realized for the first time he was the only male on stage.

The presenter introduced a former secretary-general of the United Nations, an African man who walked with considerable gravitas to the main podium. He had a remarkable physique. He told the audience that he wished to lead an African chant that was supposed to “heal the land and bring rain.” He talked of the terrible droughts in his home country that had taken his siblings from him. He spoke of how this terrible loss had driven him to becoming a student at Oxford, graduating at the top of his class, and coming to America to begin a successful radio show and fitness craze. He used this incredible success to parlay his wealth into a philanthropic organization that gave battered women shelter. He talked and talked about the brave women he had met and how his organization helped them back on their feet after domestic violence. When he finished his success story, he said in a deep voice, “And now, to close our ceremony -and don’t forget there will be a reception in the lobby where you can meet our award winners- I would like to lead us in the Rain Chant. Please rise with me and take the hand of the person sitting next to you.”

David whispered a curse and froze in place, seeing in his peripheral the Muslim woman to his right and the African woman to his left both stand up. The former secretary-general noticed David immediately and impatiently said into the microphone, “Please, stand and join me in this chant.”

David stood limply and he felt the Muslim woman take his hand. He grimaced in agony, thinking of the billions of sea germs that were slathering him now from her balmy palms. His mind flashed through space and time and he was overwhelmed with images of fish guts, decaying whale corpses, and seagull excrement. He felt himself retch. He hoped it was quiet, but everyone heard it over the low rain chant that was just now building. He couldn’t help himself and shook his hands free of his award-winning companions. The chant ended abruptly. David felt a wave of humiliation crash over him and he blindly bolted for the stage exit, knocking the Muslim woman to the ground in the process. She screamed in pain as he’d knocked her from the stage, platformed several feet above the ground level floor.

“Oh shit,” David said to himself as he looked back over his shoulder to see the woman clutching at her wrist as if she’d broken it. He saw her open palm and it dawned on him that his hand was probably filthy right now. He also saw the former secretary-general barreling in his direction to apprehend him. David turned on his speed and burst through the backroom door, hearing shouts and commotion coming from behind him. He yelled to Levi to get him out of there and Levi escorted him to the correct exit, which led to the hallway. “Sanitizer,” he yelled to his short assistant who’d run just ahead of him. Levi’s pace slackened as he withdrew a small bottle of hand sanitizer and tried to hand it to David. “Just pour it here,” David yelled, and Levi complied, administering a hearty amount into David’s open hand.

John met them at the end of the hallway. They told him to hurry out of there with them. He cautioned them to walk slowly out of the lobby so security wouldn’t be suspicious. The big man saw the former secretary-general burst into the hallway and cover incredible ground in apprehending his target. John told David and Levi to go on without him. He sprinted at the sprinting former secretary-general and they crashed like wild animals into one another, locked in a clash of titans. “Go,” bellowed John, and David and Levi continued on their way. “Nigga, you strong,” John grunted to the former secretary-general as they tussled.

David and Levi managed to exit the building without arousing suspicion. John was held by police for a half hour but was released when it became clear he was performing his duties as a bodyguard. David was not charged for his moment of lunacy, but the Muslim woman swore in the press she would be filing a civil lawsuit.

Footage of the encounter made its rounds in the media and accusations of misogyny came David’s way. Sure enough, the woman’s lawyer filed a lawsuit and David settled quickly out of court for far less than his own lawyers had expected.

On the heels of the settlement came a phone call from Tom.

“You know, I thought you really had it there, Dave. They rescinded your prize. You weren’t aware? All this momentum for what? I swear, you had me fooled. I was going to authorize your inheritance. Now you’re further behind than where you started. How are you going to turn this into a positive? You’re lucky there were no criminal charges.”

“Tom, I’m sorry. Please, please, I just freaked out. It was innocent.”

“Sure doesn’t look that way! I’m going to tell you how you’re going to turn this into a positive. You’re going to go on Rebecca Jackson’s show on CMN and you’re going to apologize to that woman you hurt. Then you’re going to stay off the radar for a while. Play video games. Go to a boxing gym. I don’t care what it is, so long as you’re not doing public events. You need this to blow over. I’m sending over one of my PR guys. The Rebecca show is already sorted out. You’re going on next week. Levi is taking the week off. I’ve already told him. John is getting the week off, too. No antics, David. No troublemakers with you. You’re lucky I don’t fire them.”

“I know you’re mad at me, Tom. You should have seen how gross her hands were.”

“I don’t give two spits if she was a pig rolling in the mud,” frothed his congressman brother. “You look like a woman abuser in that footage! You’re lucky that father made me legally obligated to give you three years to pull something off because I have a mind to pull the rug out from under you right here and now. My PR guy is catching the red eye. Let him in when he buzzes you. Levi leaves for vacation tomorrow or I’ll have his balls in a vice.”

“Tom…”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, big brother. I’m sorry I f-ed up again. I was on such a good streak there.”

“I know you were,” Tom’s voice softened. He had many fond childhood memories of David, when David’s antics were a normal, acceptable part of youth. He felt responsible for David’s success and hoped David’s face being all over the tabloids at the moment could be turned into a positive. But his father’s influence was strong in him and he knew that unless David turned the corner, handing him an empire north of eight billion dollars would be utterly disastrous.

“Remember when Mom was sick and I sang to her every night?”

“I do, Dave.”

“I can be good. It’s not all troubles with me.”

“I know. Levi tells me you did a community clean-up last week. That’s a big step for you. Let me send you to a therapist, Dave. Come on, you’ve had this problem long enough.”

“No, I won’t go. Let me work it out. Honest, Tom, I can.”

Tom’s voice resumed its hard edge, “Next week: do the show, make amends, and we’ll get you back on a winning track. Don’t spoil the goodwill you’ve built up. I gotta run, little brother.”

“David Irby, thanks for joining us today,” said Rebecca Jackson, a Southern black woman in her 40’s. She was dressed in a bright red pantsuit with an emerald brooch pinned to her lapel. She was abnormally tall and much of the show preparation time had been dedicated to finding a chair for David that would give viewers the impression they were of the same height. Those efforts were futile, and Rebecca now towered over David.

Feeling intimidated, David replied, “Thank you, Ms. Jackson. It’s a pleasure to be here.”

The broadcast was going out live.

“Let’s cut right to the chase, Mr. Irby. Actually, I’m going to call you ‘David.’ Are you alright with that?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” said David. His posture was erect, as he’d been taught at the private academy where he spent his teenage years. His light brown hair had been left in a more natural style than his usual slicked-back appearance. He wore a tailor-made suit and a blue tie with red stripes.

“Right to the chase: David, are you a woman abuser?”

“Absolutely not. I abhor violence of all kinds, especially against women of color and the underprivileged,” he responded as Tom’s PR guy had coached him to. “In fact, the Irby Legacy Foundation is one of the foremost private, charitable resources in the New York Metropolitan area for abused women.”

“Mmhmm, and what do you have to say for yourself seeing this?” she asked, indicating to the footage of his knocking over the woman in the hijab. It played in a loop on a gigantic screen in the background of the studio set.

“Ms. Jackson, there was a lot happening that day, but I will say this much,” he paused to remember his carefully rehearsed lines and to give the appearance of being at ease, as he was coached. “I had mixed medications earlier that day and had an adverse reaction my physicians had not anticipated. Mrs. Abdullah was in an unfortunate position and I do take full responsibility for the accident. As you’re aware, the matter has been settled privately. I am looking forward to continuing my philanthropic efforts and fighting for climate justice with a documentary follow-up to Dying Planet.”

“Wow, that was a mouthful,” Rebecca Jackson added sassily. “Mixed medications, unfortunate positions, philanthropic efforts? Look at the playback, David. Don’t you owe this woman an apology? The last thing we need in America is another rich white male oppressing women of color. Don’t you agree?”

“Yes, I do owe her an apology and one was conveyed to her through the terms of our private settlement.”

“Come on now, Mr. David Ir-by. Your father had a knack for evicting us black folks not so long ago. Do you think America is going to forgive and forget a rich white man so easily? You owe this woman.”

David had not been coached to expect such a hostile interview and the wheels started to come off of his training. He sputtered, “Oh yeah, I disavow the systemic oppression of minorities in this nation. My family foundation has been fighting for equal representation of blacks, browns, and people of other colors.”

“Black, brown, and other colors?” said Rebecca Jackson with heavy indignation in her voice. She began to raise her voice, “Uh-uh, I don’t like where this is going. How about we bring on our guest? Kimmie, put her on screen.”

David sighed in relief as he’d been coached on what to do if they ambushed him with Sabrina Abdullah, who had recently gained her American citizenship by marriage.

“Mrs. Abdullah, how are you today?” asked Rebecca Jackson.

“I’m fine. Thank you for having me,” responded the plain-looking woman in the hijab.

“Mrs. Abdullah, per your settlement, are you allowed to speak publicly about the interaction you had that day at the United Nations with David here?”

“No, I am not,” said the woman.

“That’s fine. We figured as much. Kimmie, play the footage. Mrs. Abdullah, here we have video footage shot at a nightclub where David here is fondling a woman’s backside. What do you think of this footage?”

“Frankly,” said the woman in accordance with her coaching beforehand, “I am shocked and appalled that someone of Mr. Irby’s privilege and standing in America would be engaged in such bigoted behavior.”

“You can call him ‘David’, Mrs. Abdullah.”

David looked off-stage to Tom’s PR guy and Levi. Tom’s PR guy began to approach the set, stepping in front of a camera.

“Excuse, Ms. Jackson, my client was promised a fair interview and a chance to explain himself. This interview is over.”

“Oh, not man enough to answer for what you’ve done, huh?” Rebecca Jackson taunted.

“Come on, David,” said the PR guy. “Again, this interview is over.”

The lights on the stage came up and a CMN producer began arguing with Levi, who cowered in his chair. This angered David, seeing his cousin under siege, and he felt insulted by Rebecca Jackson pushing her brand so far out of its expected confines.

“You disgust me, David,” brayed Sabrina Abdullah. Her remote feed was not cut, and she stared into the camera menacingly.

David was ill at ease. Something in him told him to stand up for himself. The PR guy was busy taking the wireless microphone off of him. He looked again over to Levi. Nobody picks on Levi but me, a voice inside of him said.

“You know what?” he said to the host, brushing off the PR guy’s attempts to dissuade him. “You got a lot of nerve ambushing me like this. Your producers are a pack of liars.”

“Pack of liars? Da-vid,” she extended out his name, “you’re the one who got caught body slamming a woman. Honestly, I was going to give you a fair interview until this footage leaked.”

“I was in college then. That’s old news. Nothing leaked.”

“You are disgusting!” Sabrina Abdullah brayed again. “The UN was right to strip your prize.”

“Okay, Shrimp Hands,” hissed David. He had completely lost his cool. “I’m not the one who ate seafood like a savage and then tried to touch other people. You’re the one who’s disgusting.”

“That’s enough! I’ve had it with you,” roared Rebecca Jackson. “Security, get him out of my sight.”

A pair of tall black men in white polo shirts, headsets, and khaki pants marched deliberately over from off-stage and began to physically remove David and his PR guy. Rebecca Jackson continued to taunt David, which only enraged him further. His microphone was still on when he yelled, “Get your hands off me, you big black bastards!”

The insult made national headlines the following day and David’s infamy was complete. Not even his brother’s Democratic clout was enough to spare him total evisceration by the media and every social justice activist they were able to bring to bear on his crimes.

An unexpected thing happened to David’s career: his popularity skyrocketed. In the media’s eyes, he became a kind of poster boy for the white elite. He had caught on with the younger, left-leaning generations as a whipping boy. He was perceived as an arrogant, out of touch capitalist – despite his book’s lengthy arguments against capitalism. Much of the country assumed that he had inherited half of his father’s billions, a notion neither he nor his brother disabused anyone of. There was some buzz that he would run for his father’s old senator seat in Rhode Island. By every conceivable metric, he had committed mortal sins that would have buried forever any person to the right of the aisle. As he was draped in the auspices of climate activism, the elite were happy to further inflate his image. The globalist movement had not had a catchy populist figure for far too long.

The buzz started to wear off when, after a few media junkets and features in thinkpieces, David began to realize that he was being set up with adversarial female journalist after adversarial female journalist. Watching back his interviews, he realized his contributions were devoid enough of discussion about climate change that essentially – he was being picked on. This angered him and so he and Levi held a press conference in Upper Manhattan, outside of his home.

“Thank you all for coming,” said David. He was looking stronger than he had in a while, thanks to renewed enthusiasm for workouts with John. “I’d like to let my vice executive say a few words before we get into the meat of what we’re here for, today.” David was in a jubilant, generous mood and wanted to give special acknowledgement to the man who had come up with the venture they were about to share.

Levi gave him a surprised look, as he had not expected to speak, before taking to the podium and looking out upon the score of reporters gathered at the steps of David’s brownstone. He was barely visible above the podium, as he stood only 5’2”. He fiddled with his thick glasses for a moment, cleared his throat, and said, “Thank you, reporters, for coming today. I want to thank David Irby Sr. for giving me this job and Tom Irby for keeping me on when his father passed away. I don’t really know what to say. I’m excited for what David is going to reveal to you all. I am…” he looked to David for what to say. David only motioned to him to continue and smiled. “I am looking for a wife to have children with. It’s hard for me to get a date in this city because I’m short. If any of you know of someone…”

David nudged him to the side as gracefully as he could.

“Ow!” Levi yelped audibly off-microphone.

“Thank you for that,” David said in the journalist voice he had learned at Brown. He began to read from a printed statement, “Ladies, gentlemen, and other-folk, it pleases me to announce to you the next stage of my career fighting for climate justice. In honor of my deceased father and in the name of climate justice, I will be setting sail on a carbon-neutral catamaran made from renewables and outfitted with cameras for the Dying Planet documentary companion to my popular book.”

“Mr. Irby, will there be any women on board with you?” asked the first reporter.

“What?” asked an annoyed David. “No, what kind of question is that? Next, please.”

The next reporter, one from a popular list website, began in, “When you say that there are going to be no women on the journey, is that because you’d prefer there not be women?”

“You guys think I’m a real fool, huh? I know why some of you are here. I had hoped that some of you were sincere in promoting the fight for climate justice.”

“Mr. Irby, I am serious about it,” a Japanese reporter broke in. He knew this woman. She was from the national public broadcasting network and had covered some of his book tour engagements.

“Ms. Miyasaka, please, continue,” he motioned to her.

“Thank you, David. Is this just a single trip journey like Eliza Gunther’s cross-Atlantic voyage or are you stopping anywhere? What is your route?”

“I am going across Lake Erie from Toledo to Buffalo,” he announced. The reporters audibly lamented his choice.

“Really? Shouldn’t you attempt a larger crossing?”

“How far should I go?”

“You haven’t thought this out at all, have you?”

“No, I have,” beamed David. “Have a look.” He presented a series of eight by ten photographs of the catamaran, docked in Buffalo and retrofitted with solar panels.

“Mr. Irby,” said a journalist for a gossip website, “That’s half a day’s drive. You’re not going to let a teenage girl best you, are you?”

Loud snickering erupted from the press corps.

“You know what? Fuck you guys,” David raged. “I’m trying to do something for the environment here and you won’t give me a moment’s breath. You think I’m pathetic but I’m going to show you. Fuck it, we’re going across the Atlantic.”

“That’s more like it!” Levi butted in and spoke into the microphone.

“Levi, shut the fuck up,” David muttered under his breath loud enough for the microphone to pick up. He elbowed his cousin as hard as he could and Levi crumpled to the ground, wheezing for breath. Nobody seemed to care that David had openly hit his “vice executive.” They figured it was all a part of an act.

A male reporter thumbing at a map on his phone piped up, “David, I have a route for you. Why don’t you go out of the city here and land in England?”

“I don’t want to go to England. We’ll go to Portugal, instead.”

Another journalist chimed in, “David, CMN here, I don’t think you’re going to generate much press with this. Eliza Gunther already did a solo trans-Atlantic voyage. You’re better off doing something else.”

David saw that there was much consensus among the reporters for this sentiment. “Really? Aw, come on, guys. It’ll be awesome.”

“I think they’re right,” Levi said into his ear, startling him.

“Okay…” he sensed the momentum leaving the situation. He thought for a moment about what he should do. A good work. I need a good work. More money than I would know what to do with. Lots of responsibility and importance in the world. What’s going to get me over the top?

“We don’t have a backup plan,” Levi again stated the obvious into his cousin’s ear. “You better think of something.”

“Who’s the most famous person we can get to show up at something?” David whispered back.

“We can get the former Prince of England and his wife. Their asking price is like five million. Your uncle Goldsmith knows them.”

“That’s more than half my money,” David whimpered.

“You have to go for it. Nobody is going to come to another press conference if you don’t announce it. We can probably get Leon to go if the Prince and his wife go.”

“Okay…” David resumed his presentation. “I’m going to throw a climate change party with the biggest celebrities in climate change. Prince Jerry is going to be there with his wife. We’re thinking Leon is going to come, too. We’re going to have a bunch of people come. It’s going to be on a yacht. It’s going to be amazing. See you guys there!”

Book 2

Chance was a pleasure cruise captain based out of San Diego. He was of average height, average intelligence, a liberal-anarchistic persuasion, and ate a plant-based diet to help him stay slender now in his late 30’s. Ten years prior he had been a heroin junkie but an ayahuasca journey in Peru had “reset” his brain and kept him from bankrupting his father’s pleasure cruise business. His father had retired several years prior and the business had managed to stay afloat largely out of reputation. Chance was not an incompetent skipper but he did indulge too much in the pleasure aspect of the cruises. He had had almost eighty sexual partners, some of them men and some of them what he referred to as “non-binary.” Southern California had given itself over to hedonism outright out of rebellion against the election of a Republican president and Chance was reaping the whirlwind. The great tragedy of learning he was HIV positive the previous year had turned into a positive with California state changing its disclosure laws so that he did not have to inform partners of his disease before copulating with them.

His spiritual partner and “soulmate” was one of the rare people who did not become infected with the virus, much to the couple’s relief. They had sex every single day and if they missed a day of sex, they would pow-wow after the day’s pleasure cruise to speak openly and honestly of their feelings so that they could feel reconnected to one another. Chance’s partner was named Kimmy. She was a modest looking woman who made up for her average looks by being constantly on the sexual offensive. She would lustily eye any attractive man or woman she came into contact with, excusing her behavior by openly stating she was sapiosexual – a person sexually aroused by intelligence in another person, irrespective of their gender. She had reddish brown hair, contrasted to Chance’s dark brown Portuguese locks, and she never wore makeup – a fact that the couple often made light of during the “wine and dine” component of the pleasure cruises. Neither person in this “spiritual partnership” wore elegant clothing, instead electing to wear hand-me-downs and thrift shop attire. In the early years of Chance’s captaining this bothered the clientele, but the poorly-kept secret of the pleasure cruises amounting to paying a fee to attend an orgy had radically diversified their customer base.

It was the “Midsummer’s Connection Cruise” that Chance and Kimmy were hosting when they received a phone call from Levi inquiring about the availability for a pleasure cruise through San Diego Harbor toward the end of the summer. Levi disclosed the list of several prominent attendees, including Prince Jerry and his wife, Horace Goldsmith, several rock stars including Aerohole and U3, and many climate justice dignitaries including Leon.

When Levi ended the call, Chance and Kimmy leapt for joy at the warm feelings emanating from their inner children.

“Wonder Boy says he’s happy,” exclaimed Chance.

“Oh,” Kimmy said, licking her lips seductively, “Gypsy Girl says she’s happy, too.”

Chance laughed in an aroused manner and grabbed Kimmy by her buttocks. She giggled and they went back to the main deck of the yacht where dinner was being served to the thirty guests that were sitting at a twenty-foot dining table and a tremendous bench sofa wrapped in a waterproof protectant. The Acceptance was a 240-foot yacht, just short of the superyacht designation. Chance’s father had pivoted to pleasure cruises in the Harbor and down to Baja Sur after a remarkable career in California real estate. He did still come to check that business operations were running smoothly and, from time to time, would participate in the orgies. His name was Rodrigo and he had been friends with the famous Greek singer Demi Roussos. They caroused together in the Mediterranean in the 1980’s, when Rodrigo met Chance’s mother at a yacht party. Orgies ran in Chance’s family, a fact he openly celebrated. He once shared Kimmy with his father, who had a particularly powerful orgasm that many people clapped for afterwards. Chance experienced feelings of jealousy that day and after a five-hour open, vulnerable conversation with Kimmy – he decided he was inspired by Kimmy’s pleasure and his father’s powerful orgasm. This was one of the life lessons he and Kimmy delivered to cruise-goers regularly during the entertainment portion of the voyages.

A woman named Deanna had come into their life recently. She greeted Kimmy, with whom she had struck up a lesbian relationship in the past several months. Chance was whole-heartedly accepting of this even though Deanna was a hardened lesbian and had little interest in sexual relations with a man. Since there were no secrets among them, the three of them considered themselves a “triad.” Kimmy told Deanna the good news and the financial windfall that was to come their way. Deanna, in her low voice, said, “Amazing! I bet Wonder Boy and Gypsy Girl are also happy?”

“Yes!” Kimmy exclaimed, widening her eyes to a remarkable degree. She and Deanna kissed passionately. This encouraged some of the pleasure cruise guests to become more affectionate with one another.

“Healing Girl is happy, too,” said Deanna.

Kimmy cradled her face in her hands and looked deep into her eyes. “Aw, that’s so cute.”

Chance resumed his seat at the head of the lengthy table and felt enormous pride in his prospects. A number one best-selling author was going to be hosting a who’s who on his company’s yacht. He looked over at Deanna and Kimmy making out and continued to feel pride. Kimmy was really maturing as a person. He felt “compersion” in this moment, a term they often used to signify taking pleasure in another person’s pleasure. Though his relationship to Deanna was strictly platonic, he was desperately in love with her and was hatching plans to make her fall in love with him – despite her hardened lesbian stance. He was slowly gaining permission to speak with her inner child – Healing Girl. Deanna came from a rough background of substance abuse, sexual molestation, and unemployment. She now had a job with the family business as a pleasure liaison, for which she was grateful. He was using this as leverage, demonstrating to her over and over how money in her pocket meant she was independent. Since she craved independence as an ideal, he could make the easy connection for her that he was directly contributing to her independence. This would make her more dependent on him, though he did not acknowledge this even to himself.

Later in the evening, Deanna was speaking with a wealthy cruise goer after they’d briefly had sex with one another. She had been attracted to him because of his “aura” and chose him out of the baker’s dozen of men that were on the yacht. She’d chosen him to test her hard lesbian stance after a brief, spirited conversation with Kimmy about overcoming boundaries.

“So, what do you do?” she asked him.

“I’m a partner at Mooney-Morrison.”

“Oh wow, is that a law firm?”

He replied in the affirmative.

“Do you guys do immigration stuff?”

“On rare occasion we have, but generally we work in personal injury and estate planning. Mooney does the personal injury side and I’m in estate planning. We were best friends in law school,” the portly man added with mirth. This was the first woman in many months he hadn’t paid directly for sex.

“One of my friends is down in Mexico. She’s trying to get her papers sorted so she can live here.”

“Oh,” the man replied. He paused before looking away, so as to not appear rude.

Deanna did not take the hint and pressed forward, “She’s a tantric yoga instructor. I met her at a fruitarian convention in Belize. We used to be roommates. Cost of living is really low down there. I think you would like it. She has a big family, too. I’ve met most of them. They want to come to America, too, but nobody is willing to pay a coyote to bring them over. I said they should just fly over and overstay their visas but they’re stubborn. They don’t want to spend the money. I’m looking for an easier way to bring them into the country. I thought maybe a lawyer could be useful.”

“How long have you known this woman?”

“She’s probably my longest friend. Gosh, I’ve known her for…two years. Before her, my longest friend was a girl I knew for the one year of college I did. She was my friend during what I call my ‘dark years.’ We used to party a lot. She died from an overdose. I try not to think about those years too much because there’s just a lot of pain there, you know?”

“Okay…say, the Cialis you were mentioning earlier. Could I get one?”

Deanna was frustrated momentarily but told herself that frustration could be turned into inspiration, as Chance and Kimmy had taught her, and soon the smile returned to her face. She went and fetched the boner pill for her “pleasure partner,” as the business termed them, and soon he was screwing her again while she moaned in ecstasy.

When he was finished and was laboring to breathe, he sat with her again on the tremendous couch where several other small groups were still engaged in sexual relations. He said to her, “You know, you have a beautiful spirit, Dina.”

“Aw, thank you. It’s ‘Deanna’.”

“I wish I could help you with your friend but it’s not just not my field of expertise. Look, I need to get showered. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“You’re still hard,” she observed. “Any of the other girls would be happy to satisfy you. You have a really positive aura.”

“Thanks, Deanna. I’ll come back in a couple hours. Just need to catch my breath,” he said as he urged his body to a standing position and plodded off in the direction of the cabins and the communal shower, where a small orgy was taking place.

Deanna watched him walk away. She felt disappointment but Healing Girl came to the forefront of her mind and said she wanted to play with Gypsy Girl and so Deanna went and massaged Kimmy while she copulated in an upright position with a man, using an implement on him from the “toy chest” next to the open bar.

Mondays and Tuesdays were the days Chance, Kimmy, and Deanna did not work for the pleasure cruise business. They used to spend their days at Rodrigo’s condo but when Deanna came into the picture, she convinced the others that they could build a better energy living full time on the yacht. They sunned themselves on the back deck of the yacht after spending the whole morning laboring to clean up from the previous afternoon’s pleasure cruise.

“I’m not scared of dying,” mused Chance as he twirled his long locks lazily.

“I’m not either,” said Kimmy in an overly enthusiastic voice.

“I’m not worried about spreading the bug,” he was referring to the four different HIV prevention drugs he was taking on a near-daily basis.

“I’m not worried about you dying,” said Deanna, trying her best to add to the conversation. She was often preoccupied with the thought that she was not as healed as these two majestic human beings she was learning to love.

“A part of me is worried about what kind of legacy I will leave, though. I mean, the work we’ve done so far is amazing.”

“Really amazing,” said Kimmy.

“I guess I want to do something good for the world.”

“You’re already doing so much good for the world. You’re helping so many people heal.”

“I think I want to have a baby,” said Chance.

“Wow, that’s so awesome!”

“I was hoping I could have a baby with both of you,” Chance said to the women.

“I would totally have a baby with you,” said Kimmy, licking her lips lustily. She stroked his lower pelvis.

Chance and Kimmy turned their attention to Deanna, who was openly unsure of taking on such a responsibility. She said, “I don’t know. Healing Girl is all for it but…I just don’t know if I could love a man the way I love Kimmy. You know, I’m willing to have sex with men. I learned that this last weekend with that amazing lawyer.”

“That was hot,” Chance said in a feminine voice. The three started laughing.

“He had such an energy, you know. I think he may be willing to help Fernanda. If Fernanda could be here, I would feel like there were enough women in my life for me to commit to trying for a baby with you, Chance.”

“You guys haven’t even kissed yet,” observed Kimmy.

“We haven’t,” Chance said again in his feminine voice. “You know I’m in a womanly mood right now. It wouldn’t be like you were kissing a man if we kissed right now.”

“Yeah, I just couldn’t kiss that lawyer. Kissing is still a boundary for me,” said Deanna. “Let me try, though. I’m really inspired by you guys thinking you want to start a family.”

“Oh my god, this is so amazing,” said Kimmy.

Chance and Deanna began to French kiss, both moaning audibly in their female voices. Deanna pulled away after a half minute.

“What’s wrong?” Chance asked in a wounded voice.

“I haven’t been totally honest with you guys. It tears me up and I need to come clean with you. Fernanda and I are in love.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet. I accept you as you are,” said Kimmy.

“Yeah, that’s no problem. We can have a bigger family if she joins us,” said Chance. The man in him was marveling at his sexual prospects. The woman in him was happy for the divine sisterhood he could envision with three women in his life on the regular. They could talk even longer into the night.

“I’ve just never shared that much love before,” said Deanna. “I really miss her.”

“Oh my gosh, of course you do. You’ve said it so many times, I just didn’t realize that you were romantically in love with her,” Kimmy gasped. “She’s so pretty. I can’t wait to meet her.”

“If Fernanda was with us, then I would feel more open to making love with you, Chance. I’m sorry but if we’re going to have true love, I need that support. I learned that having a spiritual-sexual connection with a man, like that lawyer, is not the same as being in love. I know you’re in love with me but that’s such a powerful force for me right now. You know the history I’ve had with men. Having sex with that lawyer was just one step on my path to healing. And I know that the depth of your love would just be overwhelming to me right now. I need both my lady loves to be able to handle your love.” She laughed and the pair reciprocated by nestling the crowns of their foreheads together gently.

“That makes so much sense to me,” said Chance, eager to give Deanna what she wanted. He was completely infatuated with her and this recent step away from her former hard-lesbian stance thrilled him. “We’ll figure out a way to get her here with us. Wonder Boy is promising that.”

“He’s so cute,” cooed Kimmy. “We’re going to be so happy when our whole family is together.”

Chance watched the two women make out for a little bit before meeting his mechanic for the routine inspection the yacht went through every two weeks. The mechanic had grown accustomed to seeing Chance half-naked but would not yet shake Chance’s hand, an awkward ritual they went through every time they met for Chance to let him on the boat. The mechanic thoroughly disliked Chance, considering him to be a Satanic deviant. Sometimes he did not.

David scored the jackpot. Not only was his Climate Cruise only a few weeks away but he had a new girlfriend. He’d met her at a climate luncheon in Boston. She was the daughter of the Duchess of Kent, Lady Marina Sussex. She had a busy schedule and could only meet with him two or three times a month. She was openly affectionate in public, a fact that thrilled him as he’d never had a girlfriend who was at ease with him – on account of his family’s name and wealth. The press was eager to promote this Climate Couple. Marina Sussex was an active philanthropist and was often jetting off to different parts of the underdeveloped world, seeing aid projects through or attending forums for the glitterati. David had the best luck in seeing her when he would go to the same events. They would get dinner afterwards. She’d permitted him to kiss her openly in public and in private they would make out but that’s as far as she’d let it go. She also would tolerate his growing video gaming habit. She would watch for up to fifteen minutes when he and Levi would turn to it.

Levi liked Lady Marina. She abhorred him and his constant presence in David’s life was the main factor in her hesitation to spend more extended periods of time with him in private. Levi picked his nose when David wasn’t looking, a fact not lost on Marina. She pitied him, seeing the wrath David would visit upon him for slight mistakes. She chose not to tell David about the nose-picking. She didn’t like Levi also because he commented on her appearance too often. He was always complimenting her and nudging her Royal Escort to the side in order to open doors for her or seat her at tables. Nobody else seemed to notice Levi’s behavior, which troubled Lady Marina. She was not inclined to say anything and so she gave herself over to moods of quiet despair in the times that Levi was around.

She found herself at Wimbledon with David when she finally whispered to David her issue with Levi, who was off fetching water for the pair.

“Darling,” she said to him.

The men’s semi-final was ongoing, featuring one of David’s favorite players and a personal friend of Prince Jerry. David hoped to speak to the player over dinner and convince him to attend the already star-studded Climate Cruise. He broke his attention away from the back and forth of the match, eager to attend to his lady’s needs.

“It’s about Levi.”

“He’s so helpful, isn’t he?”

“Yes, David, see…about that. He’s a bit overbearing, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?” David felt disturbed but in all interactions with Marina defaulted back to his training in manners as a child in boarding school. His father’s connections to England ran deep and his mother had been a dual citizen of the U.K. and America. He did his best to temper his insatiable desire to please this woman, as marriage with her would fulfill the requirement of his inheritance. The truth was that he would walk through fire for her, but she was British and he knew to play it down.

“He’s too eager to help, I’d say.”

David’s favorite player made a dazzling save to keep the play alive and a gasp echoed through the crowd. He shook off the distraction to respond to his lady.

“I can ask him to back off.”

“You would? That’s so kind of you, darling.”

“The TV cameras are on us right now,” David prompted her.

They smiled in unison and Lady Marina Sussex gave a light wave to the cameras. David counted his lucky stars as he now had two great leads on gaining his nearly nine-billion-dollar fortune. He would be happy to marry in to the Lady’s family, but she had made it clear to him that her climate mission came first. He did not dispute this because he knew she had other suitors and did not want to push her away. He had no real gauge of her commitment to him other than knowing that an open kiss in public was no small matter.

Jigmat Singh was the Canadian head of security for Prince Jerry and his wife. His promotion had been roundly protested by the Queen’s Counsel and Buckingham Palace security but Prince Jerry’s wife, Nicki Nakers (who was adamant about keeping her maiden name), insisted on diversity. Prince Jerry was in the process of de-titling himself after Nicki demanded they resign from the Royal Family and start a new, self-sufficient life in Canada. Jigmat had been Head of Security for the largest seaport in Canada when the call went out that Nicki was looking for a person-of-color to lead her security detail. His track record had been abysmal with the seaport but as records on job performance were no longer kept, due to concerns about racism, Jigmat had enough political clout with the staff at the seaport to do a decent job getting past initial vetting. This, of course, didn’t matter in the slightest with Nicki Nakers as she hired him based on his similarity in appearance to her co-star on a TV show she’d done as a teenager.

Jigmat was currently overseeing a shopping trip to Lululemon by Nicki. She had brought Prince Jerry in tow, who she referred to as, “J” – a moniker he had resisted at first but came to accept after Nicki threatened to divorce him if he didn’t relent.

“Jigmat, what do you think of this one?” Nicki called to him, stepping out in stylish leggings that made her appear nude.

“It is a very fine one, Ms. Nakers,” he proclaimed. “You will get much attention when you go jogging.”

“J” was sitting on a bench in the store while a mob of paparazzi frothed and swayed outside, desperately vying for the single available angle into the store to where Nicki Nakers was parading her different outfits to Jigmat. There were rumors that Nicki was cheating on Jerry with Jigmat but Jigmat had no interest in Nicki, as she was of a different race. He preferred Indian women only but indulged her flirtations from time to time to keep his lucrative job secure. He was being paid an annual salary of half a million dollars: double what he was making at the seaport.

“Tell J I want him to get me a coffee from across the street,” she demanded.

“Ms. Nakers, I am not sure he can do that. He is still the Prince of England and there are security concerns. You already dismissed all the other security team members for the day, a decision which I remind you I have protested many times in the past.”

“Ugh, you’re so mean, Jigmat. Lucky for you I like that. At least tell him to not be so mopey. He’s going to embarrass me in front of the cameras.”

Jigmat went over to Prince Jerry and quietly mentioned to him that Ms. Nakers would prefer it if he didn’t look so forlorn. He asked Prince Jerry’s forgiveness for this indiscretion and hoped that none of the store employees had overheard.

“What? Oh, that’s no bother, Jigmat,” said the worn-looking man. He straightened up his posture and assumed a warmer expression on his face. Outside there was a commotion as several of the paparazzi had tried to walk into the store, being met with resistance by a swarm of employees who were now in the process of locking the front doors and bringing the security gate down. The paparazzi protested this loudly, which caused Nicki to giggle.

“Tell them to not be such idiots,” she called over to Jigmat.

“Yes, miss,” he said and went to berate the crowd.

“On second thought, come here. Tell me which sports bra you think will look better at spin class. Remember, their bikes are purple.”

On and on she went with Jigmat. Prince Jerry fiddled nervously with his phone and thought of the girlfriend he had before Nicki came into his life. She was prettier than he could tolerate. Nicki was pretty but Zelda had been a stunner that drew media attention of her own accord. He longed for her but didn’t feel himself worthy to go back to her. He was lonely and often felt like a third wheel to Nicki and Jigmat. He wondered at times if Jigmat was a homosexual but he’d seen him canoodling with a woman at the previous year’s Diwali festival in Toronto.

He put in his wireless earbuds and began listening to a blues song from a famous black British singer. He’d been present for the man’s knighthood ceremony. The singer had become England’s wealthiest singer since crossing over into EDM but Jerry preferred his older songs.

Later that evening, while Nicki was doing her sponsored spin class, Jerry sat at a kebab shop with Jigmat. He had a large lamb kebab in front of him that he hardly touched. Jigmat noticed the man’s low mood but said nothing. He resented Jerry. Jerry had everything in the world: a beautiful woman, a firstborn son, all the money in the world, and an international, jet-setting lifestyle where he could buy anything he wanted at any time. Jigmat did not like Jerry but tolerated the Royal as this was the man who cut his paychecks.

“Jigmat,” Jerry began.

“Yes, Prince Jerry,” said Jigmat, drinking from his cup with his usual casual attitude.

“Do you ever think there’s anything more to this life?”

“No, Prince Jerry. This is a good life. We are fortunate the ocean levels are not rising very fast. In my home province there is flooding right now. Very bad.”

“I just feel sad all the time. I don’t know why. Sometimes I don’t even care.”

“You must remind yourself of the good things in this life, sir. In my country we have a saying, ‘He who is grateful is the king of his flock.’”

“Is that a Christian saying, then?”

“Oh no, sir.”

“Do you want my kebab, Jigmat? I haven’t touched it.”

“No, thank you, sir. I am quite stuffed with the samosas.”

“She’s mean to me, you know. Nicki is. I think you can see that.”

“Ms. Nakers warned me you would say that, sir. I am not to speak ill of her under any circumstances. She is a lovely woman, really. You just need to show her some more spirit sometimes, if I may speak on the matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your spirit is low, sir. You must elevate your spiritedness. She will enjoy you more this way. She complains to me all the time, sir. When you were first together, you were in the Army. She loved a man in uniform. She loved to see you have purpose in your life and be with your mates. Now you are low energy. You have no purpose, as you said.”

“All of my mates are still in the Army,” noted Prince Jerry. “I can’t just go and spend time with them. They are serving.”

“What about that impresario fellow that has invited you to the Climate Cruise, sir? He is not so removed in age from you. Perhaps he would lift your spirits. Ms. Nakers approves of him. His girlfriend is rumored to be Lady Marina, your second cousin’s sister-daughter.”

“He seems a bit daft, don’t you think, Jigmat? He has a notorious temper. I’m going to that cruise as a favor to Goldsmith. He said he would get Nicki a voice role in one of their animated films.”

“Sir, may I speak honestly?”

“Go on. You may.”

“You have no friends, sir. Ms. Nakers does not want to be your friend. She wants to have your children and use your connections. Yes, she loves you in her own way but sir, you must be more spirited. This Irby the Second fellow has vigor and spirit. He is like my brother-cousin Prakesh, who is a foreman at the harbor. Prakesh is like a tiger. He has many women. He fights like a Bengali. He is a good example to the company. He has taken many white women. If you want Ms. Nakers to respect you, how can you act like a friend? How can you do this? She won’t respect you.”

“I’ll do as you say, Jigmat. I appreciate your advice.”

“Ms. Nakers is done, sir. We must go pick her up.”

“Isn’t Ebin in charge of that?”

“Ms. Nakers gave him the day off, sir. We must do as she says or she will scream like Shiva.”

“Yes, we must do as she says,” whimpered Prince Jerry.

Chance had just finished up having sex with Fernanda for the first time when he prompted her, “Fernanda, that was amazing. I felt so connected to you. Please, tell me more about yourself. I’m curious about you.”

They had picked her up from the Tijuana coastline under the cover of night in his father’s small speed boat. The California state government had recently passed into law many measures that inhibited Federal authorities from policing the border. Chance basically waltzed into Mexican waters and picked her up, completely unmolested by any authority. He and Fernanda had wasted no time in copulating under the stars off the shores of San Diego.

Chance’s cell phone rang. It was Deanna and he answered, “Yeah, she was amazing. You’re right about that thing with her vagina. It’s unique. Yeah, haha, okay. Can’t wait to be with you!”

Deanna and Kimmy were off at a meditation meet-up in Indio and wouldn’t be back for another day.

“Sorry about that,” he said to Fernanda.

“What’s there to know?” she asked. “You can feel my spirit. Deanna is the love of my life.”

“Oh, definitely I can feel your spirit. I just mean like everyday stuff, you know?”

“Deanna didn’t tell you?”

“She told me all I needed to know and wow, she was right,” he added lustily.

“She is so sexy, isn’t she? I can’t believe she had a man recently. You must be so excited to have her when we get back.”

“My family is growing.”

“Everyday stuff…I dual-majored at National Autonomous University of Mexico in political science and Race, Gender, and Oppression Studies. I have a dangerous side, for sure.”

“I definitely felt that from you, at one point.”

“Have you heard of the Reconquista?”

“No, what is that?” he asked. He was twirling his long hair absent-mindedly. A flotilla went by, loaded to the gills with Mexican nationals. They were playing their music loudly and partying.

“Do you believe that America was stolen from indigenous peoples?”

“I never thought about it that way, but it makes sense.” He was high from having unbridled sex with Fernanda, who had a much more aggressive style than the partners he was used to.

“White people have blood on their hands. Not you, though. You are clearly an ally. You’re Portuguese, right? Yeah, your people didn’t oppress my people. If I was Brazilian, I would have to ask for your apologies, of course. I’m a member of La Raza. We believe in racial justice for the oppressed peoples of the true American homeland, which was stolen by murderous colonials. America is a living lie. We want to bring our people back to their ancestral homelands. You helped me to do that tonight. I know I can count on you. We’re like family now.”

“Wow…” Chance said in a feminine voice. His head was largely empty but he was happy to be of assistance to a woman where needed.

“Let me show you something,” said Fernanda. She went to her backpacking backpack, which had pins on the outside from every Central American nation and a few from Europe. She rustled around the innards for a minute before withdrawing a pistol. “It’s loaded,” she said as she handed it to him. “Be careful.”

“Wow, this is like really intense. That’s so cool. I accept you. You’re a strong woman.”

“Yes, that is the pistol my uncle Arturo Diaz used to shoot a neo-Nazi in eastern Texas.”

“Did he kill him?”

“Yes, of course. It was in the news for weeks. The neo-Nazi was a member of Congress. Your conservative media whined and complained but ultimately no one did anything about it.”

“Oh wow, I don’t follow the news. Just too much of people’s clunky stuff. Unprocessed emotional material, you know?”

“Do you want to shoot it?” Fernanda said seductively, crawling into Chance’s lap and placing her arms around his neck.

“Just up in the air?” She nodded her consent and he fired it. “Oh, it has a kick to it.” He handed it back to her as carefully as he could.

She stood up and put it back into her backpack. “Don’t worry, I would never use it on you. We’re lovers now.”

“Have you used it on someone before?”

“Only on this rapist douchebag at a hostel. He was trying to rape me when I was drunk. He lived but I only heard that later. You’re not supposed to use guns in Mexico. I know how to use it, though. When I was living in Louisiana, my aunt taught me how.”

“You lived in America before?” Chance gasped.

“Oh yeah, why do you think I don’t have an accent. My family is with the narcos. They sent me to private school in Louisiana. My mother got deported and so I went to high school and college in Mexico. But I’ve been in America like…three times in the past few years.”

“Deanna said you were trying to come in legally and that you didn’t want to cross the border like most people do.”

“I mean, that’s sort of true. Technically, I am not allowed in the United States. She’s right about the border crossing though. No feminist in her right mind would spend time around coyotes. They’re all rapists and child molesters.”

“Wow, that’s really intense,” he noted. “You have a lot of courage to come back to America to be with Deanna.”

“Oh yes, I love her with all my soul. We did a peyote journey together in the Sonoran Desert. She’s amazing. I would do anything for her.”

“I know what that’s like. I did an ayahuasca journey in Peru. When you’ve gone that far into yourself, you see things differently.”

The flotilla loaded with Mexican nationals floated too closely to their speedboat and Fernanda began to yell obscenities at the men on-board who were catcalling her. She threw a beer bottle at one of them, striking him directly in the face with incredible violence. A gaping laceration opened up across his cheek and he howled in pain.

“We should probably get out of here,” she barked to Chance, who was tentatively crawling into the driver’s seat of the boat. They thundered out of range of the pursuing flotilla.

“Those fucking pigs,” she hollered over the roar of the engines. “I fucking hate misogynists.”

Chance was not listening to her. He was too busy attending to his wounded inner child, Wonder Boy. He was giving that boy reassurances that things would calm down and that this was just a temporary moment of passion from Fernanda. After all, Deanna was such a wise soul and chose people judiciously. He felt calmer and smiled as Fernanda wrapped her arms around him once again, this time from behind as he stood at the wheel. He felt powerful and masculine. As he felt this, he was also quick to remind himself that he was connected to his inner divine feminine.

David stood with Levi on the upper deck of The Acceptance, both looking down upon the carousing crew of the yacht. They were doing partner yoga poses and listening to electronic dance music. The Acceptance was on auto-pilot, cruising through the San Diego harbor and out into the ocean at a lazy pace.

“Who’s that?” David asked as Fernanda stepped out onto the lower deck for the first time. “Chance didn’t introduce us to her.”

“She must be a new crew member. She wasn’t on the group call last week,” Levi replied. “She’s got a great ass. There are rumors that they run orgies on this boat sometimes. I think it’s just a rumor but if it’s not, I’m going to try and get with her.” Levi was practically drooling. He had a special preference for Hispanic women.

“Whoever she is, she looks mean as hell. She has resting bitch face.”

“You’ve been on social media too much.”

“You’re the one who set me up with it.”

“I set you up with a philanthropy account. You’re supposed to give money away to people who repost you or make a good case for needing help, not just surf memes.”

“You’re the one commenting on women’s pictures. You’re a simp.”

“You’re a simp, too. You always simp after Lady Marina.”

“We made out twice! You’re not supposed to be using the philanthropy account to try and get women, Levi.”

“Fuck you,” hissed the assistant. “I haven’t had a girlfriend before. How am I supposed to get one if I can’t run game?”

“Try being somebody. I got Lady Marina because I’m fighting for climate justice. You just spend all your free hours on social media, simping like your life depends on it. God, she has resting bitch face. I can’t get over it. Look how she bosses Chance around. Why does he take it from her? I don’t get it.”

“She’s hot, that’s why. I’d let a hot woman boss me around.”

“That’s why you’ve never had a girlfriend. I might be a feminist but I never let a woman boss me around.”

“That’s the whole point of being a feminist!”

“I don’t want to end up like you, simping all the time.”

“Stop fucking saying that,” growled Levi.

“Make me, you faggot.”

The pair were about to have another fistfight when Kimmy walked up the steps to the upper deck and made her presence known by clearing her throat. They turned from their perches and greeted her, straightening out from their fighting postures.

“I wasn’t interrupting anything, was I?” she asked.

They replied in unison that she hadn’t.

“Well…what do you think of the boat?” she asked them. She was careful in her mind not to give David too much attention on account of his status and wealth. She tried very hard in her mind to see Levi as his equal.

David responded, “How long can you leave the ship without someone piloting it?”

“Oh, we can leave it for a few hours. There’s always course adjustments we have to make but we just do it from our smart phone. The path-finding on the ship isn’t perfect.”

“I heard you guys have…sexy parties on the boat?” Levi asked. He was desperate to have some kind of sexual contact with one of the women on-board.

Kimmy blushed, covered her mouth with her hand, and remembered that Chance had relayed from Rodrigo that the lascivious nature of the pleasure cruises was to be downplayed and kept only to the level of disclosure the advertising materials let on. “We do host adult-themed cruises every week. They’re a lot of fun! Oh, sorry, that was Gypsy Girl speaking. She’s my inner child.”

Both David and Levi stood in confused silence.

“This ship is called The Acceptance because we use healing terminology for things. Everyone here is on a journey, whether they realize it or not.” She eagerly steered the conversation away from the sexual aspect of the business, not wanting to disrupt the windfall David’s cash deposit on the Climate Cruise had brought. “We believe in healing the Earth and that the change starts with ourselves.”

“Oh, right, the biodegradable composting bins and that other stuff,” David referred to the tour of the yacht they’d been given, and the various embellishments made to the craft by present company. “I have a catamaran made from renewables moored on Lake Eerie. It has solar panels. I was going to do a solo voyage for climate awareness but we changed our minds. That’s why we’re here.”

“On that note, I have the State of California paperwork for carbon buyback if you want to sign it,” said Kimmy. “It’s in the main office. Should we take care of it now?”

“Yeah, sure, we can do that. I’ll be back in a second,” he said to Levi. Levi returned his lustful gaze back out onto the aft deck where Deanna and Fernanda were kissing momentarily on the lips after a successful yoga pose. He listened to them giggle and sighed to himself, feeling sorry that he’d never even kissed a girl before.

Down in the cabin, David was signing the various forms when Kimmy brushed against him seductively. He turned his head to look at her in surprise when she said, “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. Maybe the rumors are a little bit true about our boat.”

“Uh…” he uttered. “I have a girlfriend. Sorry. Aren’t you married to Chance?”

“Married?” she giggled. “No, we’re life partners. Like soulmates but you can have multiple soulmates. A life partner can help you to meet many of your soulmates. They have the highest designation.”

“Kind of like Chance being the skipper of the boat?”

“Sort of. He doesn’t like us calling him that. We’ve all agreed to share leadership of the ship. We don’t like boundaries and limits that put people into roles that aren’t fluid.”

“Okay…” David stammered. “Well, that’s the last document. How much time do we have left?”

She checked her smartwatch and told him it would be another 90 minutes. She asked him if his girlfriend would ever be interested in having an open relationship with him. David was surprised to find that he was oddly intrigued by the notion. “I don’t think Lady Marina would ever accept that kind of thing. It would embarrass her whole family.”

“Really? ‘Cause I heard in the tabloids that Nicki Nakers has an open relationship with Prince Jerry. She was asked that out on the street and she just smiled. I think it’s true. She’s with that Jigmat guy who does her security way more often than she’s with the prince. Nicki is royalty. The Crown hasn’t disowned her. Why would it disown Lady Marina?”

David had no response. He muttered some excuse about needing to go to the bathroom and slipped out of the main office. He did, in fact, have to urinate and did so with gusto into a urinal when Chance came quietly into the bathroom to do his own thing. He startled David when he greeted him.

“How’s it hanging?” asked Chance. “Seriously though, does it hang to the left or to the right. Mine hangs to the left.” He broke up laughing a feminine laugh before noticing David’s discomfort. “I can see you’re feeling uncomfortable. Maybe you’re not used to people talking so openly about their bodies?”

“Something like that.” David scratched at his face before zipping up and going to the stone wall sink that spanned the width of the bathroom. He began washing his hands and said, “The regulations on things are pretty loose in California.”

“Yeah,” cooed Chance in his feminine voice, like a proverbial valley girl. “They’re ‘loose’,” he emphasized the word, hoping David would catch his drift. “I totally get the discomfort you’re experiencing. After all, our culture has these ‘norms’ that we’re expected to go by. We see things differently here. Californians ‘get it’. We have climate justice instituted, you can go by whatever gender you want on your driver’s license, and the laws are way more understanding here about STDs and paternity testing. You seriously chose the best place to do your Climate Cruise.”

“New York has some of the same things going for it.”

“That’s your home base, right?” Chance asked as he assumed his position at the large basin next to David, who was meticulously scrubbing germs out from under his fingernails. “The maritime laws suck there. My dad wanted to move our business over there but they’re always doing inspections. You can’t have pleasure cruises there. You can party all you want but only on dry land.”

“Levi tells me you have sexy parties on board.”

“We do.” Chance was cautious.

“You know Levi is a virgin. He wants to lose his virginity.”

“Oh my god, that’s so cute! Deanna has actually been exploring sex…” He cut himself short and looked to David in the mirror to gauge the man’s reaction. David didn’t seem to mind as he was engrossed in furiously scrubbing at the backs of his hands. Chance continued, “She’s been exploring sex-play with men. I’m sure she’d be willing to connect with Levi if she felt a good aura from him.”

“Levi has a good aura,” David said absent-mindedly as he scrubbed away.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

Chance left the bathroom and hurriedly skipped like a girl back out onto the lower deck where Deanna and Fernanda were petting each other on the groins of their yoga outfits.

“Oh my god,” he sang to Deanna. “Levi is a vir-gin.”

“Get out!” replied Deanna.

“David seems open to our truth. He’s really into his hands, a lot of energy there. I think he understands our vibe.”

“If you want to see if you have a connection with him, I don’t mind,” offered Fernanda to Deanna.

“That’s so sweet. I think I’ll go for it.”

The smartphone on the coffee table emitted a loud, harmonious sound of chimes combined with a heavenly synth pad. The pathfinding needed manual retracing. Chance unlocked the phone with the code “5683”, which spelled “L-O-V-E.” He noted the route. The app was asking him if he wanted to enter international waters. He mused aloud, “That’s funny, the coordinates switched over to where I picked you up outside of Tijuana.”

Fernanda noted that such a thing was unusual but that it was the same phone and navigation system that the speedboat used. She excused herself from the group and went to their shared sleeping quarters. She withdrew her phone from her backpack and dialed a number.

“The pick-up is off,” she said quietly to the voice on the other end of the line.

“But Marcos and his soldados are here. What am I supposed to tell them? Ahmed is with them. He’s going to beat me to death like he did to Juan if I don’t deliver. Then you will have the death of your husband on your conscience,” said Luis, her secret husband.

“Please, tell them I need one more week to gain these people’s trust.”

“That’s when they’re doing the Climate Cruise. The security is going to be tight for that thing.”

She heard him curse quietly away from the receiver.

“Chance says there haven’t been any security people in touch with him yet. I just need a little bit more time.”

Ahmed’s harsh voice came on the line, “Fernanda, what’s happening? Is there’s a pick-up or not?”

She was simultaneously afraid of the man for his ferocity but also felt he was a comrade-in-arms for the climate struggle. He’d conducted several successful insurgency campaigns in France, Libya, and Yemen. They had bombed large public works projects that were deemed by international organizations to be “unsustainable.” Ahmed was fabulously wealthy but a soldier by training. He used financiers by telling them he’d fight their climate war for them, but he always left a sleeper cell of Islamic fundamentalists wherever his operations were carried out. His Islamic superiors had designs for southern California. The porous southern border and California’s loose maritime travel restrictions were their best footholds in.

“It was too short a trip and Chance didn’t start having sex with any of us. He was too busy with the yoga. We have to turn around now. Just give me one more week, Ahmed.”

“Come tomorrow or the day after, not during that Cruise you’re doing. There will be security.”

“Chance is taking the week off so the yacht can be prepared. Rodrigo has the speedboat all week. That’s the earliest I can do it. Chance says there’s nobody talking to him yet about security. I don’t want to ask anything more in case he becomes suspicious.”

“I’m sending Waleed up. One week, Fernanda, or I cut your husband’s head off!”

“Okay,” she whimpered, crying softly.

The call ended abruptly.

A short while later Kimmy entered into the sleeping quarters. Seeing Fernanda in tears, she immediately came to her aid. She put a hand on Fernanda’s back and said, “I can really feel your sadness right now. I’m sorry if it has been a hard adjustment for you to be in a poly-relationship.”

“Thank you. Yes, it’s been a little hard for me,” Fernanda lied. “Sharing Deanna with you has triggered some jealousy for me. I see how you two are so connected and I can sense how time and space has put her and I apart.”

“If I’m being really honest, and Gypsy Girl agrees, I think that you and I aren’t connecting as much because we’ve been metamours.”

“What does that mean again?” Fernanda was surprised that her sharp mind hadn’t caught this detail.

“A metamour is when someone is the partner of your partner but you and that person don’t have a romantic relationship. I’ve thought sometimes that maybe I’m pushing you away because Gypsy Girl has been telling me that my system is not ready to accept a spiritual-sexual relationship with another woman besides Deanna yet. I’ve been gravitating toward Chance more because we’ve talked about having a baby. I hope you understand that’s just old, societal norms that are getting in the way. It’s not how I truly feel. Deep down I really am open to having that connection with you. Wow, now you’ve got me crying.”

They embraced and began doing their “hum hug” exercise, where each person would harmonize their humming with the other – allowing their chests to resonate. The exercise produced a pleasant sensation in the front part of the chest cavity and down into the stomach. While Fernanda hummed, a dark, seething look came over her face. She was furious that Chance had unknowingly interfered with her revolutionary plans. She was not sure yet that these people, as open and accepting as they were, would go along willingly with her mission – entrusted to her by a husband desperate to make his fortune by serving the cause of an open society. She gripped Kimmy more tightly than usual, which Kimmy began to feel aroused by.

Prince Jerry was at an afterparty for Toronto’s professional basketball team, which had just finished a lengthy foray into the playoffs coming short of the championship. Nicki had encouraged him to go as she needed him out of their penthouse apartment for the night because she was hosting a bridal shower for one of her coteries of high-powered activist and actress friends. At this party, he only knew Francis Scherzer. Francis was a talent agent out of Hollywood who spent one weekend a month in Toronto on account of a family court custody agreement with his ex-wife. Francis was busily introducing Prince Jerry to various entertainment figures in Canadian media, all of whom initially fawned over Prince Jerry but bored of him when they came to realize he wasn’t the least bit in a social mood.

The party atmosphere raged on in a high-end luxury loft belonging to one of the family members of the basketball organization’s ownership group. Hundreds of people milled about or danced. There were several bars attended by men dressed in ruby colored vests. Teenaged boys carrying platters of food walked around. There were teenaged boys doing the valet parking down below in the building’s basement, as well. Three gigantic, custom built ceiling fans spun lazily overhead, hanging from lengthy pipes running down from the loft ceiling. There weren’t many bedrooms in the loft but there were many bathrooms, each with a short line of people extending away from it. Basketball players, actors, rappers, and other professional athletes formed the bulk of the in-crowd at the party and they shamelessly escorted the women that had been hand-picked from social media by the party organizers into the bathrooms to have sex with them. There were bowls of condoms on various industrial fixtures scattered among the columns and walls of the loft.

At the quieter end of the loft, Francis, a shorter dark-haired man of unusual attractiveness, introduced Prince Jerry to Strake, a half-black rapper of international renown. Strake bore an intricate haircut that suggested he’d spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on it. He looked mildly Middle Eastern in a way that couldn’t be placed. He was dressed in a crème orange jumpsuit and around his neck were several golden chains. He was inebriated from too much aged whiskey, which he downed in gaudy mixed drinks that upset the bartender serving them.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Prince Jerry, extending his clammy hand out to the rap mogul.

Strake put out a fist to Prince Jerry, who didn’t understand the gesture and simply placed his open palm on the fist for a moment before returning it to his side. “That girl you got is on fire right now, bruh,” said the rapper. “She’s fine as hell, too. JPMorgan knows. Somebody said you got five million to speak there last week. That’s cheese.”

“Yes, it was a lucrative engagement for us. Since becoming financially independent from the Crown, we certainly have been fortunate in terms of the offers sent our way. I don’t deal with any of that, though. Nicki is doing it all herself. She doesn’t have a manager; would you believe it?”

Strake chuckled loudly. For what reason, Prince Jerry was not sure. Strake seemed to laugh a lot. He was a jovial person. He said to the prince, “So whutchu into, playa? You like a little of that cheese pizza or you keep it vanilla?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nah, it’s alright, dawg. It’s all good. Come here,” he said to a teenaged boy who was walking by with a platter of food. He pulled the boy onto his lap and hugged him affectionately. “How are you doing, shorty?”

Prince Jerry was surprised at the mogul’s candor with the child. He watched him slip several hundred-dollar bills into the kid’s ruby vest chest pocket and then rub the kid on the head before helping him up to continue his food serving route through the party.

“That’s my little nigga!”

Prince Jerry was confused because the boy looked to be Indian.

“He loves all my jams. Cheese pizza, ya heard? I got this fresh lil’ nigga in L.A. He’s on my label. He’s bringing in all those teeny girls, right? He calls me every day. Young hustler. He’s bringing me that girl, Millie Dark. You know, the one that dyes her hair red? Yeah, she’s working the D on all the playas right now. Don’t tell anybody though. She’s eighteen but let’s just say it’s been this way for a while, haha! She was gonna be here tonight but plans. Girl like that get paid for engagements, you know what I’m saying? Six, sometimes seven figures for the right dude. You catch my drift, Prince?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what you mean. It really is a lovely party.”

“Ah-yup, the Horsts love me, bruh. Courtside seats every game? An’ all I gotta do is keep the cheese pizza going? Yeah, that’s a good deal. I could get you a deal like that if you want. With young Miss Naked Nickers, we like calling her,” he effected a British accent for a moment, “the ‘codswallop’ becomes cum-swallow, ya know? That girl could pull all sorts of toppings if she wanted. Five mil for a speech…sheeht. I read in the news she could pull nine figures this year if she takes all the deals players been throwing at her. Goddamn, son. What do you think, Jerry Roy-ale?”

“She is quite the partier, I’ll say.”

“What’s going on, dawg? You’re one of the biggest pimps in Canada but you seem all blue and shit.”

“To be frank with you, Strake, I have no guests to bring to next week’s Climate Cruise because I have no friends!” he whined as he began to cry into his clammy hands. “Nicki doesn’t let me have the friends I want to have. She chooses them all for me.”

“What about Francis, dawg?”

“Francis? She chose him! Rather, the firm she’s partnering with suggested him to her. Turns out he’s on their payroll as a consultant. I had Jigmat look into it. She controls everything I do. I wouldn’t even mind if I could just have some real friends. You know what it’s like. The media watches your every move, your every misstep. The people you spend time with need another layer of privacy altogether elsewise the press digs into their lives and you become estranged. Marrying Ms. Nakers has put such tremendous scrutiny on me. Sometimes…sometimes…”

“Get it out, bruh.”

“Sometimes I think about killing myself!”

“Nah, dawg. You can’t think like that. That’s a low energy mindset. Bruh, when I was in Romania last week a guy said the same thing to me. You know, paying me 2 mil to show up and perform. Lil Itchy was at it. It was flames, yo. Anyway, he brings me up to his villa and he’s all crying and shit. No friends. Same white boi, Kurt Cobain shit like you on right now. You know what cheered him up? Some mutha-fuckin’ cheese pizza. Yeah. I brought the whole crew out the next day and we was up till 6 A.M. We was swerving, bruh. That’s what you need. You need some pizza and a crew. That’s what I got. Why you think they always putting me in everything? I’m in blockbuster movies, homie. How do you think I got there? I do they bidding. Sheeht, I thought you was in with them. Guess you ain’t. We can change that. Nicki Nakers is bigtime. You just gotta flash the one-eye sign. Then they know you down. I get down like that all the time. You wanna fuck me in the ass?”

“Oh, sorry, I am not a homosexual but I appreciate your kind offer. Every homosexual I see is very happy though. I wish I was happy,” the prince returned to his bawling.

“Man, have you not been listening to me?” an exasperated Strake asked.

“The truth of it is that I’m not sure I understand half of what you’re saying.”

“Bruh, it’s easy. You need a crew and some pizza. That fine ass bitch you got ain’t letting you get with a crew. Francis? Dude’s on some white boi shit. We need to class up your shit with some hood shit.”

“Please, I don’t know what you’re saying. Can you try and redistill it for me in terms I understand?”

“I got half-white blood. I got you, dawg. You need a group of friends and some servants to go with you to the Climate Cruise. You’ll look socially desirable to the cameras that will be there and vastly improve your standing with Ms. Nakers, who clearly wants you to show initiative in resolving your own personal issues.”

“My heavens, I had no idea you could speak this way. Thank you. I concur. We should give this a go. Thank you, Strake.”

“Don’t mention it. My nigga, I went to private school coming up. My momma’s a Jew. We in all that. You gotta get in the game, bruh.”

“I’d certainly like to join you in this game. I need to step out from Ms. Nakers’ shadow a bit and distinguish myself as my own man.”

“You gone look like a prince turned into a king when I’m done witchu,” mused Strake. He took a strawberry dipped in chocolate from a passing-by platter, crossed his legs effeminately, and took a seductive bite from it in a manner that suggested he was oblivious of Prince Jerry’s presence.

This confused Prince Jerry but more than anything, he was relieved to have such a well-connected friend. Strake was the biggest celebrity of Canada. A part of him liked the idea that he would be pairing with the most famous Canadian to impress the second most famous Canadian, his beloved wife. Suddenly he felt grateful to his wife for encouraging him so assertively to come and attend this party. It was only his third public engagement since becoming financially independent from the Crown and his father. “I’m looking forward to seeing who you bring to the Cruise next weekend,” he called to Strake, who was posing for a picture with some social media influencers. Strake winked at the prince. They exchanged contact information. Jerry spent much of the rest of the evening with Strake’s crew, a group of dark-skinned black rappers who freestyled openly to one another while they sat at a circular couch. Jerry tried a hit from a joint at one point in the evening, which sent the group howling in delight. He did not notice that one or another of the group would excuse himself from time to time in a feigned discreetness which triggered guffawing from the others. The group member would return to the sitting circle with eyes glazed over. Several basketball players joined in the circle, a couple of them with eyes glazed over as well. Strake watched from a distance with his arms crossed, inebriated near to the point of falling over. He smiled at his prospects in the prince. He had never met a white man who was as suggestible as he was. But after all, this was the first Royal to ever pair himself to a black woman. She dominated him utterly. Strake would also have his way.

The afternoon before the Climate Cruise, Chance was sitting with the women of his family of choice in their customary spot on the back deck of The Acceptance. Joining them was Leon, the international film star, and the guitarist of U3, Surface. Leon was joined by his 18-year-old girlfriend, Zooey Rossi. She was a stunning brunette who regularly modeled swimwear like the pinstripe bikini she was currently wearing. Leon had been a film star for 35 years, winning his first Oscar when he was nine years old for Best Supporting Actor. He was paunchy now in his middle age and didn’t care in the slightest about anyone around him. He only cared about having sex with Zooey and about promoting climate change in whatever ostentatious manner was available to him. His acting was phoned-in but nostalgic fans didn’t notice and he was still a box office champion. He owned a yacht about the same size as The Acceptance and was unimpressed with the scenery of the San Diego Harbor and beyond but had come out for the weekend as a favor to Horace Goldsmith, the first producer he’d ever worked for in Hollywood and one of his only confidants.

Surface, the guitarist, was in his late 50’s and always wore a stocking cap out of vanity for his balding head. He was a nervous man who constantly felt at odds with what his psychotherapist had dubbed “imposter syndrome.” He didn’t know how to play the guitar well at all, but he made up for his lack of instrumental capabilities by being a whizz with audio effects and studio mixing. He was an Irish man and one of the only foreign-born attendees of the upcoming Climate Cruise. He did not have a woman or an entourage with him and so he had taken a fancy to Kimmy, who was making little secret of her crush on him.

Chance had his arms propped up on the large sectional couch behind Deanna and Fernanda. He said to Leon, “We really appreciate you coming out to join us today. You must be so busy with your work schedule and everything.”

“It’s nothing, really,” said Leon. He sipped from a daiquiri prepared for him by the hired help Chance had brought on for the weekend. He had his arm around Zooey with his hand formed into a fist down near the swell of her breasts, suggesting possessiveness and dominance. “Do you know Horace Goldsmith?”

“I only heard of him through the news.”

“Oh yeah…” murmured Leon, hoping to move off of the subject. Goldsmith had been accused of sexual harassment by several women in the industry. Goldsmith had taken Leon to several parties when Leon was in his late teens. There was indeed some credence to the allegations put forth by these women and their feminist lawyers.

Sensing his discomfort, Kimmy offered, “Our current cultural notions of sex aren’t in keeping with how humans evolved over time.”

“I hadn’t considered it in that light,” said Surface, stroking his hand across Kimmy’s back for the first time. She leaned into him, feeling pleased with herself.

“There he is!” chimed Chance, seeing David come aboard with Levi. “Where’s Lady Marina?”

David and Levi passed from the ramp into the bowels of the yacht and out onto the back deck. “She’s flying in tomorrow morning. Busy. She’s got some thing with the U.N. Wow, Leon, big fan. I loved you in Foosball Diaries.” He extended his hand to Leon, who set down his daiquiri and gave David a limp shake. “Surface, glad you’re here. We’re like the insiders crew!”

“Yes, something like that,” Surface said, shaking David and Levi’s hands in turn. “Say, is there anyone else joining us for this pre-party?”

“Nope, just us,” said David. He was wearing khaki dress shorts, a white polo, and boat shoes. The shoes had cost him a day’s book royalties, a fact that Levi chided him on several times. “Prince Jerry and Nicki Nakers couldn’t make it out today. They’ll be here tomorrow. She’s busy doing some stuff with Goldman Sachs.”

“You mean JPMorgan.”

“Oh no, she’s getting a deal with Goldman Sachs, too. I think she wants to wait until tomorrow because that’s when Goldsmith is here.”

“She’s trying to revive her acting career,” blurted Levi. “She should do video game voiceovers. Easy money.”

David nudged him with his elbow and Levi stepped back dutifully. Levi was to be on his best behavior during this happy hour style meetup.

“You sure you don’t want your bodyguards coming on board?” David asked Leon. “They can hang out if they want.”

“No, they’ll be fine with your guy down there.” Leon indicated to John down by the dock where several SUVs were parked. John was doing leaning pushups against the hood of David’s designated vehicle. “They usually don’t come with me onto yachts. Really, I only need them if I’m riding my bike around or Zooey and I are shopping. These are good times for being rich and famous, am I right?” He smiled, retook his daiquiri, and raised it in a toasting movement.

“I’ll get us out of the harbor,” said Chance. He popped up from his spot at the sectional and went to the bridge of the yacht. The hired help unmoored the yacht, detached her from the ramp, and began placing life vests and other equipment out near the gathering. One of them went to the bridge to mention to Chance that they would be fifty or sixty life vests short of the required number for the following day’s proceedings. He also recommended several inflatable rafts as there was only one on-board, with a capacity of fourteen people. Chance agreed absent-mindedly and continued to steer the yacht until he could sync the vessel with the pre-programmed route it would idly take through the bay. Once his task was completed, he ordered the hired help to rearrange the seating on the upper deck and to put extra work into cleaning out the shower rooms. Wonder Boy inside of him marveled at his ability to assert orders to others. He was unaccustomed to delegating so directly. Usually his women simply assumed their responsibilities over the course of their weekly family meetings. He pondered the financials of keeping on the hired help permanently as he stepped lightly and gracefully back to the rear deck in his minimalist sandals.

“How many are there going to be?” Leon asked David, who had now seated himself between Levi and Deanna. Levi was eager to spend time alone with Deanna, who had mentioned to him the last time he was on board that she thought they could have a great connection. She glanced over from time to time across David to Levi. Levi stared straight ahead nervously or preferred to fix his gaze on Surface’s sequined leather coat.

David responded, “Two of them.”

“Didn’t they take the prize from you last time?”

“They did but they’re saying that if we raise enough money tomorrow, they’d be willing to give the Climate Action award to several of us. It’d be a group prize but up to ten people could share the award.”

Surface leaned in, Kimmy’s hand sliding down his back as he did, and said, “That’s a lot of prestige.”

“It sure is,” beamed David. “I’d get my inheritance and hey, if you guys want, we could party all the time. I want to get one of those superyachts like David Geffen has. We could cruise around the Mediterranean and have our own club.”

“I like Geffen but he can be a prick,” said Leon, scooting to the side as Fernanda and Deanna made room for Chance to resume his center spot at the sectional. “He makes you do rituals if you want to roll with him. I’m tired of all that shit.” He gripped Zooey closely and she nuzzled his shoulder, sympathetic to Leon’s designs for early retirement from the public eye.

“They give you stewardship of land tracts now if you win one of those prizes,” said Surface.

“Really?” David mused.

“Yes, you don’t technically own it but you do oversee everything that goes on in them. They can only remove you by committee. Usually they’re economic freedom zones in Africa. Then you’re in the Chinese money and the Chinese always protect their business interests. Lots of prestige.”

“I’ll take the prize but I don’t need all that shit. We just want to chill. You want to run a freedom zone?” he asked Chance off-handedly.

“Wonder Boy would like to, but the rest of my inner family isn’t so into it,” responded the skipper.

“What’s that?” Leon asked as he sparked up a cigar that had been in his shirt pocket. “Wonder Boy?”

Chance remembered his father’s admonitions to keep the therapeutic language minimal in the presence of any celebrities as it could undermine David’s success. “Just a nickname for myself,” he said. “Something you can get into if you want to live more honestly with yourself.” He almost added that it wasn’t important but checked himself, feeling relieved that he didn’t sell out his values.

 Fernanda got up, excusing herself from the gathering, and went to her bunk. She unlocked her smartphone and texted with her husband, Luis. They then had a phone call. She gave him their coordinates. Soon a speedboat pulled out alongside The Acceptance.

“What the fuck?” David muttered when the speedboat came close.

“Oh, that’s Fernanda’s friend, Waleed,” said Chance. “He’s a party planner and break-dancer.” Fernanda had finally convinced Chance the night prior to pick up a friend of hers, after a particularly passionate sexual encounter where Fernanda used a device on Chance.

“Who’s that driving the boat?” Leon asked suspiciously, rising to his feet. A tinge of nervousness came over him. “This isn’t a drug deal, is it?”

“That’s nobody, just a driver,” Fernanda called as she came out onto the rear deck and walked to the steps leading down to a short platform off the port side of the yacht. The cruise business would occasionally launch wave runners from this area. When she was out of view, tears welled up in her eyes as she waved and blew a kiss to Luis. She was relieved to see him in possession of all his limbs, though he sported a brutal looking black eye. She helped Waleed aboard.

“Even if it was a drug deal, the state of California blocks the D.E.A. and other Federal agencies from operating in these waters,” Chance said to Leon. “Our call-sign has clearance with the state, so we get to go where we want.”

“I’m the party guy!” Waleed exclaimed as he dragged several long cases up from the speedboat along with several black duffel bags.

“Quite an entrance, I’d say,” Surface mused to Kimmy.

“Don’t worry,” the young man dressed in all-white hollered. He was acting on strict orders from Ahmed to keep his demeanor as jovial as possible so as to not arouse suspicion, “I like to make an entrance! See.” He unlocked and opened one of the long cases to reveal lighting equipment and a P.A. “If this yacht was any bigger, we could have helicoptered me in!” Waleed spoke perfect English, which put Leon and David at ease. He walked up to David and shook his hand, pretending not to notice how uneasy Levi was. “I’m American. Born and raised in New Jersey.”

“What’s in those bags?” Levi asked.

“Lights, smoke machines, a little bit of blow, the whole nine yards!” He neglected to mention there were explosives in them, including grenades, nitroglycerine and C4, and other devices intended for an operation at a red carpet event later in the year.

Chance stood up and greeted Waleed with a hug, as Fernanda had instructed him to. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he said to the party guy. “I appreciate the rate you gave us.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Waleed. He exchanged pleasantries with the men gathered there, avoiding physical contact with the women. Nobody noticed but Fernanda. He heaped especial praise on Surface, saying how he’d been a big fan of the guitarist growing up, and then, with Fernanda’s help, moved his equipment down to a storage room on the lowest level of the yacht. He moved a pair of cases up to the upper deck and with the hired help began to set up a proper dance floor with suspended light cans and 360-degree wireless upright speakers that looked like punching bags.

“I’m going to go check out the set up,” said Deanna, excusing herself from the group. She cast an eye at Levi. Levi muttered to David an excuse about needing to go the bathroom not too long after but David wasn’t having it. He told his cousin to pee his pants.

Surface left to fetch some cocaine from Waleed, and brought back a small bag of the substance. Chance didn’t blink an eye at open drug use on The Acceptance. What people did with their bodies was none of his business. He waved a hand of permission at Surface when the guitarist looked up from the coffee table to see if everyone was cool. He took a bump. Leon took a bump as well. David shifted uncomfortably but after a word or two of advice from Mark over the phone, he knew that some recreational drug use came with the territory. Precautions would be made to keep the UN representatives away from the upper deck, where all extra-curriculars would be out of sight and accessible only by V.I.P permission. Anyone wanting to go upstairs would have to get through John, an impossible task for all but the most trained. Nor would the UN representatives be allowed down into the lowest level of the yacht, where more private debauchery would take place. David had promised Levi he could lose his virginity to Deanna but only at the end of the night after he had successfully guarded against entry into the lowest level by any undesirables. Unbeknownst to David, Levi had taken this task far too seriously and had bought a large magazine pistol and brought it illegally into California aboard their private flight. John had advised Levi to do so after overhearing David mention that Prince Jerry would be bringing Strake along for the Climate Cruise. John expected some amount of trouble and himself was armed with several handguns. Strake had a #1 single on the chart this week, which was always cause for extra-curriculars – in John’s humble experience. He did not tip off David to the danger because he didn’t want extra security being brought in. He liked the idea of being the man in charge of security. It would bring him a nice extra bonus when David gained his inheritance.

Deanna looked one more time back at Levi, who squirmed but was pinned under David’s elbow.

“Do you have another cigar?” David asked Leon.

“Sure, he’s got one,” Zooey answered.

“Um, I wasn’t asking you,” David said testily.

Leon did not notice as his head was beginning to swirl from the alcohol, nicotine, and cocaine in his system. He withdrew a cigarillo case from his pocket, cut a cigarillo, and lit it for David, who inhaled and then began coughing uproariously.

“I’ve never…smoked…a cigar before,” sputtered David.

“Ah, you’ve got to keep the smoke in your mouth!” said Surface. “Don’t inhale it into your lungs.”

“Just trying to be cool like you guys.” David looked around sheepishly to Surface and Leon.

“You’re cool, man,” said Leon. He motioned to the hired help and was soon brought a deli style sandwich from the kitchen.

Chance took notice of the ease of the transaction and marveled to himself as previously he’d never thought to hire a yacht crew that could double as cook staff.

“Rumor has it, you guys are one of those fuck boats,” Leon said to Chance. “Me and Zooey get down like that but only with each other. When we’re partying tomorrow night, I don’t want anyone but me touching her.”

“Hey, you got it. I totally accept that,” said Chance.

“Monogamy is fine,” said Kimmy, stroking Surface’s member through his pants. “It’s one of life’s many choices. Just as long as you know that you have options.”

“Zooey and I are going to do our own thing,” Leon growled out of the side of his mouth, forming his words around the cigar. Zooey was the 732nd woman he had slept with and as with the last four girlfriends he’d had, he was trying to make her the last woman he slept with. His playboy years felt behind him. He wanted to do some good works for the environment, retire from acting, help a few candidates with social justice reform, and then disappear to a life of yachting and the occasional trick riding event that Zooey partook in. Zooey had given him her virginity and he intended on keeping her fertility to himself, completely and entirely.

Fernanda and Waleed were down in the storage room next to the engine room after setting up the equipment on the top deck. She was helping him stack the bags into built-in shelves that were normally reserved for fuel tanks and non-perishables.

“Ahmed is not fucking around this time,” said Waleed. “He would have come himself but he had to go get one of our top guys. He flew in just for this mission. You’re sure nobody is going to come in here and do whatever perverted things Chance has planned for tomorrow.”

“It’s not perverted, Waleed.”

“My beliefs tell me that all of you should be killed. Just consider yourself lucky that Ahmed likes Luis. If you were in our country, you wouldn’t last an hour. You’re lucky we’re in California, where the law is whatever the homosexuals say it is.”

“You don’t have to be mean,” grunted Fernanda as she loaded a duffel bag onto a shelf.

“Nobody is coming in here?”

“Nobody, I promise.”

“That door should have a lock on it.”

“Chance doesn’t believe in locked doors.”

“A sign isn’t going to be enough. I’m going to stand guard here until we pick up my men. You sure there’s no security tomorrow?”

“You just brought a machine gun onto the boat. There’s no security. Nobody cares anymore. The only people getting killed are homeless and nobody cares about them. Chance didn’t hire any security. Prince Jerry has one security guard and he’s not licensed to carry in California. David has one security guard. That’s it. I checked the roster.”

“These Americans are stupid idiots.”

“You’re American,” noted Fernanda. “Just like I am.”

“We may have citizenship but we’re not American. I know who my people are and you, you’re a married woman living like a slut so her husband can own a hacienda in Sinaloa.”

She finished loading the last bag and asked him, “How are you going to guard this room when you’re supposed to be DJing upstairs?”

“DJing is nothing. You hit play. That’s it. I didn’t know how to put any of this equipment together a day ago. Everyone’s going to be so messed up on drugs or sex that nobody’s going to notice me coming downstairs every fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll put a sign on the door. That will help.”

Back upstairs on the rear deck, Leon and Zooey were fornicating openly. So were Surface and Kimmy. Chance had tried to join Surface and Kimmy but Surface rebuffed him, to which Chance replied that maybe Surface would change his mind in the future. A shocked crew member from the hired help stood gaping at the scene unfolding on the tremendous couch. Chance whisked her away, pawing at her buttocks in the hopes of sparking a connection with her. She fled his grasp and resumed her housekeeping work in the various cabins where orgies would be staged.

David was openly uncomfortable with the scene. Levi was considering stimulating himself when David dragged him up to the top deck. Eager to be around Deanna, he complied. To his dismay, Deanna was headed down the steps while he and David waited to walk up them. She moved to brush past him seductively but David intervened and forced Deanna down the other side of the steps, which were only wide enough for two people to use them at once – shoulder to shoulder. Levi exhaled loudly, making his disappointment known.

He and David were on the top deck alone when David said to him, “What’s your mission?”

“To make sure nobody goes into the lower level without permission. What’s your mission?”

David smarted at the insolence and responded, “You fuckin’ know what my mission is.”

“Say it. Tom said no pictures.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m supposed to make sure there’s no unofficial pictures.”

 “The photographer is hot. I bet she’d have sex with you.”

“I have a girlfriend,” hissed David.

His phone rang in that moment. It was Lady Marina. He showed the caller ID to Levi, who encouraged him to answer. David walked away with the phone to his ear. Levi followed to try and listen but David pushed him away.

Clearly, Lady Marina was unhappy. That much could be heard over the sounds of the ocean, a light breeze, and the distant hum of car traffic. David started to plead, “Please, no, no, no. Don’t do it, Marina. No, I’ll do anything. Please.”

Levi strained to hear the response but couldn’t. He could hear David say, “The Cruise? No, fuck no. I’m not calling it off. I don’t give a fuck who you’re getting your information from. Oh, please. No, no, no. Don’t break up with me. Marina? That’s an ultimatum. You can’t give me an ultimatum! Oh yeah? Well, she’s a better Royal than you are. She’s hotter, too.” David paused to listen to hear her counter-volley. He broke in when he’d had enough, “What does it matter if you’re not going to be my girlfriend anymore? That’s bullshit. You’re quitting on the Climate Cruise. You’re a quitter! Fuck you!” He paused again and listened to her. “Please, no. Come on, just rethink it. I thought you knew it was going to be a party. I just assumed ‘cause you’re upper crust. Please, baby. Just think on it?”

Lady Marina hung up on David. He wiped a tear from his eye and turned around to Levi and lied, “She’s going to think on it.”

“What happened?” asked the lackey.

“She said she found out Strake was coming on the cruise from Nicki Nakers. I think Nicki told her on purpose to scare her away. She said she knows Leon and Surface. She says they’re bad influences and they are in with some bad people, just like Strake is. She told me to call it off and she’d organize a classier event for me.”

“You still have time on your inheritance window…”

“Yeah, but I organized this thing. Nobody’s taking it from me.”

“Technically Goldsmith and I organized it.”

“You know what, Levi?” He prepared to thrash his cousin when a thought overtook him. “It’s just girl drama. Nicki Nakers is a gossip who can’t keep her mouth shut. Goldsmith wants to meet her. Nobody wanted to meet Lady Marina.”

“You only got to first base with her.”

“Technically, second base. Fingering is second base.”

Levi stared at him blankly.

“You wouldn’t know. You’re a virgin. You haven’t even kissed a girl yet.”

“I kissed a girl’s hand.”

“You kissed Lady Marina’s hand. Doesn’t count.”

“Deanna touched my butt last week. That’s first base.”

“That is not first base. If that was first base, then I got a homerun with Lady Marina.”

“A homerun with her would be amazing. Her boobs are huge.”

“That’s my…”

“She broke up with you,” Levi corrected David quickly.

“I know. What a bitch. She gave me an ultimatum. But bros before hoes. Leon and Surface are my friends.”

“You hardly know them.”

“Why are you always shooting me down, Levi? Mark doesn’t do that.”

“Yeah, but Mark gets you into trouble. My job is to keep you out of trouble. We play video games and I write books for you. Your brother is going to give me a pay raise.”

“If I get my inheritance then he’s not going to pay you anymore. And I’m not gonna pay you a salary,” rumbled David. Seeing that Levi was wounded he said, “Okay, I’ll pay you. If everything tomorrow goes off without a hitch and I get my inheritance, I’ll pay you double what Tom is paying you!”

Levi smiled a toothy smile and repeated, “That photographer would probably have sex with you. You don’t have a girlfriend anymore.”

“Don’t worry, I’m scoring tomorrow night unless that bitch Fernanda does something. There are going to be a bunch of Instagram whores here. Strake’s bringing girls, too. And you’re losing your virginity to Deanna if you do your job. Not bad, huh? Double your money and you get to have sex with a babe.”

“Not bad,” beamed Levi. “Kind of coomer-y, though.”

“What? Is that a meme?”

“Kind of. I’ll explain it to you later.”

The Climate Cruise was a lavish affair, starting in the San Diego Harbor. Dozens of media outlets were on hand, most of them tasked specifically to get pictures of Nicki Nakers, who was a global celebrity. The public was not allowed past the main entrance of the harbor. Thousands clamored at the entrance, hoping for a glimpse at the elite guests in attendance. Horace Goldsmith rode in with ex-mayor Rosenbaum and a pair of security guards. Leon had been on The Acceptance all day already, not interested in appearing for the press junket or the red-carpet walk. Surface did the red-carpet walk with his wife but she had no interest in the cruise itself, preferring to attend a fashion show in Los Angeles instead. Strake showed up with several members of his entourage, a seven-foot tall basketball player, and his eighteen-year-old best friend, a female pop star who he pretended to be in a romantic relationship with. Strake grimaced for the cameras on the red-carpet walk, clasping his closed fist with the other hand while the girl held on to his arm. The seven-foot tall basketball player wore a bright blue suit and had on dark sunglasses to hide his bright red eyes, strained from consecutive days of heavy marijuana use. Several prominent actors and actresses in favor of climate justice arrived, including Clark Buffalo, Sandra Silverstone, Gal Robbie, and the fabulously wealthy and successful director Samuel Spilonberg. Spilonberg escorted his pornstar, adopted daughter with him, who was friends with Strake.

Prince Jerry and Nicki Nakers finally arrived in an armored limousine that was second only to Goldsmith’s. Nicki wore a skin tight yellow dress gifted to her by one of the wealthiest women in Hollywood, a billionaire makeup tycoon and model. The dress fit her perfectly and would be donated to auction for climate justice. Appraisers expected it would fetch in the tens of millions. Several porn moguls had already expressed interest in the auction, a fact that tickled Nicki. Prince Jerry stood apart alongside Jigmat, hardly noticing the photographers as he was supposed to. He hoped that he would hit it off with David Irby, as circumstances had not yet permitted them to “hang out,” as Levi had suggested to Jigmat. Prince Jerry absent-mindedly thumbed through photos of the son he had with Nicki. His name was Alfie. Sometimes the prince wondered if his son’s eyes were spread too far apart on his face. He closed the photo gallery app and resumed his blank gaze toward the screaming photographers.

David rounded out the red-carpet walk, standing next to Nicki. This annoyed her slightly and she gave him a slight glance. He noticed this and made a mental note that he didn’t like her. They took space from one another, David going off to answer questions from an E! interviewer and Nicki going to embrace Prince Jerry, which surprised him.

The press was not allowed near the ramp onto the yacht, as per Jigmat’s orders. The San Diego Police Department had wanted to provide security on the cruise itself but were waved off by Nicki via Jigmat. Nicki was friends with the governor and knew that he had cheated on his wife with the makeup mogul. A police presence could disrupt the festivities and she wanted to encourage Prince Jerry to have as much fun as possible. Levi stood at the ramp and welcomed aboard the prestigious guests. He tried not to gush over director Spilonberg and his pornstar daughter. Levi had grown up watching the man’s kid movies and was now a fan of the daughter’s live stripteases on the world’s most famous porn website.

Chance and his female family members were busy aboard the yacht, directing the hired help as needed and helping guests to their seats at the standard banquet table and the custom-built one that David ordered just for this occasion. Deanna and Kimmy noted to many guests that the table was made from sustainable woods and would be donated to a Detroit community center when the cruise was over. This was a lie David had told them, as he wanted the table for the dining hall in his father’s mansion he was set to inherit if all went well.

Almost all of the guests were seated when a small fuss was raised. Kimmy was trying to seat Nicki Nakers and Prince Jerry toward the middle of one of the tables when Nicki insisted on being seated at the head of the table.

“I’m the biggest celebrity here,” she snarled in as low a voice as she could manage. “J and I should be at the head of the table.”

Kimmy pleaded, “Please, Ms. Nakers, it will only be for the dinner. It’s not that long.” Nicki would not be quelled and so she looked up at Chance for help, who pretended not to see her. He absconded to the bathrooms where he nervously peed into one of the urinals. Nicki caught the eye of David, who sent Levi over to sort out the situation.

“She says she wants to sit at the head of the table,” Levi whispered into David’s ear. Waleed had started the music on the upper deck too soon into the evening. The yacht had not yet departed as Strake could not be located.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” muttered David. “She’s going to ruin the whole night. That’s Horace’s spot. He’s bankrolling half this thing. Fuck it, let her sit there. Go quick before the girls tell Horace that’s his spot.”

Levi scampered over to Kimmy and Nicki, told them the news, and then escorted Nicki Nakers and Prince Jerry to the head of the table where the prince sat off to the side. Nicki nodded in appreciation to David as she sat down elegantly, as she’d been taught by Crown advisors during the week they’d managed to give her a few lessons on etiquette. David nodded his affirmation. She was the biggest celebrity on the cruise, though Spilonberg had been a mega star two decades prior.

The sun was setting unusually early. The cruise would do a leisurely tour through the harbor and out into the Pacific for a total of five hours. Chance returned to action, cautioned Waleed to turn down the music for another hour, and was about to disembark The Acceptance when Strake pulled up alongside the yacht with a boat full of Instagram models and what looked like teenagers in server uniforms.

Levi clambered down to the platform out of sight from photographers at the entrance of the harbor, armed with telescopic lenses and sophisticated recording technology. He called to Strake, “We were looking for you! We’re about to head out.”

“Party people!” yelled Strake, giving Chance a thumbs up as the skipper peered down over the side of the yacht to look down on the boat full of people. “This is the real party! I brought chicken and pizza, waffles and booze. And I brought some hunnies!”

Levi was dazzled by the attractiveness of the dozen or so Instagram models who began stepping on board the lower platform of the yacht. Interspersed between the models were entourage members, minor celebrity rappers and their girlfriends, and the teenagers wearing server uniforms. Altogether, Strake had brought thirty-five people with him, bringing the total number on board to 184. A single person drove Strake’s boat away. Strake’s group interspersed itself on the main deck, some of them at the tables. The half-dozen teenagers were ushered downstairs by Strake himself. He gave the excuse to John, who was tasked with security down there, that the teenagers were going to be food and drink fetchers throughout the night’s festivities. John didn’t like this as he knew these cabins were where the orgies would be held. He put the thought on hold when an Instagram model wandered down into the lower levels. Strake had assigned half of the models to the upper deck and half to the lower level. John recognized this woman and began talking to her, hoping to have sex with her.

Upstairs Chance had unmoored the yacht just as the two U.N. employees boarded and popped the first bottle of champagne to uproarious applause from the attendees. Waleed flitted from the growing party on the upper deck down to the room where his ordinance was stored. Neither Levi, tasked with guarding the upper deck, nor John, who was busy romancing his favorite Instagram model, noticed the strange behavior from the terrorist.

The yacht picked up moderate speed after Fernanda managed to sneak into the bridge unnoticed and reprogram the navigation to her preferred spot along the Tijuana coastline where Ahmed would be boarding a dozen terrorists dressed in formal wear, bearing several travel cases with them. Chance noticed the change in speed but was too absorbed in a long story that ex-mayor Rosenbaum was telling to several guests as the meal progressed. He was a deca-billionaire, this Chance knew, and he hoped The Acceptance could be of further use to the man.

Leon and Surface resumed their preferred seats on the back couch as soon as they were done eating. They began to openly snort lines of cocaine off the glass coffee table in front of them. They were joined by several actresses, who were ushered over by the seductive Zooey. Levi saw the scene developing and scurried over, hoping the U.N. employees wouldn’t see the drug use. He asked the men to take “the party” upstairs to the top deck, which they did happily. He sighed in relief and scurried back to his post, feeling a sharp slap on his ass come from one of the actresses walking upstairs with Leon. He blushed and turned around to see which one had done it. He couldn’t tell and cursed his misfortune. Then he went back to feeling self-satisfied. A woman had touched him! He thought of the lone photographer hired to cover the evening and he looked to see her on the rear deck, taking pictures of the harbor as the yacht pulled away from it. She stopped to curate the photos on her expensive camera, choosing the ones that would be instantly uploaded to social media. David hovered nearby, both wanting to make his move on her but also nervous to ensure she would not post any damaging content. He’d tasked Levi with keeping the U.N. employees and the photographer away from the upper deck at all costs. The cousins exchanged a knowing glance. David decided to go down and double-check with John that all was alright but as he made his way over, he was intercepted by an actor who was especially fervent about climate justice. David was a celebrity in his own right and his stock was rising fast, especially on account of Nicki Nakers’ presence.

Rosenbaum and Goldsmith’s two security guards contented themselves to sit at the bar that opened up to the back deck. They were retired cops from Rosenbaum’s stop-and-frisk days. They concerned themselves with drinking, which Rosenbaum openly encouraged at such occasions, and from time to time they eyed Strake’s entourage warily. Strake had moved some of his people upstairs, where Waleed was now DJing a dance party. Deanna and Fernanda were dancing seductively with several middle-aged men, most of them lobbyists who worked for the two climate justice NGOs that had representation at the Cruise. Leon and Surface were still doing lines of coke openly but now they were totally out of sight of the main deck where party-goers contented themselves with alcohol, finger food carted around by the hired help and just one of Strake’s teenagers, and tasteful banter about the upcoming presidential election. The first of four debates was set to take place the next week. The Democrat nominee was particularly strong on climate justice and a minor member of his campaign staff was sitting at the custom table, overcome with a bout of seasickness she was trying to hide. Her job was to sweeten up Spilonberg and the other billionaires for donations. She mostly clung to the table, her head spinning. Soon one of Strake’s entourage, the minor rapper Sh$t Eata, was plying her with alcohol and cigarettes, which cleared her head a bit.

Prince Jerry, Goldsmith, Chance, Rosenbaum, and two Instagram models stood in a semi-circle once the dinner had finished and the hired help was busy bussing dishes.

“She really is a talented actress,” Prince Jerry commented to Goldsmith, who was nursing a glass of champagne. The producer’s regal air was unmatched by anyone on board and he behaved himself as though he was the man in charge.

“Is that so?” responded the producer.

“She’s great,” said Chance in a feminine voice. He was beginning to annoy Rosenbaum and Goldsmith but before either of them could turn him away, Nicki Nakers broke into the semi-circle. She nudged the Instagram models aside and stood between Prince Jerry and Goldsmith.

“Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Nicki Nakers,” she said as she held out her hand to Goldsmith.

Prince Jerry backpedaled awkwardly to give her more room and was dislodged from the semi-circle into the general milieu of the main party. Now that Kimmy had escorted the U.N. employees away to the front of the yacht to give them a tour of the various “renewables” at work, word was spreading that there were recreational drugs available on the upper deck. Clark Buffalo bumped into Prince Jerry and whispered the news to him. He added, “And there are going to be orgies downstairs. Don’t tell the wife!” After his foray into the Toronto night scene the week prior, Prince Jerry hardly uttered a word of surprise. Clark Buffalo patted him on the shoulder in a way that was almost too friendly, and went on his way to the upper deck to get stoned with Leon and company. Prince Jerry looked around to try and find David.

David had just peeled himself away from the adoring actor friend he’d just made to see Prince Jerry looking about for him. He went over and shook Prince Jerry’s hand.

“What do you think of the party?” asked David. He was eager to please who he considered to be the guest of honor.

“It’s splendid. Reminds me of the voyages we’d take off of Mallorca when I was a boy. There’s more women, I’ll say that.”

A member of Strake’s group walked by, smoking a joint. David told him to take it upstairs. The man ignored David. David excused himself from Prince Jerry and went and fetched John, who quietly threatened to throw the man overboard if he didn’t go upstairs. The man pleaded, “Come on, my brother. This shit is legal in California.”

“No funny business on the main deck,” said David, in front of Prince Jerry. The prince was impressed by David’s command of the situation. John scooted the entourage member along to where Levi manned the several stanchions adorned with velvet rope, blocking easy entry to the party upstairs. Levi allowed the man through.

David resumed his conversation with Prince Jerry. He tried connecting with Jerry on hobbies but it turned out Jerry hardly used the Internet and wasn’t allowed to play video games growing up. They liked each other well enough, despite their differences.

Back downstairs at his post, John looked down the three hallways he could see, searching for the Instagram model he’d been engrossed with. She was probably in one of the rooms. Many people from upstairs had begun having sex in the three rooms dedicated to orgies. John watched the teenagers begin to head up and down from the kitchen to where actresses, models, middle-aged men, and black rappers were all engaged in sexual activities. Seeing them run errands, he relaxed and simply stood with arms crossed. He noticed Waleed go to the storage room a couple of times but didn’t think much of it.

Chance tired of the conversation turning away from his philosophy of life onto either Nicki Nakers’ career or Goldsmith’s Hollywood stories and moved away through the crowd toward the front of the ship to find Kimmy. She was busy showing the pair of U.N. employees a diorama Chance convinced David to commission, detailing an eco-housing project for lower income people of color. They listened attentively and didn’t notice when Chance came up from behind her and playfully pushed his crotch onto her rear end. She giggled, they kissed passionately, and Chance sized up the U.N. employees. They were both dressed in khaki pants, wearing white polo shirts underneath plain blue dinner blazers adorned with the United Nations logo. One was a man and the other seemed intersex. Chance couldn’t tell and fought back the urge to ask.

Strake passed by with one of his protégé rappers, spying Chance through the doorway attending to the UN employees. He motioned Chance over to him.

“Me and homeboy want to use one of these rooms back here. Is that cool?” Strake asked. He hadn’t intended on asking but changed his tune upon seeing the skipper.

“Actually, sorry,” came the unusually masculine response. “We’re trying to keep them over here or in the bar. You can go downstairs and use one of the rooms there. You guys are lovers, right?”

Strake lowered his voice and made it fey. “Yeah, you could tell?”

“My gaydar is really, really good. I’ve looked past the constructs put onto us from a young age and seen that sometimes I’m gender-fluid, sometimes I’m gay, sometimes I’m a lesbian. Having this kind of empathy allows me to live the fullest life possible.”

“That’s some dope shit, homie. You wanna be gay now?”

“In a little bit. I think we can leave these people at the bar and come down and party with you guys. You’re okay with her coming, right? We always look for consent first.”

“Yeah, bruh. Me and homeboy get down like that.” Strake grabbed his companion by his butt cheek. “We’ll see you down there in a little bit. Here, take this.”

“Oh my god, is that acid?” Chance’s voice had turned feminine. The woman inside of him felt a spiritual connection to psychedelics.

“It’s molly and acid. Brought it down from the Great North. You feel me?”

“Can Kimmy have one?”

Strake shared his psychedelics with Chance, who encouraged Kimmy to promptly finish the tour. Strake went down with his companion into the bowels of the yacht where the reverie was in full swing. They involved themselves with the others.

Jigmat was given charge of the U.N. employees by Kimmy. He took them to the rear deck and sat with them on the oversized sectional, which was not seeing its customary use for the first time in a long time. He began detailing to them from a thick, stapled packet of papers Nicki Nakers’ plans for combating climate change and how the U.N. could partner with her. Jigmat didn’t care about the substance of the material but delivered it with some enthusiasm because a large part of Nicki’s proposed programs involved the importation of millions of Indian nationals to Canada.

Prince Jerry was now several beers into his conversation with David Irby. Gal Robbie, an overtly ambitious actress with stunning blonde locks and a penchant for high fashion, had joined the pair. She was working them for a connection to Goldsmith, who was now enclosed with Rosenbaum in the small casino within the yacht on the main deck – erected especially for the evening’s events. Goldsmith was absorbed in a large buy-in game of poker with no open seats at the table.

“You grew up around him, didn’t you?” she asked David.

The beer was withering his patience but he did his best to respond to her cordially as she was stunning beyond belief and he missed Lady Marina. “He was like an uncle to me,” said David. “He and my dad were great pals. Horace is how my dad got all those movie producer credits.”

This was a fact Gal knew all too well. She had spent several hours on the Internet researching David’s father and Goldsmith. Try however she might, she hadn’t yet secured an audience with Goldsmith. The older gentleman would not bring actresses into his confidence unless they did something special for him first. Gal’s career had consisted of comic book movies thus far. She figured this Climate Cruise was her great chance to dramatically improve her stock.

“You know, Nicki is trying to revive her acting career,” the prince noted to both of them.

The photographer hired for the evening passed by, snapping several pictures of the trio. They smiled widely for the camera. Gal Robbie posed by slinking her leg forward out of her long skirt. She pursed her lips and hardened her eyes. David winked at the photographer when she was done, and she seemed to like it. This thrilled him.

“I could get her into something,” said Gal. She was eager for any kind of foothold.

“Really? That’s brilliant. So kind of you, really. What kind of project?”

“I’m in that animated movie Disney is doing. They always take on talent that hasn’t been active lately for those. It’s a good launching point. She took her time away to have Alfie. She can come back the same way lots of women do. It’s a great fit. I’m friends with the director. Consider it done.”

Prince Jerry shook her hand in gratitude and excused himself to go find Nicki and tell her the good news.

David said, “That’s really nice of you.”

“If I’m being real with you,” she said in American parlance she was still accustoming herself to, “I’m trying to get in to the poker room to talk to your uncle Horace. He’s a career-maker. I am who I am. I don’t want to have children. I want to be the top actress in Hollywood. He holds the keys.”

David shifted uncomfortably. Goldsmith only ever gifted David things. Money for the Climate Cruise. Sports cars growing up. Trips to Europe. Private tutors. But never personal-type favors. He’d never asked Goldsmith for anything of the sort. He hesitated and glanced over his shoulder back in the direction of the poker room.

Gal leaned in and whispered to him, “I’ll suck your cock if you can get me a meeting with him. Even for five minutes.”

David’s face turned red. He’d slept with beautiful women at a few points but none who were a ten out of ten, like he considered Gal to be. Wasn’t there a limit to what money could buy? She was a thoroughbred. He began to lust for her intensely.

“Okay,” he muttered. “I’ll do it.”

“Good, go now.”

He left immediately, stepping awkwardly through the crowd and back to inner cabins of the yacht where the poker room was.

Night had come as The Acceptance left the harbor and entered the open waters of the Pacific. The headlights of tourists parked on the beach at Silver Strand State Beach could be seen at a short distance, as the yacht was keeping close to the coastline. A light breeze was blowing through the party. Revelry was in full swing, upstairs and downstairs. The main level was where the hobnobbing was taking place. Upstairs a dance party raged. Levi was becoming exhausted from unlatching and relatching the velvet rope. The photographer once approached the upper deck out of her own personal curiosity. Levi turned her away in a rude manner. One of Strake’s rappers had tried to come downstairs to the main deck without any clothes on. Levi cringed as he pushed the man back to the dance party and saw that several people were having sex on the couches available to them. Through the crowd of bodies, he saw Deanna fornicating with a middle-aged businessman. He felt disappointed. He shook the feeling away, telling himself it was an embarrassment he’d gone this far into an adult life without having sex with a woman. He knew he was abnormally short and unattractive but with David’s encouragement, he was determined to graduate into the ranks of the desirables. As he pitter-pattered back down the steps, the pistol in his suit jacket pocket jangled loose and threatened to spill out on the floor. He fumbled with the pistol and pulled it out to ensure the safety was still on. He unknowingly turned the safety off as he fiddled with it. He realized he was holding a weapon out in the open and quickly hid it back in the best spot he had for it. He scanned around the crowd of people on the main deck to see if anyone noticed. Eventually he made eye contact with the androgynous-looking U.N. employee seated at the back couch with Jigmat. This was the one person who had noticed Levi’s little secret. A frown came over the person’s face. Levi felt a shriveling feeling in his groin. He looked away and did his best to compose himself.

Chance and Kimmy were high from the drug cocktail they had taken. It was the first time in five years either of them had done a psychedelic. They sat in one of the orgy rooms downstairs, watching various men and women exchanging partners and moaning in pleasure. Chance was looking at Strake laying underneath his protégé when he said to Kimmy, “I’ve been thinking more about having a baby.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet. Me, too,” she said in a deadened voice, dazzled by the spectacle before her.

“Wonder Boy is really excited right now.”

“Super sweet…”

“Yeah, he says that we’ve done a really good job navigating jealousy in our relationship. When we feel that jealousy, we try to use it as data rather than act on it. Then we turn the jealousy into inspiration.”

“That’s right,” she continued in her deadened voice. “That’s exactly what we do. Mm, I’m turned on right now. Gypsy Girl is glad that Wonder Boy is excited.”

“I was feeling jealous about the connection you and Deanna had but then when Fernanda came into our family of choice, things shifted for me. Things really shifted for me tonight. I’m realizing something.”

“Wow, amazing. This is kind of like our ayahuasca journey.”

“Totally. I think I’m realizing that I want to have a baby with each one of you. I want to have a baby with you, Deanna, and Fernanda, especially once Deanna and I aren’t metamours as much. She’s worked with those boundaries that came up for her around men and now she’s having a lot of fun.”

“Yeah, I’m totally feeling your vibe right now. Gypsy Girl wants to nuzzle noses, haha!”

They nuzzled their noses together and looked into one another’s eyes. Tears formed in their eyes and they smiled. A servant passed by and asked them if they needed any food or drink.

“No, that’s okay,” Chance said to the teenaged boy.

“You sure you don’t need anything else,” the boy asked as he’d been programmed to.

Chance switched into his feminine voice, “Oh my god, are you flirting with me?” He put his hand over his mouth, realizing he’d just come on to a minor. The story his father had once told him of having sexing with a teenaged girl on a boat off the island of Kythnos in the Aegean sprang into mind and he felt compersion, pleasure at the prospect of his father’s pleasure.

The teenaged boy set the water bottles he was carrying onto an end table nearby and then sat himself down on Chance’s lap in total compliance. He wrapped his arms around Chance and said, “Anything you need.”

Kimmy said, “Wow!” She nodded her approval to Chance, who began making out with the teenaged boy. Waleed walked by the open doorway, pausing to stare in shock at the involvement of the minors with the adults. It was as if a switch had been flipped between this time and the last time he’d passed through to stand guard at the storage room. The American in Waleed told him the immorality of what he was witnessing. The terrorist in Waleed told him it wasn’t too bad compared to what he knew was taking place in the mountain villages of Afghanistan. He shook off his shock and recoiled from the doorway.

The yacht passed into Mexican waters. Fernanda had peeled herself away from Deanna’s involvement with several men and cautiously peered into the bridge, surprised to find Chance was nowhere to be seen. She checked the tablet at the helm that was connected to the navigation room. In twenty minutes, Ahmed would be boarding with his men. She checked her cell to see a reassuring message from Luis that all would be okay and the money would be wired to their account as soon as the hand-off was made.

David returned triumphantly to Gal, telling her that Horace would indeed see her for a brief audience. He said to her, “My uncle wants the same deal I’m getting.”

“Not a problem,” she chirped and followed his lead to an overnighter cabin where she promptly serviced Goldsmith and then talked over opportunities with him as he lay heaving in ecstasy on the bed. David waited outside, tasked with warding off Rosenbaum or the two security guards should they come looking for the last member of their party.

John was pulled away from the lowest level of the yacht by two members of Strake’s crew just as the illegal activities were unfolding. They were speculating to him at the edge of the rear deck that they were now outside of Tijuana. This troubled John and he went to look for Chance at the bridge. Fernanda heard John opening the cumbersome door into the bridge and she hid behind a console as best she could. John glanced in and then moved on to the bar and then to the top deck. He had no idea Chance and Kimmy were downstairs as he’d taken an extra-long bathroom break as an opportunity to text with his mother when they’d passed down into one of the orgy rooms, already stoned from their psychedelic cocktail. John gripped his tremendous hands on the railing of the top deck as he looked down on the rear deck, scanning for the skipper. The yacht wasn’t supposed to be entering Mexican waters. Tijuana was a lawless hellhole openly run by cartels. There could be trouble.

Prince Jerry eventually found Nicki Nakers. She was giving Surface a playful lap-dance on the top deck. He’d given her a bump of cocaine and she’d fallen into his lap in a mock accident meant to make laugh those gathered around Surface and Leon. The pair of celebrities were the kings of the party upstairs. The prince raised his hand gently to get Nicki’s attention. She hopped off of Surface, who privately loathed Nicki and hadn’t even the slightest bit of an erection in response to her manipulations. The duchess skipped over to her husband and bleated, “This party is so much fun! Surface says they’ve raised fifteen million dollars for climate justice so far.”

“That’s tremendous, darling. Say, I don’t mean to be rude but were you dancing in his lap just then?”

“It was a joke!” Her face burned red with embarrassment and she spoke loudly enough for others to hear over the music.

“Yeah, just a joke,” echoed Surface.

“You remember I did that one stripper part on WagTV.”

“Oh yes, of course, the scandalous show. Forgive me, darling. I just heard from Gal Robbie.”

Nicki opened her mouth wide in surprise and gazed across the others gathered at Leon and Surface’s party table, hoping they would see her acting. “What did she say?!”

“She says she can get you a voice part in the new Disney movie, guaranteed. She knows the director. You’re back on the board, darling!”

“Yes!” she screamed. “We should celebrate. Drink a shot with me.”

“But darling, you’re breast-feeding our son.”

“Not this weekend I’m not. He’s with Prisha. She’ll nurse him until my system is clean. Then I can pump again. Please, honey. Drink a shot with me? Don’t be such a stiff like your father. Come on, just one?”

“Okay, sure. As a celebration.”

Leon motioned to an Instagram model to pour the royal pair some liquor into double shot glasses. Soon Nicki Nakers was out of control, kissing different Instagram models and taking tequila shots off of their bare breasts. Her yellow dress was stained with alcohol. Prince Jerry drifted off to a corner of the top deck to play a game on his phone, looking up now and then to make sure Nicki wasn’t kissing any men. He would tolerate her kissing women but kissing men was a line he knew he could not let her cross. There were already too many rumors in the press about her and Jigmat. At some point there was a line that couldn’t be crossed. He satisfied himself with this thought. He looked over the side of the yacht to see a speedboat pull up alongside it. Nobody seemed to care besides John, who was trotting down the steps down to the water level platform where Fernanda was helping some men aboard. Prince Jerry saw how well-dressed the men were and thought little more of it. He resumed his gaming.

“What the fuck is this?” John bellowed to Fernanda.

“These are male strippers,” Fernanda lied as she stepped back to give space for the men dutifully piling onboard with travel cases.

Ahmed stretched out his hand to John and in a thick accent said, “Hello, I am Ahmed. We are here for the party.”

“Nobody fuckin’ told me about this. You run this by Jigmat?”

“Chance ordered them as a surprise,” said Fernanda.

“Chance is a weird motherfucker,” said John. “I don’t like this. I’m telling David. Nobody told me about this. These boys ain’t even Mexican.”

“David knows but you can tell him.” Fernanda was buying time for the men to get down to the storage room where they would wait until the Climate Cruise was over and they could slip into San Diego Harbor unnoticed. “But if you have to tell him again, I don’t think your Instagram friend would like you messing with the party plans.”

The thought confused John. He felt Fernanda lean into him and she said, “Come on, John. Let the strippers on. You know how much fun people are having downstairs. You don’t want to make some of the wealthy men down there angry. They want to have fun with other men. Chance knows what he’s doing. He’s the #1 pleasure cruise captain in California. Just calm down.”

John watched the entire crew of well-dressed men board onto the yacht and then looked to Ahmed, who was smiling as benevolently as he could. John did not notice Ahmed had a hand behind his back, gripped tightly around a silenced pistol. Shooting John and dumping his body into the ocean was no problem for Ahmed. John relented, saying, “Y’all are some weird motherfuckers,” as his tremendous frame thundered back up the steps to the rest of the party. He still didn’t have a good feeling about what was going on and decided to check and see if the paltry number of life vests stored in the room behind the bridge had grown.

Jigmat took notice of the many men coming up from the side ramp onto the main deck but he didn’t care. He was tired from explaining Nicki’s ideas to the U.N. employees. They were tired of his explaining. The androgynous one kept looking over at Levi, who ignored the authority’s gaze.

The well-dressed men made their way down to the storage room where Waleed was. They waited on Ahmed, who was unashamedly starstruck by the presence of Sandra Silverstone standing in a tight black dress at the very end of the yacht. She was watching the wake of the yacht as it pulled away from Tijuana and an empty speedboat. Ahmed asked Fernanda to introduce him to her and soon he was charming her as best he could. He’d seen all of her movies and used to have a poster of her from a teen magazine on the wall of his bedroom when he was a university student at Oxford. Such an opportunity could not be passed up.

Gal Robbie was done with her visit with Goldsmith, where he promised to talk to several casting directors at his studio on her behalf. She was elated but her stomach was unsettled from the experience. She walked past David, who was annoyed that she seemed to be avoiding him.

“How’d it go?” he asked her as she walked away down one of the only quiet hallways on the ship. She was eager to get to the bathroom and freshen up.

“He’s great. I got what I wanted. Thank you.”

“Am I going to get what I wanted?”

“I’m not feeling well right now. I think I might be seasick.”

“No, come on,” he said as he gently placed a hand around her upper arm.

“Fuck you,” she pushed him in the chest as hard as she could, harkening to her extensive combat training in order to play comic book roles on screen.

David stumbled back, releasing his grip, and then whined, “But you said you were going to give me a blowjob!”

“Mr. Irby, I don’t feel well. Can’t you get that through your head?” Her Australian accent was coming out now that she was worked up.

“You bitch! You lied to me!”

“Now you’re really not going to get a blowjob. How dare you?”

“You dirty skank. You just use people to advance your career.”

“What are you doing?” she retorted. “Your friend Strake brought children on board. You’re using people to get your inheritance! I know how much he was supposed to be leaving you. If you were any more charming, I would suck your cock. I’d do it for free to try and get you to marry me.”

“Is that a real offer?” he asked abruptly.

This stunned Gal Robbie. She didn’t have an answer. She looked at him seductively, signaling her permission. They fell to the floor in a heap of passionate and rabid lovemaking. Goldsmith eventually walked by as he tucked his shirt back into his pants. He simply chuckled and made his way back to where the ex-mayor was wiping the floor with his poker adversaries. A bottle of hand sanitizer rolled out from David’s pocket in the fray. He paid it no mind.

Waleed proudly showed his terrorist brothers the ingenious packing job he’d done on the “everyday” clothes and US drivers licenses fitted neatly into the bottom of several duffel bags. His comrades redressed themselves and sat around, waiting for Ahmed to come and inspect the explosives. One of them lit a cigarette but every single one of the others berated him for being so foolish. Any amount of combustion could lead to their immediate annihilation. This was not the red-carpet event they were tasked with attacking.

“Why is everyone having sex like that?” one of the terrorists thought aloud in his native tongue to the others.

“All of these rich Americans have orgies at these events,” speculated another.

“Why are we sandwiched between them like this?” a third asked Waleed.

“Inshallah,” was all Waleed responded.

Chance, Kimmy, Strake, the protégé, and several exhausted orgy participants lazed around on a pink couch in the room next to the storage room. A middle-aged man lay in a sex swing while a fully-clothed man stood over him, adjusting the straps. Fernanda noticed this as she walked by and stopped to knock at the storage room door. She just barely heard the cock of a gun over the revelry emitting from what seemed like every room in the immediate vicinity. She heard Waleed bark an order at the other men and then greeted the man as he peered his head out from the door.

“The DJ stuff is playing the same song over and over,” she said to him.

He lowered his pistol and began to explain to her how to fix it. He would not be leaving this room until Ahmed came down and relieved him.

The U.N. employee finally tired of Jigmat and followed its suspicions about Levi’s handgun. It walked over to Levi, who shifted nervously and kept his arms pinned down across the opening of his suit jacket. Jigmat looked over lazily but closed his eyes in apathy and exhaustion.

“Excuse me?” asked the employee.

“Only VIP and event staff are allowed up there, I’m sorry,” was Levi’s quick response.

“You have an illegal firearm on you, don’t you, sir?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Firearms are one of the leading causes of climate injustice.” The employee was growing bolder. “It is the strict policy of the United Nations that firearms at U.N. sanctioned events may be held in possession only by U.N. trained soldiers or by ambassador security detail. You, sir, are neither. You must relinquish your firearm, turn yourself over to California authorities, or I will be forced to withdraw U.N. sanction from this event.”

Levi shivered through his dwarfish frame and looked around in a panic for David or John. Neither were in sight. He looked to Jigmat, who was now sleeping despite the ruckus of the party. He decided to handle the situation himself.

“I don’t have a firearm.”

“Give me the firearm. You have five seconds or this will be put in the official report. Mr. Irby is on thin ice with the U.N. and this will put him out of the running for any kind of prize. You must comply.”

“I don’t have one,” he repeated through gritted teeth.

“Give it to me,” barked the employee.

“No, I will not!” howled Levi as the employee slipped around the velvet rope and started grabbing at Levi’s jacket pocket.

“It’s there, I can feel it.”

“Stop touching me. I don’t want to be touched by you. Stop!”

David emerged from the main body of the ship with a beaming Gal Robbie hanging on his arm. He proclaimed in his loudest voice to everyone at the bar, “Everyone, I have an announcement to make!”

The pistol slipped from Levi’s coat and misfired as it landed with a thud onto the ship deck. The errant bullet tore down through the deck, through the floor beneath it, and directly into a package of explosives where the terrorists lay in wait in the storage room. This sparked several quick detonations that roared through the innards of The Acceptance. The explosions blew out the back end of the yacht instantly. The terrorists, most people on the back deck including Fernanda, Ahmed, and Jigmat and the majority of everyone in the orgy rooms were incinerated. Half of the Climate Cruise attendance was dead within seconds. Large fires broke out, people screamed and fought over the few buoys pinned to the walls of the bar as decorations.

John stormed out of the room behind the bridge with the only inflatable life raft he’d been able to find. He carried it within its large container on his shoulder as if it weighed nothing. He grabbed a panicking David and Gal and hauled them with him to the staging area of the sea-level platform that the terrorists had come in on. David shouted for Levi, who scooped up his pistol and fixed it on the U.N. employee before scampering away to join his cousin, the actress, and the burly bodyguard.

John hurled the life raft into the ocean and yanked its cord as hard as he could. It inflated much more slowly than expected.

“It says six people, six people only!” David howled as he noted the side of the container’s signage. “Where’s Horace?”

The screaming and pandemonium aboard The Acceptance was still building in intensity as more and more attendees realized the totality of the carnage and the lack of rescue options. Many were on their phones, wailing to their minders and assistants back on the shore that was so far away. Deanna sat on the upper deck couch, hugging her knees and watching a pair of climate lobbyists fight over a life vest they’d found under a removable cushion. She stood up slowly and looked down on the rear deck. In the burning fires she thought she saw Fernanda’s body. She slumped to the floor and waited for rescue to come.

Horace Goldsmith and ex-mayor Rosenbaum charged out of the poker room once they had removed an unconscious man whose body was blocking the door. One of their security guards had been killed in the blast. The other joined up with them. Horace asked where David was and the security guard said that he’d seen John lead them away. They fought through the mass of people and made it to the staging area.

“Uncle Horace!” shouted David.

The wealthy man and his two companions stormed down the steps.

“There’s only room for six,” said Levi, noting the presence of seven people.

“That’s fine, Levi,” replied Goldsmith. He said his security guard would hang onto the side.

Several people who’d been fortunate or ferocious enough to secure life vests for themselves out of the madness at the room behind the bridge were now hurling themselves out of the swiftly sinking ship.

David’s group piled into the now-inflated raft, drawing attention to themselves.

Nicki Nakers ran down to the platform and Prince Jerry followed soon after her. “What about me!” she howled at them as John pushed them off and Goldsmith’s guard jumped into the water.

“You’ll have to hold onto the side, both of you,” returned David.

“But I don’t want to!” she complained loudly.

More people were now gathering on the platform and yelling aloud for respite. Several people, including Clark Buffalo, dove into the water and swam toward the raft.

“They’re gonna sink us!” roared David.

Levi withdrew his pistol and fired it at an encroacher, who took the bullet in the shoulder and screamed in pain – preferring to swim back toward the yacht and clutch at its sinking sides. Clark Buffalo chose to tread water rather than advance on the raft.

“But what about me?” Nicki screamed.

“You’re a fucking bitch, Nicki!” David yelled at her. “Prince Jerry, you’re cool. You can hold onto the side if you want.” The raft was floating further and further away from the yacht, oared on by John and Rosenbaum.

“That’s alright, chap. I swam the Channel as a teen. Sorry, darling,” said the prince as he took off his shoes and dove into the water. He emerged and said, “I’ve decided to rethink our marriage. Don’t worry, Alfie will be well taken care of.”

Nicki couldn’t muster a response. Several men attempted to save her but her flailing threatened to drag them under each time they tried. She swam over to a man with a buoy but he punched her in the face when she demanded he relinquish it entirely to her. She trod water as long as she could, lasting twenty minutes past when the majority of The Acceptance was under water.

“We’re in deep shit,” Levi said to David.

“Don’t fret, boy. This is on the cruise company. It’s in the contracts. Those stupid hippies didn’t even have legal counsel. Whatever happened, it’s not on you two,” said Goldsmith authoritatively.

“Everyone is going to sue me!” howled David. “No, no, no, I’m so fucked.”

Goldsmith placed his hand on David’s shoulder and said, “No, you’re not. We had everyone sign waivers. It’ll be fine. We have digital copies. I’m just glad you boys got us out of there,” he indicated to Rosenbaum.

“Yeah, whatever you need, David,” said Rosenbaum in his soothing voice.

“It wasn’t me, it was John who saved us all,” said David.

“John, I’m going to give you a lot of money when we get back to shore,” Goldsmith said to him.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Anybody got a phone?” Gal asked meekly. “I left my purse in a locker.”

Levi, Rosenbaum, and John each held out their phones. She took one and got on the phone with her agent.

“Not a word, Gal. I’ll handle this,” said Goldsmith. “Fill him in later.”

“Everyone’s dead,” Levi uttered. He had a shell-shocked look on his face as he stared out at the fuel fires on the water and the tip of The Acceptance just sticking out of the water.

Out of the darkness Leon drifted by on the custom-made table. It was largely submerged. His girlfriend Zooey was with him.

“Hell of a fuckin’ party, Irby,” he called out before putting his cigar back into his mouth. “That DJ was a terrorist, wasn’t he?”

“Who knows?” David called back. He ordered John to slacken his pace toward the coastline so that Leon could kick his way closer to the raft.

“We have the best counsel in the world,” Goldsmith warned him.

“You’re my boss, Horace. I’m alive. It’s fine,” replied the actor in his sultry voice. “That Nakers bitch nearly sunk our little boat here.”

“I kicked her in the face,” added Zooey.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” repeated David.

“I have a helicopter en route,” said Gal.

“Guess we should phone it in,” said Rosenbaum.

Gal put in a distress call to the authorities as it would satisfy the press and investigators after the fact. No one was pressed for assistance as all were uninjured and the California authorities notoriously impotent anyway.

“Prince Jerry!” exclaimed Levi.

“Hello, lads,” Prince Jerry said as he backstroked by the side of the raft. He righted himself to tread water and then offered to help Leon paddle the table toward the distant shore. Leon accepted graciously and introduced his girlfriend Zooey to him. “Glad to be rid of her, honestly. I know you’re wondering.”

“Everyone hates her,” said David.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” replied the prince. “Women in their thirties, that’s her fan base. They’ll be devastated.”

“You’re taking this well.”

“I was miserable. You know she was giving Surface a lap dance?”

“She gave him a little more than that,” Leon grunted through his teeth.

“I knew it!” The prince laughed. He was clearly irked for the first time in years. “I was nothing but a depressive around her. Jigmat, the little rat, took her side when it mattered. My father is a dolt, half my family is made up of pedophiles…oh, I should have listened to my brother. Rather, his wife. She was the only one who tried to warn me about Nicki Nakers.”

“I was going to lose my virginity,” mused Levi.

“You’re a virgin? That’s sweet,” said Gal.

“Gal and I are getting married,” said David matter-of-factly.

“That’s if you get your inheritance.”

“Aw, man. Come on. You should marry me anyway.”

“I told you my requirements.”

“You’re going to need a good prenup,” noted Goldsmith.

“For sure,” replied David. “Come on, Gal. Please, just marry me even if I don’t get my dad’s money.”

“I’ll marry you tomorrow but no prenup.”

“But…we made love,” he said in a quiet voice.

“She’d make love to Oprah if she thought it’d get her a TV show,” cracked Goldsmith.

“That’s not true,” pouted Gal.

“Can we at least be boyfriend and girlfriend?” asked David.

“He just got dumped,” added Levi.

“Come on, John saved your life. We didn’t have to bring you with us. You could have ended up like Nicki Nakers,” pleaded David.

“She’s a good girlfriend,” said Leon. He had dated Gal earlier in her career before she scored her first blockbuster.

“I’ll think about it,” said Gal from behind crossed arms.

“Good enough for me,” said David. “I’m gonna get my dad’s money.”

“The U.N. inspectors are dead,” said Levi.

“Stop saying who’s dead, boy. It’s enough,” said Goldsmith.

“The hippies are dead, half the climate justice celebrities in Hollywood are dead—”

“Enough, boy. Those are my colleagues you’re talking about!”

At the older gentleman’s pressing, Levi quieted himself. He contented himself to watching John oar the boat to shore. The beach sand was only five or ten minutes away.

“We’ve been through something together,” observed Prince Jerry.

“You hard up for friends?” Leon asked him.

“Yes, quite frankly. I’ve been thinking about it for some months now. I was too isolated with that damnable woman. My only male companionship was a coolie from a former Crown colony.”

“I’ll be your friend, slick.”

“Thank you, Leon. I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“I’ll be your friend, too,” said David.

“Really, you’re not worried I’m some kind of sociopath for letting my wife drown?”

“That woman was a stone-cold Jezebel,” said Leon. “You’re lucky you only had the one kid with her. I fuck em’ and forget em’. Get the best years out of them and then move on.”

“Hey!” said Zooey, punching Leon in the shoulder. “You jerk.”

“It’s true though. It’s just the modern state of the world, honey. Don’t think you’re any different than Gal over there.” He took a break from kicking to catch his breath. “She’s trying to pump David for all he’s going to be worth.”

“Yeah but I actually kind of like David,” said Gal.

“You like me?!” cried David.

“You’re kind of cute,” she murmured in a thick Australian accent.

“Glad there were no kids on board.”

“Strake brought kids with him. They looked like high schoolers or maybe middle schoolers,” noted Levi. “They were downstairs and, in the kitchen, doing work.”

“Oh boy…” said Goldsmith.

“What?” asked David.

“Strake was on board?”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking hell, David. That man’s a pedophile!”

“Glad he died, then.”

“Nobody told me he was invited.”

“Good Lord, that explains a lot,” said the prince. “I’m gob smacked. I thought those men at the basketball party in Toronto were doing drugs…”

“Half those fuckin’ rappers are pedos,” added Leon. “Your uncle Goldsmith is the only money man in Hollywood who isn’t one. He protected me when I was a boy.”

“There’s a few more of us,” said Goldsmith. “You have to tolerate a little bit of it, especially with the casting couch. But no kid kids. That’s my rule. You said they were teenagers, huh? It’s not the worst. Strake likes the younger ones. David, you should have run it by me. We’re lucky he didn’t bring the younger ones with him.”

“Why don’t you tell the authorities?” asked David.

“You’re a sweet kid, David, but let’s be real. The age of consent in California is 12 years old. And beyond that, the legislature here has it so that anyone who dips below that is only charged with a misdemeanor. No watchlist. It’s not like it was even ten years ago.”

“Get the money and get out,” mumbled John. His breath was heavy from his hard work.

“That’s precisely it,” said Leon. “You pinch your nose on this shit.”

“Or you snort it up your nose,” Goldsmith ribbed the actor.

“I’m retiring after this shit and so should you, Horace.”

“The U.N. isn’t going to give you anything after this, David. I want you to get your inheritance because I think you’ve got a good heart. You’re not like most of us grizzled veterans of the shitshow. We’re going to put together an Oscar winner for you. That will get you your inheritance.”

“I can’t act!” said David.

“I can. I’ve won three of those trophies, pal,” said Leon.

“You’ll write it,” said Goldsmith to David. “Rather, your cousin will write it under your name. I’ll produce it. We’ll get one of those comic book movie directors to direct it. Leon will star in it.”

“I’m the female lead or I’m not your girlfriend,” Gal threatened David.

“Ok, fine,” he said.

“I did a semester at film school for directing,” said Prince Jerry. “I could dedicate it to Nicki. The press would devour it.”

“Sundance is a few months away,” said Goldsmith. “If we move quickly, we can get a teaser in. I’ll make sure it wins what it needs to. That will build buzz and we’ll put it out after tentpole season when the contenders hit screens. Right, smack dab in the middle of it. I can’t get you the trophies but you’ll be nominated in any category I choose.”

“What will the movie be about?” asked David.

“The Climate Cruise, son. The Climate Cruise.”

David sat in stunned silence.

“That’s goddamn perfect,” said Leon, spitting his cigar into the ocean. “That’s late-Clint Eastwood perfection. The Academy is going to eat it up. Throw the climate angle in there? Perfection. I’ll do this fuckin’ thing for free.”

“What do you say, David?” asked the patrician.

“Sounds like a lot of work…”

“Your cousin will be doing your work for you.”

“Yeah, I’ll do the work,” Levi piped in.

David thought on it. The shore was now close. He said, “My father’s will says that any major accomplishment will get me the inheritance. Making a movie might take too long. I technically only have what, sixteen months to get something going. Tom says there are no extensions. The Oscars are after the deadline.”

“Damn, you’re right,” said Leon.

“The Olympics are next summer,” said Levi. “They don’t test for sex anymore. Last time some guy from Sudan won all the distance running events in the women’s category. You could do something like that. You’re in good shape. John trains you in boxing sometimes…”

“That’s genius,” murmured Goldsmith.

“Wait, you’re going to beat up women so you can get your ten billion dollars?” asked an exasperated Zooey.

“Technically, I am a woman,” said David.

And so, the die was cast.

Book 3

The proceeding weeks saw tremendous media uproar over the death of Nicki Nakers. Several lawsuits were brought against David Irby but Goldsmith succeeded in having them dismissed by his high-flying lawyer friends. Ultimately, culpability for the terrorist attack was placed on Jigmat’s failings as the head of security for the event and upon Chance and Kimmy’s cruise business, which went defunct due to their deaths and Rodrigo’s escape to a nation without an extradition treaty to the US.

Jerry and David had struck up a cordial friendship since the cruise, having spent most every day together in Toronto where David was waiting for the media firestorm to blow over. John was able to continue his security detail but Levi had been stopped at the border by Canadian authorities and forced to stay in the States on account of having posted distasteful memes to social media. He was defending his favorite pornstar from extreme right wingers but the Canadian authorities misinterpreted his post as right wing itself. He waited patiently in New York for David’s return, attending to David’s book business and answering emails as though he were David himself. He sent funny memes to David and Jerry to pass some of the time, feeling left out while they were busy training with John and others at a local MMA gym. There was a period of a few days where there was some discomfort with a meme Levi shared, debunking some of the climate information that David and Jerry had taken as fact but Levi pressed on, eager for a new direction for his intellect to go in. David had long treated him as an inferior and Levi took secret pleasure in nudging his cousin this way and that. He was also saddened by Deanna’s death as she was his only prospect in months and months. Her death put into his mind the thought that perhaps his rampant porn use, combined with his minute stature, was repelling women from him and he would never again have the chance that was presented to him with Deanna. Slowly, but surely, his weeks of isolation drove him to the fringes of the Internet. He found he was angry at his favorite pornstar for not coming to his defense despite his being banned from Canada and privately messaging her about it. In his meanderings, he came to agree more sympathetically with David’s instinctual distaste for most women. From these musings, he began to conceptualize himself as David’s “corner man” in the fervent atmosphere of combat training that David had shrouded himself in. When they were reunited, he would help David to gain the certainty he would need to earn his inheritance once and for all. For the time being, he did this mostly by sending choice memes to David throughout the day.

Jerry, stripped of his title of “Prince”, held an ornate funeral for Nicki Nakers at the Toronto Necropolis. It was two weeks after the disaster of the Climate Cruise. Several hundred people were gathered, dressed in white as Nicki had decreed in her living will. The attendees were pestered by mosquitoes from a nearby marsh but the temperature was agreeable and the day was sunny. David was dressed in black because he wanted to spite Nicki one last time. Jerry thought it was funny and took a small chance himself by wearing a black necktie along with his white suit. Nicki’s trashy family from California were allowed to attend but were promptly escorted out when they disrupted the proceedings by demanding Jerry give them money. They had already made money from book deals on Nicki’s childhood but were not sated. John and several other men from the MMA gym escorted the family members out.

Exactly one member of the media was allowed into the funeral, a photo-journalist from the UK that the Crown had browbeaten Jerry into accepting. He was allowed to take photos and could conduct interviews after the proceedings.

Nicki’s best friend, Stephanie Tanner, was to give the main eulogy. Jerry held his infant son Alfie in his lap while she spoke. David scanned his social media feed on an anonymous profile Levi set up for meme-surfing.

Stephanie was a beautiful brunette who’d had too many cosmetic surgeries in the previous years. She wore a sweeping white dress and sat with several of Nicki’s feminist friends from the Toronto philanthropy scene. They all wore emerald brooches in honor of Nicki’s favorite charity. Stephanie stood to speak, eyeing Jerry angrily for his not having spoken once during the ceremony. She had no idea of the circumstances of Nicki’s death. Nobody present at her drowning had said a word to press outlets, despite extravagant sums offered for any information. Leon, Goldsmith, Gal, and the others were in a conspiracy of silence together. The man who had punched Nicki for trying to drown him had subsequently drowned. Stephanie had her suspicions but nothing could be proven and so she simply spoke in loving terms of her best friend.

“Nicki was a fighter,” said Stephanie as she instantly began crying. “I’ve known her since she was 16. We were in the actor’s guild together. I watched her go from an ugly duckling to the beautiful duchess she became. She should have been a princess.” She cast an evil eye to Jerry, who pretended not to see her. “Nicki was a fashionista. Together we got contracts with Revlon, Kylie Cosmetics, Coty, Unilever, and several hair companies. I’m especially proud of the Unilever contract. I was the one…” she broke off to cry some. “I was the one who revamped her skin care routine and the Unilever execs were so impressed that they gave me the biggest finder’s fee in Unilever history. We used that money to start five knitting groups for refugee women who can’t speak English. We chose Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, and Milan because those were always our favorite cities. Nicki, I miss you so much. I was there for you when you first got with Jerry and were worried it wasn’t a good match because I wasn’t the one who played matchmaker. I was always playing matchmaker for you.

“I told you to be strong when he broke up with you and I’m proud to say that I was the one who got you two back together during fashion week in Paris. I pulled the strings, not Misha, and I think I deserve credit for that. You let me choose the charities your money is going to and so I think that’s enough credit. But enough about your amazing life as a businesswoman and mogul. I want people to know the real Nicki. You were so real. We would get coffee at like five in the afternoon and then stay up all night at cocktail parties and lady’s nights. That was so much fun. We used to club when you were an actress. My daddy’s money got us through some hard times and I know you’re up there in Heaven with him now.”

Stephanie stopped to cry for a while longer. Her cadre of feminist activist companions were all in tears. Several African and Arabic women in headscarves, invited to the funeral by the activists, were openly sobbing and wailing. Their wailing reached a tremendous roar, causing David to look up from his phone in annoyance. He leaned into Jerry and whispered, “What the fuck?” Jerry made sure not to signal acknowledgement as he knew Stephanie was watching him in that moment.

Stephanie continued, “As many of you know, with motherhood out of the way, Nicki was in talks with Hollywood execs to revive her career. She was going to be in a Disney movie next year alongside Gal Robbie, who’s not here but I know she’s a great actress, and the A.I. voice of Robin Williams. This was going to be her big break but instead her life was tragically cut short by a ship malfunction that took the lives of 150 people. I will not rest until the white nationalist terrorist Rodrigo McElves is brought back to America and stands trial for what the United Nations is saying is the worst act of white terror ever. I do have some news to share.” Her tone of voice brightened and much of the crying in the audience had calmed to a few sniffles. “I’m proud to announce I will be carrying on Nicki’s philanthropic work by accepting a U.N. ambassadorship to London. The Queen herself reached out to me to apologize for distancing herself so much from Nicki in the months before her tragic death. She sees now the importance of women’s fashion in empowering women all across the world.”

Jerry texted on his phone to David, “The Crown is giving her five million pounds a year and the U.N. is giving her stake in a zone near Kinshasa.”

David coughed loudly when he inhaled spit in surprise.

Stephanie glared at David and then continued, “They found Nicki’s body with her heels still on. She was glamorous until the end. Nicki, I miss you. I love you. You were the biggest part of me. I will always carry on your legacy. Thank you.” She bowed her head to the mourners, who applauded her despite several placards placed near the casket asking for quiet. Jerry, David, John, and the fighters who flanked them stepped away from the casket and let the various women of color throw their white roses upon it as it was lowered into the ground by a machine.

Stephanie eventually sidled up to Jerry not long before the bulk of the mourners began walking out of the Necropolis. “J, thanks for doing this, really. She would have loved it. I can’t believe she’s gone. She really loved you, you know. She was always talking about how you needed to have friends and how you just needed to be strong like when you guys were first together.”

“I appreciate that,” said Jerry. “She was lovely.” He gently rocked his son Alfie, who had been asleep in his arms for an hour. Soon he would wake up and need the wet nurse, a Burundian woman from Quebec City that Jerry had hired when the previous wet nurse went dry on account of getting pregnant with her Canadian boyfriend so as to secure herself permanent residency in Canada.

Stephanie leaned in closely and said to both Jerry and David, “Look, I know you two aren’t telling the whole story. I know law enforcement cleared you but she was my best friend. We think alike. I could finish her sentences for you, I mean, her. I can’t believe you’re not raising her son the way she wanted you to if she died. It’s in her will, J. How could you?” She gave the former prince a wounded look.

“It just seems like too much,” he offered meekly, though in a stronger tone than he would have when his wife was still alive. “Doesn’t make sense to me to have him raised in a village in Rwanda. It’s not safe there.”

“It’s perfectly safe. She was a dreamer. She wanted her son to be a dreamer, too. You have the resources, J. You should rethink it. You should honor your wife.”

“That’s a bit far now, isn’t it?”

“I’ll tell you this: if it turns out you had anything to do with her death, I will take that boy from you so fast your head will spin. He should be learning the fashion world and living in a U.N. zone with me where he can fight for climate justice and women’s rights. I have that power. You’re lucky you were married to Nicki and not me. She wanted you to have friends. She was willing to give you blowjobs and a son. Not me, you’d serve me. I’m hot shit. You know you want to fuck me. Everyone does.” She looked around to make sure no one was watching and then grabbed Jerry’s crotch. “I’ll fuck your living brains out but that son of yours is mine. Think about it, J. Nicki would have wanted it this way. Tootles.”

Jerry looked defeated as he and David headed back to the armored SUV Jerry was renting. Jerry handed his son off to the wet nurse, who rode separately in a ride-sharing vehicle back to the group’s destination. John drove them away from the funeral through Toronto’s quaint Cabbagetown streets and back to the sprawling mansion Nicki had chosen. The mansion was for sale and a Bollywood celebrity had put in an offer that was accepted. John looked in the rearview mirror at Jerry’s dejected face and David’s troubled ruminating.

“That bitch grabbed your dick?” he asked Jerry.

Jerry, wholly unaccustomed to being talked to by John outside of training sessions, looked up in surprise.

David started to tell John not to worry about it when John interrupted him, “Look, boss. I know you pay me for the muscle, not to do your thinking for you. But that bitch is crazy. She’s crazier than Nicki was. She gone’ take your boy from you if she can. Leon’ll keep the secret but Gal just wants money. She’s gonna spill to Stephanie. You boys need to get the fuck out of Canada cause the U.N. is gonna bust you down.”

“John, you never talk,” a flustered David noted.

“Taking the boy is too far. It’s too goddamn far. These Canadians are crazy motherfuckers. Levi ain’t here. Somebody’s gotta be the voice of reason.”

“Levi’s a simp.”

“You’re a simp, too. Crying like that after Lady Marina. You gotta wake the fuck up, boss. You, too, J.”

“I fucking hate women,” Jerry said in a thick accent. “You’re right, taking my son is a bridge too far.”

“They always takin’ the boys and fuckin’ em up. My brother just lost his son to a crazy Latina girl. She divorced him when he started making good paper with the dealership he bought. As soon as he’s making more money, she takes half of everything. His monthly payment is like three grand.”

“That was the brother whose wedding you went to last year, right?” asked David.

“Yes, sir.”

There was a period of silence until the SUV pulled in past the electronic gates and into the cobblestone circular drive of the pending-sale estate.

“What do you think we should do, John?”

“Look, boss. You pay me to train you and to give you security. You’ve treated me like a step above a servant until I saved your ass from that Climate Cruise. I only did the job because your brother pays me more than I could ever make in North Carolina. You and your cousin are some goofy-ass motherfuckers but at least you always lifted weights and never hated on black people. Now you’re asking me what to do. You gotta pay me more.”

“Consider it done,” said Jerry, eager to hear from John.

“That bitch is gonna take Alfie from you if you stay in Canada. The courts here make up whatever the fuck they want. She hot as fuck but she crazy as fuck and the Crown and the U.N. is giving her power? You gotta bust ass back down to America. Get out of here with this ‘quieter part of Toronto, closer to the gym’ business. There are better gyms in America and the fighters are better.”

They walked into the nearly empty mansion and sat at the stainless-steel kitchen counter on stools while John did his customary check of all the entrances to the house, ensuring everything was still locked up tight and the central security system hadn’t detected any movement. The Burundian wet nurse keyed in her code to the iron gate that led from the city sidewalk into the walking path leading up to the house. She greeted the two friends before taking a whimpering Alfie up the grand staircase to the nursery where she would nurse him down to his afternoon nap.

David was texting with Levi.

“John says we should get Jerry to come back to the States with us and we’ll all train.”

“I looked into the MMA regulations here and California’s the only state that doesn’t do hormone testing for fighters. Looks like you’re going to be an Olympic boxer. Either that or you fight MMA in Poland or Croatia. That’s not high profile enough, though. Qualifiers are in five months.”

“Are you sure there’s no testing in the Olympics?”

“Dude, it’s been on FoxNews like five times.”

“FoxNews, wtf? They’re climate change deniers.”

“No, they’re just big business. The facts are the facts. You can fight middleweight at 165 lbs. The IBF chick is your biggest opponent, unless some other dude decides to do what you’re doing.”

“She’s hot af.”

“Dude, don’t simp,” texted Levi.

“Fuck, you’re right.”

“Tell Jerry not to simp either. He’s a bigger simp than you.”

Two months into David’s training, his crew had finally decided on a boxing gym northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina. John’s family lived not too far away. The climate was a welcome respite for David and Levi, who were used to winters in New York and Rhode Island. David had to keep a low profile since there were many people in the media and international government who were disgruntled with him for dropping the cause of climate justice so suddenly. Now and then he received a phone call from Leon or from Gal Robbie but neither took a strong interest in him as there was no money to be made in Olympic boxing. David pined for Gal sometimes but with Levi’s help and constant monitoring, managed to keep himself from texting her often.

It was a winter’s day when he had his first sparring match with an opponent in his weight class. He was standing outside, trying an e-cigarette lent to him by one of the fellow trainees at the boxing gym.

“Tastes like cotton candy,” he noted to Brian Faber, a slender man with dimples and a long-since faded life as a welterweight prospect. Brian could only see out of one eye, having sustained a permanent injury as an amateur ten years prior.

Brian chuckled in a wheezy voice, “Yeah, my girlfriend likes cotton candy so she buys tons of it. I’m a little short on money right now so I’m borrowing her vaporizer. It’s good, huh?”

“Yeah, pretty good.”

“I mostly just do it for the habit now. Check it out.” Brian took his shirt off and revealed a nicotine patch on the back of his shoulder. “I switched from cigs to vaping and now I just get my fix with this. Pure nicotine. Doesn’t get much better. Gets you amped up. It’s like the ultimate nootropic.”

“Nootropic?”

“Brain drugs, man. Most people drink or smoke cigs but when you smoke cigs the real thing you’re going after is the nicotine. I just cut out the middle man and go with patches. I also do the nicotine gum. Good shit. You do any drugs, bro?”

David thought on the question for a moment. “I used to look at porn. And sometimes I drink.”

“Porn isn’t a drug,” Brian said with an exhale of vapor after David passed the e-cigarette back to its owner.

“Porn makes you a simp,” David said brightly. “I used to be a degenerate. Not a good body count. That’s what porn does to you, though. You go for easy and ugly, especially ugly on the inside.” He was fully geared up, missing only his gloves. His hand wraps were bright white and he put in his mouthpiece as Levi leaned in from the gym’s backdoor to signal that the opponent was ready.

“Good luck!” Brian called after him.

David walked into the boxing gym, past a row of old lockers, and into the main training area, where a couple dozen boxers were being attended to by a few trainers. The majority of the gym’s clientele was black. John was cousins with the gym owner and had been a Golden Gloves boxer in his youth before opting for law enforcement and then private security.

Standing in the main ring was a man of David’s size, fully clad in the necessary clothing and equipment. John put on David’s gloves and gave him a little pep talk. They were to fight three rounds. John told him to pace himself early.

David and his opponent, Darius, touched gloves and began to spar. The early going was tough for David as he had only a tiny measure of his opponent’s experience. His opponent kept him at bay with a right jab before landing a stunning left hook to the ribs. David gasped for breath and his legs buckled beneath him late in the round. The referee, a gym employee, hauled David back onto his legs and the bell sounded for the round.

“He’s a tough fucker,” gasped David to John.

“We gotta work on your core strength,” was one of the few things John encouraged him with. “Pivot back when you see that hook coming.”

David was more effective in the second round, landing some glancing shots on Darius but again, Darius’ lengthy experience in the ring left David frustrated. Again, he was floored by Darius, this time by an uppercut that landed flush on his chin. Darius looked to John and the senior trainers of the gym and they waved him on. When David was back up, Darius clubbed him around in the face but held back his full power. It was clear to Darius that David was much in his infancy as a fighter and he did not want to discourage the newcomer.

David went to his corner after the second round bell sounded, choosing to sit on his stool. A trainer came and applied an iron no-swell to David’s cheeks.

“Tough as fuck,” David again mused.

John hesitated as the thought came into his head that Darius was the worst boxer in his weight class at the gym. He resumed his encouraging words. Levi stood at the edge of the platform and fervently told David to, “Kill him!” to which David shook his head. His cousin was overeager for a knockout. This annoyed Darius but he was told to keep his cool by his corner.

The third round came and went without a knockdown, much to David’s relief. He managed to dodge a number of punches by Darius. He also landed a right cross to Darius’ face that stunned the man. The few boxers and trainers gathered to watch shouted in surprise at the blow. The bell sounded and the opponents hugged briefly.

That night at dinner, David and Levi sat with John at a barbecue place. John had become an equal and while he still served in his security capacity, some of the formalities had been dropped. John’s cousin, Jarrett, joined the group with his prize prospect, a southpaw named DeAndre who fought in the light heavyweight.

“I thought David was going to kill him!” an overeager Levi said aloud for anyone to hear.

“Calm down, now,” said Jarrett. “That’s a good right hand you got there, David, but we gotta get your conditioning up. Your skills are years away from competing against men.”

“Yeah, you lucky as fuck they letting men box women these days cause Darius beat your ass,” said DeAndre.

“It’s true. I won’t deny it,” said David, “but luckily it doesn’t matter a whole lot. I just need to keep fit and work with you guys so there are no surprises.”

Jarrett took his plate of beef and hush puppies from the waitress, who brought his food early, and began to eat. Between bites, he said, “8 billion dollars is more money than God.”

“And your gym is getting a three-million-dollar investment if everything goes according to plan,” said Levi.

Not only was the gym and its owner, Jarrett, getting a substantial injection of cash in the event of David medaling in the Olympics, DeAndre and one other trainer at the gym were being actively paid for their participation in David’s training. They, John, and Jarrett were the only people at the gym who knew of David’s plan. The only other people aware of David’s plans were his clique of survivors from the Climate Cruise but none of them aside from Goldsmith took the ploy seriously. Goldsmith had placed a hefty bet with a Vegas bookmaker that a D. Irby would win Olympic gold for the women’s middleweight division. This was the only public-facing evidence of David’s plan, though there were many men already launching bids to dominate other women’s sports. Primarily, they were clustered in the track and field events, cycling, and weightlifting.

Nobody at the gym seemed to mind what David was doing. They either bought in to the idea that David was identifying as a woman, despite not changing his appearance in the slightest, or they were apathetic from years of attempted encroachment into their space by female boxers. Not only had David not changed his appearance toward that of a woman but he was actively taking testosterone replacement therapy. The Olympic Committee had dropped its drug testing organization after being hammered by lawsuit after lawsuit from women hoping to compete in men’s categories. An air of dissociation and confusion dominated the inner workings of the Olympics and David was not the only person to take advantage. Given that the contractual language of his inheritance included a portion on winning an Olympic medal as a qualifier, he was perhaps the person most incentivized to bend what few rules were left. He enjoyed the replacement therapy immensely as it had added 15 pounds of muscle and tremendous definition to his physique. Even John was beginning to call him, “Big Dog,” a term of affection he only lavished on his nephews. Everything was coming together for David.

Late in winter, Levi was on his first date ever with a traveling nurse who’d moved down from Wisconsin to live in North Carolina. They were at a bowling alley not far from the boxing gym. Levi had put on some muscle as he sometimes served as David’s sparring partner, despite weighing thirty pounds less than his cousin. He wore a t-shirt and blue jeans. His date was a modest looking brunette woman in her mid-20’s who kept herself in decent shape and wore blood red lipstick that clashed with her calm presentation.

“Do you want some popcorn?” he asked her for a second time as she walked back from rolling a gutter ball.

“No, it’s alright,” she replied in a patient manner.

Levi looked over his shoulder nervously toward the arcade. “I gotta take a leak,” he said to her. He stood up from the bleacher seat, wiped a smudge from his eyeglasses, and gave her a brief smile before darting away to the arcade.

“You’re fucking it up,” David growled at him once he made it to the hunting game David was playing.

“You aren’t even watching!” Levi pleaded above the clamor of the scores of children running around. “She likes me.”

“You have to take control.”

“What do you know? You haven’t had a girlfriend since Gal dumped you. I didn’t even want you to come.”

“You need me,” replied David. “I told you that before. You’re a virgin, I’m not. You’re an incel. I’m volcel. Big difference. I have money. You have some crypto that’s always dumping. I’m your wingman on this. I always will be. We’re cousins.”

“Okay,” Levi relented. “How do I take control?”

The arcade machine emitted a disappointed tone as David ran out of credits to extend his playing time.

“Piece of shit,” he muttered. He turned his attention to his cousin. “You have to be assertive with her. Right now, you’re just hoping she likes you. She already likes you, dude. You have to tell her what you want in life.”

“I just want to have my first kiss.”

“You can kiss her here, then. That’s how you should take control. She likes you. She’s showing all the signs. She’s pursing her lips. She likes high-fiving when you hit the pins. She fucking sucks at bowling. She’s doing it because you like it.”

“Got it.” Levi rolled up the cuffs on each of his jean legs and retied his sneakers to pump himself up. “This is the kind of advice they give on the chans.”

David signaled his approval. “Show her you’re an aristocrat of the soul by going for the romantic kiss.”

The cousins pounded fists, a novel development in their relationship – which had taken a decidedly masculine turn since the Climate Cruise. They were getting along better because they had bonded over Internet memes, video games, boxing, and a mutual commitment to not masturbating. The seeds of virtue had been germinated with a not insignificant contribution coming from John being simply fed up with the pair after the cruise debacle. He had threatened to quit, badgered David for a pay raise, and had taken near complete control of the tone of their lives by moving them to North Carolina, where he sometimes invited the pair to family gatherings. He tried to get the pair to give up video games but this only hardened their resolve.

Levi approached his date. She smiled at him. He sat down next to her and kissed her awkwardly on the lips. She looked into his eyes and smiled again. Her cheeks were rosy. She said, “Wow, that was unexpected.”

He replied, “I’m an aristocrat of the soul.” As her face turned to confusion, he realized she had no idea what he was talking about and added, “Sorry, just some poetry I learned. Sorry if that’s sappy.”

“That’s alright. I like it. You’re old fashioned. A lot of the people in my family are that way.”

Levi realized he had forgotten her name, despite liking her, and when the opportune moment came, he checked the bowling console for the name she put down, which was Electra. This made him intensely anxious as he realized he had neglected to notice that she mirrored his choice to give himself a funny nickname, Shooter. He backed off a bit for the rest of their game, looking back in David’s direction when it was his date’s turn to bowl. Eventually she needed to go to the bathroom before they left to go for a drive. Levi darted back over to David, who was busy slurping a milkshake at a booth while John sat across from him, looking bored.

“I forgot her name!” he squeaked.

“Her name doesn’t matter, dude. It’s just how you feel about her that matters.”

John started to interject but stopped himself, contenting himself with pulling out his phone to pass the time.

David continued, “Don’t worry about it. You’ll find out her name eventually. You better get back over there before she comes out and sees you with us.”

“Women take longer to piss,” said John, without breaking eye contact from his phone. “Just ask her what her full name is.”

“Thanks.” Levi scampered back over to his chair at the lane, where he’d forgotten his bomber jacket. He grabbed it and greeted his date as she emerged from the short hallway where the bathrooms were.

“He’s going to screw it up. I can just sense it,” said David to John.

“He’ll be fine.”

“Get the truck going and meet me at the curb. We’ll follow him.”

“Can’t. We got that thing at the gym, remember?”

“Text him and tell him to play it cool.”

“He already playing it cool, Big Dog. You text him if you’re so damn worried.” The big man exhaled loudly as he stood to bring around the truck, a Ford-350 David had bought with his recent earnings. John was feeling a lot calmer about the dating situation than either of his companions. He was beginning to be emotionally invested in their success. They were showing him more respect. They were bickering among themselves far less. Tom Irby was no longer playing nanny to David’s situations, though he knew nothing of his younger brother’s latest schemes. John felt increased relevance since the disastrous Climate Cruise. He knew boxing. He knew North Carolina. He knew his own earnings had increased doing something he loved. Climate justice mattered not to him.

In the rideshare, Levi decided he didn’t care what his date’s name was. She was interested in him and he was interested in her. What more mattered? They had an easy chemistry. This was enough for him. He battled back the voice in his head that told him that not knowing a person’s name was a sign of callousness and cold-heartedness. He reassured himself he just wasn’t all that good with names. Never had been, perhaps never would be. Then the idea occurred to him to ask her to put her number in his phone. She wrote in “Bethany” and her number. So, there it was. He was going to ask her what her full name was, later on in the ride, as David had suggested but this was an even more efficient means. He prided himself on his growing independence from his cousin. He had a best-selling memoir he’d ghostwritten, a steady paying job that was essentially recession-proof, and now a girlfriend. Levi’s head was spinning from his success. He and Bethany kissed briefly as she got out of the rideshare. He waved to her with his little hands and watched her walk up the steps to her townhouse before waving the rider on.

David breezed through Olympic Trials. Much to the surprise of everyone in his camp, nary an eye was batted by the media or anyone from the Olympic governing body. A few of the female fighters complained but it was a generalized complaint as several other male boxers in America had chosen to populate the ranks outside of David’s weight division, much to his private relief. There was no guarantee that on the international stage he would not be facing other men. In fact, there was an Irish boxer out of Manchester, England that would be in his division. The Irish boxer had viciously laid waste to the UK’s finest female boxers in the middleweight division, knocking every single one of his opponents out within the first round. This was a move that John rightfully warned David away from because the health risk posed to women would nudge the Olympic Committee in the direction of restrictions, rulemaking, and perhaps outright banning. This was the last thing David needed as he had no more cards up his sleeve on his inheritance. The women’s boxing final was scheduled exactly two weeks before David’s grace period ended.

Should it come to it, defeating the Irishman, Tyler Jury, would be no easy feat. Studying Jury tapes with Jarrett and DeAndre had revealed to David that this man was clearly head and shoulders more skilled as a boxer than David was. Jury possessed less punching power than David as Jury was more of an ectomorph who knocked women out with simple jabs. Jury fought from a distance, utilizing the jab to its full extent. Both Jarrett and John advised David to fight on the inside with Jury, if they were paired in the final. If he could improve his footwork and keep his chin, he could take a decision with Jury, not to mention David’s knockout power. And so they spent the final month before the Olympics working on these aspects of David’s fight game. In his off hours, David busied himself playing boxing video games against Levi. This helped his mindset considerably.

Bethany came with Levi to the Charlotte airport to see him off with the rest of David’s crew, consisting of John, Jarrett, and DeAndre.

She wanted to kiss him on the lips in front of the others but he turned and gave her his cheek. She gave him an upset look. In her mind, they’d been dating for over half a year and some more intimacy was merited, especially since going to Paris was no easy prospect. He explained himself to her in a hushed tone, “Honey, not in front of the guys. It’s not appropriate.”

“But why? I’m going to miss you a bunch.”

“It projects weakness. I don’t want to be a simp in front of the guys.”

“Isn’t that a bit far? They’ll understand.”

“Now you’re questioning my judgment as your man.”

“Oh my gosh, was I? I’m sorry,” she responded sincerely. “I thought I had worked on that enough.”

“Well, how are you going to show me that you’re not going to do that again?”

“More chores around the house?” she asked, biting her lip.

“No, we don’t live together. Remember our rule? All you’re doing is cleaning up your own place. We don’t live together until we’re married. Oh, shoot! I forgot.” He thrust his hand to the inner pocket of his track jacket. “Here, scooch up close.” He handed her the loaded pistol that had sank The Acceptance.

“There’s cameras,” she moaned softly.

“You’re questioning me again. It’s fine. You have to trust me.” He deftly handed the loaded pistol to her and she placed it into her purse, which she kept pressed to his chest beneath his jacket.

“Oh gosh.”

“Nobody’s gonna stop you for it. This is still a free country. I just want you to be submissive. When you put up resistance like this, it pushes me away.”

“Bruh,” said DeAndre, “you comin’ or what?” He was clad in the same tracksuit that Levi was. David had insisted on it. The name of their gym was embroidered on the back of their forest green jackets.

“Hold on,” said Levi. “Just telling her my expectations for her.”

“You do you,” replied the lithe boxer.

“I can be better,” replied Bethany. “I’m sorry, it’s just the feminism I was programmed with. My mom, you know?”

“It’s okay. I just have to look out for my prospects, you know? We’ve been over it. If David gets his inheritance from his dad, I’m going to be worth a lot more. You have to show me that you’re not going to make our life together hard. That’s why I haven’t proposed to you yet and it’s why you’re going to have to sign a prenup if we do get married.”

“I’ve given up a lot for you, Levi,” she said gently.

“I know. You quit your job and live off the allowance I give you. You gave away your cats…”

Bethany’s eyes glazed over with tears. She’d owned her cats for six years, giving them away to an old lady with an acreage after Levi spent the first few months of their relationship talking to her about why he didn’t approve of her owning cats.

“I did it because I believe in you,” she said.

“You’re growing your hair out. You’re losing weight. You only look at the Internet memes I send to you and only the Instagram pages I approve of. I’m training you to be a good mom, just like I’m being David’s cornerman. I wrote Dying Planet. I accidentally killed all of those people who turned out to be really evil. I got David to stop being a coomer and I got myself to stop being a simp.”

“You have all the credibility in the world with me. I just wanted to kiss my future husband.”

“I understand that. If you keep showing me the right stuff, I will make you my wife but only if you sign a prenup. Then I will allow you to kiss me in front of the guys.”

“Really?” Bethany asked, with doe-eyes.

“Yes, but we also have to time our wedding night with your ovulation cycle. I only want to…you know, if it’s for procreation purposes. That has to be in the prenup. I can’t show David the volcel lifestyle if I’m not leading by example.”

“I trust you.”

“Keep it up,” he nodded to her as David came and pulled him by the arm into the airport.

Bethany blew him a kiss, which he deliberately caught and placed on his cheek where it was acceptable.

“Women make you weak, don’t ever forget that,” Jarrett said to Levi as he rolled his belongings up to the self-check kiosk where the others had been standing and waiting. “See how she slowed your ass down? Don’t forget the spiritual dimensions of that.”

“Got it.” Levi nodded with a fervent look in his eyes.

“Fuck women,” said David. “I’m volcel.”

“That’s too far, young man,” said Jarrett. “Every man could use a woman. Who else is gonna cook, clean, take care of the children, and all that? My wife and I been together thirty-five years. You need a woman in your life. You should have been looking for a woman before all this. Now all you gonna’ get is gold diggers who know about your paper.”

“No.” David flatly disagreed. “I think women out there are going to see me beating up their best fighters and the submissive ones are going to flock to me. I think I’m going to get a great wife. I just have to make it to 100 days without ejaculating. Hard mode, though. No stroking it, either.”

“Get outta here with that shit, Dave. That shit nasty. Ain’t nobody wanna’ hear about that shit,” said DeAndre.

“We gotta get to the gate,” noted John. “Come on.”

The group of five made their way through the cumbersome TSA security check, ordered burger lunches from the fast food place near their gate, and sat down at a long table next to a vending booth loaded to the brim with cell phone and laptop accessories. An elderly cleaning lady wandered by and took some used napkins from the table next to them.

“Women like her should be at home, not working in a place like this. She’s someone’s grandma. It’s terrible how our society has failed the elderly,” David noted to the others.

“That lady is my age,” observed Jarrett.

“Yeah, but I’m talking about women specifically. Older women should not be working. I don’t agree with these coomer dudes online who say that a woman can have a career after she has children. Besides, what kind of career is that for her? Cleaning tables at the airport. Terrible failure. She should be at home.”

“My wife has a job.”

“She’s the bookkeeper at the gym,” added Levi.

“Exactly, she has a job within the family business – helmed by the patriarch. It’s a different situation,” said David. He took a bite of his burger, wrapped in lettuce, and when he was fully done chewing, he added, “Your wife operates as an extension of the family. She’s in the family business. It’s not perfect but it’s not far from the ideal, either.”

“You soundin’ like you like women, right now,” said DeAndre.

“I wish you wouldn’t speak while you were chewing.”

“Man, come on with that.”

“I’m just saying. At boarding school, we would get dressed down for something like that. You said you wanted to learn how to be high class like me. I’m a civilizing force in your life, DeAndre. We both know it. We just rarely acknowledge it because society has told us it’s the worst possible dialogue that can be had.”

“I know, you right,” the young boxer replied.

“And no, I don’t like women suddenly,” David returned the conversation back to Jarrett. “My newer stance on women comes from men who have had a lot more experience with them than I’ve had. My body count is low. I want to preserve whatever bonding capacity I have for my future wife. Actually, I’m learning a lot from Levi. You have to shape a woman into the ideal because society and parents in general have utterly failed to protect women from Third World degradation.” He paused to look at his trainers and then said, “No offense.”

“No offense taken,” interjected John.

“We know what’s up,” added Jarrett.

As David finished up his sweet potato fries and lettuce-wrapped burger, a young woman with short, blue-dyed hair and thick brim eyeglasses approached the group’s table with her cell phone out. John was on his feet and putting out his enormous forearm to block her way.

“Just so you know, I’m filming you. I know who you are!” she growled at David. “You’re David Irby the Second. You single-handedly destroyed the climate justice movement in America. You’re a fascist.”

David smiled widely and said to her, “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” He noticed right away that she was all bark, no bite. Or at least, he hoped.

“You killed all those celebrities, you fucker!”

“Easy on the language!” barked Levi from behind the burger he held between his hands, its size obscuring most of his small face.

“Turn that off,” ordered David.

“Or what, you’re gonna blow me up, too? You shouldn’t be allowed in the public space.”

“You’re being ugly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s true though. You could be a beauty but you choose to be ugly—”

“My looks have nothing to do with this,” she interrupted.

“I can’t stand when women interrupt me,” said David. He nodded to John, who snatched the feminist’s phone from her hands and held it high above himself so she couldn’t reach it, even with a step stool. He towered over her. She pounded at his chest for a moment, hoping someone would come to her aid but no one did. Nobody in the airport seemed to notice the commotion. “Before you scream, let me tell you something. I’ll give you money.”

“Give me my phone back, you dick. I’ll call the police. I’ll tell the airline.”

“Are you gonna let me finish? Just one word. You don’t need to tell the airline. I have $500 cash here in my pocket but you have to listen to me for just one second.” He could sense her soften as he was more and more assertive with her.

“Fine, but I’m calling the police if you break my phone.”

“Nobody’s going to break your phone. Hold on a sec.” He counted out five one-hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and set them on the table before him. “Alright, I’ve got your attention. I want you to listen to me for one minute. One minute gets you five-hundred bucks. This is the most lucrative minute of your life. Are you ready?”

“I have student loan debt, you know? That’s the only reason I’m doing this.”

“I bet you do. Alright, one minute?”

“Okay.”

“DeAndre, timer, please? I have a good amount of money and from my cousin here I am learning the value of being patient with women.”

“You don’t have to talk down to me.”

“One minute, no interruptions. Five-hundred bucks.”

“Okay, okay.”

“You may not believe it but I am a self-reflective person. I learned to be after the Climate Cruise. You may have heard of it? My cousin Levi here has helped me a bunch. He basically red-pilled me. I used to be the asshole you think I am now. I was starting to use prostitutes, I went with the flow of whatever the rich people around me wanted to do, I was friends with simps. But all those people dying got me thinking. I was going to lose my soul if I kept doing all that. I needed to cut against the grain, not go with it. That’s where you are right now. You’re going with the grain. You learn all this stuff,” he pointed to her hair and overalls, “from university. The university puts you in debt. It’s the same thing with what I was getting into. And I did it out of greed. I’m not saying you’re a greedy person. You’re at a disadvantage and I acknowledge that. But don’t put the blame on me. Look, I’m handing you five-hundred bucks and talking to you like a reasoning human being. I still harbor tremendous resentment against women. That’s why you’re attracted to me. That’s why you came into my life just now. And you’d be right to point out to me that it’s why I am entering the Olympics as a woman.”

“Minute’s up,” said DeAndre.

“You can keep going,” said the woman, stuffing the bills into her pocket begrudgingly.

“My guess is that nobody has been truly nice to you in a while. I gave you that money because I wanted you to listen to me. That’s a fair transaction. So is what I’m doing with the Olympics. In an ideal world, it would not be but we don’t live in that world. We live in this world. What has all this Marxist stuff brought you?”

“Something to fight for.”

“Can I be frank with you?”

“Only if he gives me my phone back.”

“He will if you promise not to record.”

“Fine.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay, John? Alright, I’m going to be frank with you. I’m surprised you even listened to me. But obviously, no one you consider to be your enemy has ever just offered you money. You’ve had to claw everything out of the dirt for yourself. Your mindset is for poor people. It’s impoverishing you. Easy, easy. I can see you’re mad. I’m almost done. I want to ask you something. It’s about your appearance. Normally I wouldn’t ask but I can see you’re the type of person to want permission first.”

“It’ll cost you two-hundred more.”

“No prob.” He counted the two bills out and handed one to her. “You get the second after I’m done. I’m going to ask the question, ready?”

“Just get on with it.”

“I can see you have a rockin’ bod under those overalls. Legit, you’re like model hot. Your roots are reddish brown. You have freckles. You’re a dream for a guy like me. You’re what, a sophomore in college?”

“Good guess.”

“I’m two years out of college myself. John, you can sit down. Look, what’s your name?”

“Angie.”

“Angie, why do you hide what you truly are? You’re the only woman to actually stop in her tracks and listen to what I have to say. You’re the only one to not be a super bitch when I gave a bit of pushback. You were obviously more worried about your expensive phone than your ideology. You have a rockin’ bod. You didn’t scream. You’re probably awesome under all that college stuff.”

Angie was openly crying at this point.

David continued, “I’m not without my faults. I used to be a coomer. I was a degenerate, too. I almost married a literal fame whore. And I was kind of a gymcel in college. I don’t know everything but I do know that you’re probably pretty fuckin’ lonely. How much student loan debt do you have?”

“Twenty-two thousand. I got scholarships.”

“That’s a fuckton of debt for the average dude. How are you going to attract a guy who’s willing to pay that off if you’re not willing to show off your looks? You’re hiding them under all that. And you’re confrontational, on top of all that.”

“That’s my problem,” she said defensively.

“Hold on, stay with me.” He handed her the other hundred.

“My flight boards soon,” she sniffled.

“I’ll tell you what, Angie. I’ll pay off your student loan debt if you miss your flight and come with me to Paris. I’ll make it so you never have to work another day in your life. All you have to do is keep listening to me and giving me the benefit of the doubt whenever you feel defensive. That’s it. No strings attached. You can do whatever you want in Paris. You don’t have to spend any time with me. But you have to dress differently the whole time we’re there. It’s a three-week trip. Twenty-two thousand dollars. Here, look at my cashapp balance. It’s all there and more. All it takes is for you to change a little bit.”

Inside, Angie was feeling incredible relief. All of her feminist friends in college were sex-obsessed and she didn’t like what their habits were doing to them. David had caught her at the exact moment in her life when she was doubting whether she was going to finish college or not. An uncle of hers had given her money to vacation in Alberta, where she was planning to camp and “get back to nature” in an effort to clear her head. She was not a particularly greedy person and while she had just taken $700 from him, a part of her told her she should give it all back. Her self-worth was low but the soothing dimension of David’s offer appealed to her. On a deep, unconscious level she was battling with the inevitable soul death that faced her if she followed her friends into oblivion. She yearned for a simpler existence. She knew there was no future in her art history degree, a fact she’d admitted to scowled faces at the last party of the school year.

David, sensing her sympathy with his proposition, said, “No funny stuff from me. You can go your own way when we’re at the airport in Paris. We just upgraded Levi to first class. They said there were a bunch of comfort seats and middle seats open. I’ll put you wherever they can get you.”

“Okay,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

David walked her over to his gate and paid for her flight on the spot. “Unreal,” he texted to Levi as he waited for the airline staff to print her ticket out. She would be sitting two rows behind him. “Woman-wrangling,” Levi texted back with a winking emoji.

Angie excused herself to go and fill her water bottle once her flight was arranged for.

“Women and money, name a more iconic duo,” David commented to Levi.

“She’s just doing it for the money,” said Levi.

“We’ll see.”

At the connecting flight in JFK, David sat with Angie while his crew situated themselves in the seating row behind them at the gate.

“Why are you even doing this?” she asked him.

“Just for the hell of it. A whim. And you’re good looking. And I’m a recovering simp so I have a soft spot. And money.”

“I don’t want your money,” she said.

“No, of course you do. Of course, you do. Let’s be honest, at least. Tell me what you feel when you think that I have celebrity money. That my father was a big-time mogul.”

“Some jealousy. This is weird.”

“It’s perfectly normal. I like you. I covered your trip to Paris. You’re a blue-haired feminist who was willing to listen to me. You know, you’re right. It is a bit weird…”

“I’m not that feminist…”

“Enough to dye your hair blue, though.”

“I guess.”

“Tell me about yourself, Angie. We have another half hour before we board. What’s your deal?”

“There’s not much to tell. I’m excited to see all of the art in Paris. That’s probably the main reason I’m coming with you. That, and nobody is waiting on me where I was going. I was going to Calgary till you came along.”

“What were you going to do in Calgary?”

She told him.

“Can’t relate. I can’t stand nature. I’m more of an ‘estate’ guy. We can be out in the country but there’d better be horse stables, pastures, lawns, stuff like that. I have Faustian sensibilities.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I like things civilized. I used to be a hedonist and just do whatever I wanted but now I want things to make sense.”

“I guess I do, too.”

“Well…technically you want some kind of socialist revolution where the poor people, proxy for stupid people, eat the rich.”

“I want equality for women.”

“You’re the first woman I’ve talked to who didn’t just wilt or throw a tantrum within the first thirty seconds of me talking to her. That’s equality, right?”

“It’s condescending.”

“That’s what your dumb friends would tell you to say. You’re thinking their thoughts.”

“I am not.” She recoiled slightly.

“They’re not even your friends, are they? They’re not going to pay back your student loan debt. I will.”

“Yeah, and you want me to sleep with you in return.”

“That’d be nice but if I wanted a prostitute, I’d hire one. My friend Mark in New York is a john. He is going to lose his marriage over whores. It’s a bad habit to pick up.”

“They’re called ‘sex-workers’.”

“That’s just propaganda.”

“Your head is full of fascist propaganda from right-wing extremist websites,” she retorted.

“Maybe, I’ll grant you that. Maybe. But if I’m willing to concede the point, will you concede that your hair is actually blue and you’ve probably had more sex partners than me?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Just humor me. I’m going to pay off your student loan debt. How many guys have you slept with?”

“Just one.”

“No, not possible.”

“It’s true. You didn’t ask how many girls I’ve slept with.”

“Well?”

“Two. I didn’t like it either time.”

“How recently?”

“The guy was in high school. We were together for a few months. The girls, it was this year.”

“Lesbianism isn’t a real thing,” he chortled. “You’re just scared of the commitment that comes with being with a man.”

“It’s not like men have made it any easier.”

“I’m making it easy. I’m flying you to Paris.”

“That’s what this is about, huh?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes you’re bitchy and sometimes you actually listen. You haven’t interrupted me since back in Charlotte. And you already changed out of your overalls into leggings. Not the best but not bad, either.”

“You don’t like my leggings?”

David sensed the same vulnerability in her that had brought her to tears in the previous airport.

“Why do you care, you’re a feminist?” he asked pointedly.

“I guess I don’t.” She pouted some and checked her phone.

He waited a while and then asked, “Did you bring any books with you for your camping trip?”

“Just this one from the campus bookstore. Here,” she said, withdrawing it from her fully packed duffel bag.

“We by Zamyatin, huh? I read this at boarding school. It’s way Russian.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, just the tone of it. The way the characters make decisions. It’s just very Russian. Do you like dystopian novels?”

“I do.”

“You sure your feminist-y professors would approve?”

“I can think for myself. I got into them when I was in high school.”

“Have you read many?”

“Probably two or three a year.”

“Any favorites?”

“I like The Stand but the characters are way too Boomer.”

David pursed his lips with satisfaction. “Way too Boomer? That’s pretty ageist, isn’t it?”

“You talk to me like I’m a caricature of a feminist. I have my own thoughts on things.”

“What do you think about wearing an apron and spending most of your time in a kitchen?”

She laughed loudly. She was amused with his question. Aside from her own father, who had died in a car accident when she was ten, she had only ever known delicate men. David’s frankness reminded her of her father.

“I wasn’t expecting a laugh,” he mused.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be funny.”

David was in uncharted territory. He had tested her to the best of his ability and she was responding nicely. “You really think I killed all those people?” he asked, referring to her first remarks to him.

“Not really. You hand out too much money to be a murderer.”

“Astute, astute. Why is your hair blue?”

“Peer pressure.”

“You’re the type to give in? I thought you were a strong, independent woman.”

“If I’m honest, I can’t stand my hair. It looks disgusting. I did it because my friends pestered me.”

“Look at that, I promise to pay your student loans and suddenly you’re leveling with me on things.”

Angie didn’t have much to say.

“You didn’t like that?” asked David.

“I don’t like being treated like a caricature. I have my own thoughts on things. You seem to think you have things more figured out than me. Maybe you do. But if you do, you shouldn’t be cruel about it. I feel humiliated when you poke at me like that.”

Now David didn’t have much to say. He sat and thought about what she had said. “It’s just how Levi and I rib each other. Makes sense you wouldn’t like it.”

“It’s like you think you’re smarter than me. Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. You’re stronger though. But when you’re strong, you should take care of the weak. For example, when you mentioned my appearance, I got the sense you cared about me. But when you got at what you think is my ideology, you’re different about it. You’re crueler. You want to provoke a fight. But I don’t like that. It’s one thing to say you like my body. It’s another to put me at a distance and heckle me.”

“Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“And what should I do here, should I point out how I am smarter than you because I figured out something that you didn’t? No, whether I’m smarter or not doesn’t matter.”

“You heckled me first,” David said with satisfaction.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you’re a fascist. I don’t actually think you killed those people.”

“So, is it heckling that is a problem? Or is it just the assuming things about a person that you don’t know and then holding them to it. Form or function?”

“Function.”

David sat back in surprise at the conversation he was having. In the back of his mind he thought of proposing to her there on the spot. He told himself he would wait and see how it went for another few days. He wanted to see how she would behave on his dollar, once they were in Paris.

“Why are you guys all wearing the same tracksuits?” she asked.

“We’re going to the Olympics.”

“I figured. Is that guy a boxer?” she asked, indicating DeAndre.

“Yeah, he’s a boxer. He’s not competing though.”

“Who’s competing?”

“I am.”

“I didn’t know you were a boxer.”

“Not for long, no I haven’t been one.” He remained tight-lipped.

“Most people who box at the Olympics have been doing it since childhood. Isn’t that how it works? Oh…” She surmised his intent. “You’re going to box in the women’s division. I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this.”

“Nobody cares. It’s awesome,” said David.

Boarding for their first-class tickets was announced. David stood up, turned to see Angie frozen in place, lost in thought. Levi patted David on the shoulder and asked if Angie was coming. “Are you coming?” David asked her. This stirred her from her conflicting thoughts and she nodded quietly, grabbing her purse and her bag. She stopped to throw something in the trash and proceeded to follow David onto their flight to Paris.

David beat his Olympic opponents with ease, remembering not to knock them out as it would create a spectacle. He didn’t so much outbox the women as much as he would pace himself, find what punching power would wear down the opponent, and then content himself to landing a blow now and then to the ribs to wear them out over the course of the three rounds. Tyler Jury did not make it to competition because he was kidnapped by African gangsters due to taking the wrong ride service when he landed at the Paris airport. This set up an easy final for David, who would be facing an Australian woman. Her name was Allyson Daley. David and Levi were at the Olympic Village cafeteria the night before the final when they spotted her eating at a table with her posse.

They passed by when she called out to them in a distinctive Australian accent. “You know what you’re doing is wrong?” she half-stated and half-asked in the style so common to Australians.

“Nobody asked you,” countered Levi.

“And who are you?”

“None of your business, lady.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be boxing in the women’s division. It’s wrong. You should know better. Shame on you, David Irby. You’re going to steal the gold from me tomorrow. Everyone knows it. You better watch yourself!”

David stopped moving toward the spot he had chosen to sit, turned his shoulders toward Allyson, a husky and burly woman nearly a foot shorter than he, and asked her, “Was that a threat?”

“You’re bloody well right it was a threat.”

A woman in her posse added, “You men are pigs.”

David tried leveling with the Olympian, “Look, it’s nothing personal. You’re making this personal.”

“Oh yeah, well you’re fucking pathetic. Word is you don’t even have to win gold. Just silver. That’s all you have to do to get your precious money. If you were a man of honor, you would let me beat you on points tomorrow.”

David grimaced at the word “pathetic.” He again entreated her, “I’m not taking anything from you, the Olympic Committee is. They changed the rules, they changed their standards, and now anyone can compete wherever they want. Women have gone into men’s sports and they fail when they do. But everyone wants gender equality and so…this is how it is. It’s nothing personal.”

“Gender equality,” said Allyson, placing her meaty hand down on the cafeteria table in a fist, “is our right. Not yours. You men have run everything for so long that it’s our turn. You’re taking gold away from me because of a technicality.”

“You mind if I sit here for a second?” asked David.

“Yes, I do mind.”

“I’m trying to work this out with you.”

“No, you’re not,” she said indignantly. “You’re just taking anything you bloody well want. It’s wrong. I’ve trained since I was a little girl for the chance.” She began to tear up.

Levi nudged David to let him know he was going to go eat. David turned fully to look at Allyson where she sat. He asked, “What do you get from confronting me? Everywhere I go I meet women with problems. All you women have problems. And most of them are beyond resolving in a conversation or two. Look at yourself. You’re trying to be a boxer. Boxing is for men, not women. Boxing is a man’s sport. You liberal women, or ‘greenies’, whatever the hell you’re called in Australia, want to be treated as equals. I tried to be nice to you. I was a simp forever. I gave you clicks. I gave you money. I listened endlessly to you and all I’ve ever gotten in return has been bitchiness. You know I used to be a germaphobe? It’s true. But then I figured out it’s just women I’m sick of.”

Allyson interjected, “You’re lucky Tyler Jury isn’t fighting. He would make mincemeat of you.”

“Feminine passive-aggression. What a surprise. You want to take boxing, which I have learned is an art and a sport that gives hope and an outlet for young men, and you want to turn it into your personal vanity prize. And then people like you accuse me of doing such.”

“If you respected the sport so much, you would compete as a man.” Allyson reached for a banana muffin from the tray of a companion of hers when her trainer pushed her hand away, conscious of Allyson needing to keep her weight down.

“At first I was doing this to be ruthlessly pragmatic but now I’m doing it because I want women out of the sport. So does everyone at my gym. So does my brother, a Congressman. He found out and he was pleased. Everyone is sick of women thinking they’re men. They’re not. John, my trainer, scouted you out. He says you’re 27. That’s awfully old to still be competing as an amateur. You can’t go pro because there’s no money in it anymore. People are sick of watching women wail on each other. There are no knockouts cause none of you have knockout power. You just pepper each other, get bloodied up, and then cry when you win the decision. It’s the same thing, every time. Credit to my cousin over there, he saw this last year and saw our opportunity. And so we’re taking it.”

“It’s wrong. What you’re doing is just wrong.”

“Now you’re pouting. That’s unbecoming of a champion, right? You’re 27. You need to be having children, not flying out to African shitholes to try and get the little bit of self-respect you think you’re going to get from a medal.”

“How dare you? This is my dream. I’ve been boxing since I was five. How dare you take this away from me!”

“’How dare you!’ That’s all I ever hear from women when they get in my way. They impose themselves on me and then when I push them off, they freak out. You don’t deserve that gold. And it’s a means to an end for me. When women are allowed in, everything goes to shit. The Olympics don’t mean anything. It’s just a chance for people to fuck each other. It’s where bull dykes like you get to mess around and pretend you’re important.”

“You’re not important, yourself. You’re a fraud. This sport is my inheritance.”

“The only inheritance that’s yours is a kitchen sink and a needle and thread. You look like a dope with your hair cut short like that. It’s a man’s haircut. You’re a dope, Allyson. A dummy.”

Allyson stood up from the table and growled, “I’m going to do whatever it takes to beat you tomorrow, you shit-stain.” Several other members of her posse also stood up, all of them women.

David laughed at them casually and walked away.

The opening bell of the first-round rang and David stepped forward to touch gloves with Allyson. His entire crew from Jarrett’s gym cheered him, along with Angie. Angie was dressed modestly in an ankle length dress and her hair was dyed to resemble more closely her natural red hair.

Allyson refused to touch gloves with David. She was easily the most agile and powerful woman he had faced thus far in his brief boxing career. He pawed out a lazy jab, unaccustomed to her speed, and was met with a counter hook straight to his ribs that surprised him.

“Bitch got torpedoes,” DeAndre noted aloud. Despite the rules, David’s corner began calling out advice to him.

Allyson landed another blow, this time to his stomach. He wheezed for breath and clinched.

“I took every bloody substance under the sun for this fight, you maggot,” Allyson hissed into his ear. “I’m going to bury you.”

The referee broke their clinch. David was annoyed by the woman’s words but didn’t consider them treacherous. It still wouldn’t be enough. He opened up on her with a vicious left jab to left hook combination, clubbing her brutally across the face. Her mouth guard flew from her mouth. The referee stopped the fight momentarily to put the guard back in for her. David was astonished to see she betrayed no sign of pain.

She again sent remarkably fast punches into David’s guard and he felt the sharp sting of what he thought was metal, gouging into his forearms as he covered up. He clinched with Allyson again and she said, “You’re feeling it now, aren’t you? Loaded gloves. Drink it in, you Yank.”

The round was soon over with David having taken a surprising amount of damage. He went back to his corner, resting his hands on the ropes and getting tended to by Jarrett.

“That bitch is high as fuck on crank or some shit,” grumbled Jarrett. “You gonna have to take it to her, Big Dog. Don’t just cover up out there. She just took that round.”

“She’s got loaded gloves,” gasped David. “She’s hitting like a man.”

“Nonsense, son. This bitch shouldn’t even be out here. Let that right uppercut rock, boy. Come on now.” The pepper-haired black man pushed his student out into the ring and exited between the ropes back to his stool.

Angie called out a word of encouragement to David, marveling at how little she cared about her previous norms.

The bell sounded and again David reached out to touch gloves. Allyson came at him like a maniac. Her corner had given her a snort of cocaine between rounds. She wailed on David’s guard, getting him up against the ropes at one point. He tried to clinch and she headbutted him, bloodying his nose. His corner yelled out in protest but the middle-aged man refereeing the fight was sympathetic to Allyson and was unwilling to grant anything to an interloper like David. Seeing the lack of official response to her cheap shot, Allyson punched David directly in the testicles. He doubled over in pain and she punched him again with a vicious shot to the face. He crumpled to the canvass but the moment he heard how quickly the referee was going through the count, he popped back up. He winced in pain. The fight renewed and Allyson was on him like a shark. She was clearly polished as a fighter, throwing intricate combinations that he had a tough time countering.

Her timing took over as he was still dazed from the low blow and she broke through his guard with a hard cross to the chin that sent him to his knee. He popped up again and began to feel somewhat angry. He jabbed her over and over in the face, thanking himself for having sparred with a boxer as competent as DeAndre for as long as he did. Her nose opened up, clearly broken, and she stumbled after him in frustration. He kept his distance with the jab for the rest of the round and she was only able to get inside on him once more before the round ended.

“One more round,” barked Jarrett. “That’s two knockdowns and two rounds for her, son. You can take this thing or not. Not on me. Whutchu wanna do?”

“Actually fight her, David,” Levi called up from the corner. “Stop pussyfooting. She’s getting cheap shots in on you. She’s in your head, dude. Stop simping.”

At the word ‘simping’, David’s head cleared and he realized his cousin was right. Allyson was playing a mind game and had been since she’d confronted him in the cafeteria. The fire came back into his eyes and he gave a look of determination to Jarrett, who again pushed him into the ring. The final round ensued.

He opened up on Allyson with a furious combination. She clinched immediately and he threw her off like she weighed nothing. “You maggot. You’re nothing,” she barked in the middle of the fight. The referee told her to keep her talk to a minimum. David punched her square in the chest on her breast and backpedaled to taunt her as she chased him ferociously around the ring. Her cocaine legs surprised David yet again as she landed a wild haymaker to the side of his head. The arc of her blow was perfect and he was dazed.

“Stop being a simp!” Levi yelled.

David found his legs after being wobbled by the blow and he resolved to stand in the middle of the ring and finish her off. He pivoted around her, landing blows to her sides and face. She didn’t notice, despite actual physical damage clearly accruing to her. She was on tremendous doses of painkillers and actual PCP. She was alighted in an inferno of rage at this man who was stealing her lifelong dream from her.

David blasted her with a body shot that rocked her over to the side onto the ropes. He pawed at her with his left hand to hold her in place just for a second as he landed his killer blow, his right uppercut. His fist ripped through the air and landed squarely on her jaw, knocking her out cold. Before her body slumped to the canvass like a ragdoll, he crouched down and jabbed her with a glancing blow across the face. The referee stepped in and waved his hands in the air, calling off the fight in David’s favor. He walked back to his corner, neither elated nor troubled.

“Congratulations, you rich motherfucker,” John roared as he entered the ring. The smaller-than-usual audience in attendance was howling and booing. David shrugged casually but when he saw Angie and Levi beaming at him, his expression changed to happiness.

Later in the day, when he stood in his American Olympic uniform atop the winner’s podium, listening to the national anthem, he realized that his brother Tom was in the crowd. Allyson Daley was in the hospital from adrenal exhaustion and a broken jaw. The third-place finisher looked suspiciously like an old man that was on hormone treatments to become a woman. David breathed a sigh of relief after stepping off the podium, glad to be done with the whole affair. Later he found out it was indeed an old man on hormone treatments, a man of fifty-two years to be exact.

David walked over to his brother, Tom, who had a private security detail with him to mitigate the dangers of an increasingly Africanized France. Tom smiled gently at his younger brother and said, “Congratulations, Dave. Not the route I thought you’d take.”

“I’m surprised you let it go ahead.”

“Hey, it’s in the will. The money’s yours. Are you pleased?”

“Not really. Just kind of annoyed that I had to jump through all those hoops. Dad really didn’t trust me, did he?”

“You messed around too much in college, Dave. You know that.”

“This doesn’t make up for it,” said David, holding up his gold medal for a moment. “It’s just a hoop I jumped through. I’m surprised you came out.”

“Me, too. You got me curious, I guess. Pearl wasn’t happy about it but she’s getting a pay raise next week. What are you going to do with the empire you’re inheriting?”

“A year ago, I would have told you I was going to party. Now I don’t know. I like boxing. Not enough to do anything with it, though. You feel the brain cells dying when you take a hard shot. I thought I’d be more pleased than I am. I’m mostly just happy that my friends are happy. They don’t have to work another day in their lives, if they don’t want to.”

“Let’s go over to them,” said Tom.

They joined the training crew, Levi, and Angie.

“Is this your girlfriend I’ve been hearing about?” Tom asked David.

“Hi, I’m Angie,” she introduced yourself. “David’s been really good to me.”

“Yeah, she’s my girlfriend,” stated David. He looked at her and cocked his head to the side. She blushed in return.

“The bull dyke is in the hospital,” said Jarrett. “You gave her a real good whoopin’.”

“That’s what she gets for acting all hard like that,” mused DeAndre.

Tom was taken aback by the rough commentary but dismissed it as just more of David’s shenanigans. He said, “Dave, I’ve got the paperwork ready whenever you’re ready. It’s not the most scrupulous way you’ve gone about it but, frankly, it’s a relief. Dad wanted you to have this money, despite how he acted. He did love you. He was gruff but he loved you.”

“Yeah, let’s go. To your hotel room?” asked David.

The group chatted on their way to Tom’s hotel suite, flanked by Tom’s private security detail. Jarrett and his two companions said they would wait in the lobby. Levi said he would stay with them as well. Angie did not feel it her place to be present for the signing and so she stayed down with Levi. Levi considered going up to be a witness but decided against it as he didn’t want to leave Angie with DeAndre, who was a notorious flirt.

In the presence of several lawyers and their father’s business manager, the brothers signed the paperwork that willed eighteen billion dollars to David Irby.

“There you go,” said Tom. “You left a bloody wreck in your wake but hey, it’s yours now.”

“I guess that’s it.”

“It’s just the beginning, David. You’re netting $1.4 billion out the gate,” said the business manager, a man in his 70’s dressed in a fine suit and a dapper haircut. “You can do anything you want for the rest of your life, as long as your portfolio is well-managed. I’m happy to be of service much like I was to your father.”

David thanked the business manager, a man named Mike Becker. He had met Mr. Becker only twice previously, one time being at the initial reading of his father’s will the week his father died. Mr. Becker was kind to David and was sincere in his desire to grow the extraordinary assets the elder Irby had acquired in his storied career.

“Here, this is for a spending account,” said Mr. Becker, handing David a debit card linked to an account with several million dollars in David’s name. “This is your business phone.” Becker handed David a cell phone of the latest technology. “And I’m a phone call away if you need anything. Should you want to manage your assets actively, your father required that you earn an MBA from one of these fifty schools or that you apprentice with me for a period of no less than two years.”

“I don’t control my inheritance?” David asked.

“You do and you don’t,” said Mr. Becker. “Consider it a trust. You get full control when you’re thirty, or if you study hard and show an aptitude.”

“Alright, I’ll have to think about it.”

“Certainly, David. Take your time,” said Mr. Becker.

“My flight leaves the day after tomorrow. Call me. We’ll do something tomorrow,” said Tom as David walked out of the hotel suite in a daze.

David rode the elevator down to the lobby where only Angie and Levi remained. The others had elected to go for food.

“You’re rich!” said Levi.

“I was already rich. This, this is crazy.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Angie, do you want to get married? You’re a babe, you laugh at my jokes, you’re a redhead, and you just want to have kids. You listen to me when I’m serious with you. There’s nothing more I could want from a woman. Let’s go back upstairs, get a prenup going, and get hitched here in Paris.”

Angie nodded. They embraced and kissed tenderly for a brief moment before hopping on the elevator and returning to Tom’s suite, where a pair of lawyers and Mr. Becker cautiously assisted David in crafting a prenup. They advised David to wait to get married until he was back in the United States. He and Angie contented themselves with touring the sights, remaining aloof from the Olympic Village for the rest of the Olympics, and treating the boxing crew to meal after sumptuous meal. David marveled at the ten-thousand-dollar tab he accrued one evening at a restaurant. He had only seen such casual spending from Horace Goldsmith. He was now many, many times wealthier than Goldsmith. He would send his regards to the man when he was back stateside.

A year later, David was happily married to a pregnant Angie. He had opted to live in his father’s estate in Rhode Island, which now bore his preferences – everything from the rugs to the new cabinetry to the riding arena being repurposed into a boxing gym. He was in his office, an eight-hundred square foot loft lined with desks, studio equipment, and several dozen large-panel computer screens. He was home for the weekend from his apprenticeship with Mike Becker, who had relocated to Rhode Island specifically to be near David.

David sat in an oversized leather chair holding a video game controller in his hands. He was hooting at Levi as they played a game together online against scores of other people. They had picked up a new friend, Joe. He sat in his own leather chair and was teamed up with the cousins. They had met him through a chat server dedicated to memes and politics. Their politics had taken a dissident turn. Joe was more knowledgeable about their interests than they were, and so they deferred to him as their political guru. Joe didn’t care so much about their deference as much as he cared about having a laugh and having fun. He worked full-time as a construction manager for his father’s company and since he was unwilling to travel, he would have some weeks off. He happily accompanied David and Levi in these times, often sitting in on David’s business affairs with Mr. Becker.

Levi was a father not long after David, having married Bethany only a few months after David had married Angie. Joe met a woman shortly after securing the largest building contract in Rhode Island state history. He retired at age 28, having not taken a cent from David, and passed day-to-day operations of his and his father’s business to a younger cousin that was looking to make a name for himself.

Together the three men raised their children together. Eventually, after David gained full control of his inheritance, they formed a compound on David’s estate and spent their days playing video games, lifting weights, pestering feminists online, and trying their hands at various entrepreneurial schemes that they cooked up. They began to broadcast their lives on the Internet and developed a large, dedicated following of enterprising men. Jerry eventually joined their ranks and in middle age, David once again attained the celebrity status Levi’s book had once brought him.

They called themselves “gamers.”

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