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8. Mathematica.

Jacqueline Strell sat in her office and bathed in numbers. They flooded her desk in wave after wave, pages of numbers blocked in charts, scraps of numbers scribbled in pencil, computer analyses of numbers bracketed and cross-referenced to other rivers of numbers filed away in the cabinets behind her, numbers on cards, numbers on machine readouts, numbers on computer screens, numbers on the desk itself put there when, in a flurry of activity, Jacki chose not to flip over a page but continued onto the hard wood. Even her fingernails sported numbers, whimsically painted there this morning when she was in a whimsical mood. The time was rapidly approaching when she would need more whimsy. Oh, yes.

Her office nestled in the back half of the Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort Administration Building. She loved it. Spacious table tops flung out from her desk in wings towards her office door, room enough to keep the flood of numbers churning and churning in their never-ending whirlpool. Cabinets lined the three walls behind her and to her right and left, streams and cauldrons of bubbling, stirring, steaming numbers. She had fourteen different clocks decorating her walls, all set to the same time but all with different number fonts.

This was the reason Jacki was an accountant: she, alone among everyone else she had ever known, understood infinity. This understanding was innate. No epiphany, no trumpet blast of the everlasting had ever filled her brainpan. The eternal had always whiled away its time in her gray matter. She had been intimate with the infinite from the time she could even speak such words. The human mind was not supposed to be able to truly grasp the never-ending, but she could close her eyes and set her mind running off into forever, tripping lightly away on a line with no beginning and no end.

This was the reason Jacki understood infinity: she understood numbers. Infinity, aside from its unfathomable physical existence, could only and would only ever be expressed in numbers. Jacki looked scornfully on the small-minded ‘appreciation’ of the layman towards an infinite set. ‘Really, really big, then even bigger'. They didn’t see it. Jacki saw it. More, she felt it, smelled it, could almost touch it. Numbers adding and adding and adding and adding exponential upon exponential upon exponential and then all those numbers were still as nothing because infinity remained, brightly spilling itself infinitely forward.

Jacki leaned back in her chair and sighed. She was tall, generously boned, with loopy brown hair that matched the gawky, unconfined sprawl of her body. She rubbed her hand across her high forehead, inside which was an increasingly throbbing ache. Yes indeedy, it was time for whimsy again, most definitely. She opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a vial and syringe. With practiced movements, she filled the hypodermic, tapped it for bubbles, raised the hem of her skirt, and injected her thigh with 50ccs of the purest Forum you could get anywhere in Hennington.

Because there were three more things about Jacki:

1) Besides being an accountant with a comprehension of infinity, she was totally, utterly, wholly, paralytically and absolutely addicted to Forum.

2) Because of this, Jacki also worked as a prostitute for her boss, Thomas Banyon, biological son of Archie Banyon and general manager of the Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort, lent out to clients to feed a specific need, thereby pleasing Thomas and causing him to provide her with more Forum, although of course never quite enough. These shifts were in addition to the full day’s work she put in as Thomas’ Head Accountant. Never let it be said that Thomas Banyon lacked a darkling sense of humor.

3) And all of this was true because, at age forty-one, with her youngest child fifteen years old, Jacki still produced, on a daily basis, nearly two pints of breast milk, and there were a surprising number of men who would pay a surprising amount of money for just such a delicacy. Thomas Banyon was not a man to let potential income go unexploited.

Her phone rang. Alone in her office, she mouthed an expletive.

—Hello?

—Jacks.

Jacki frowned, but the Forum was already dribbling its way through her veins and she began to feel her consternation melt away, butter in boiling water.

—Yes, Mr Banyon?

—I have a clip for you tonight. Are you up for it?

As if there was a choice involved.

—Of course, Mr Banyon. It would be my pleasure.

—It’s Councilman Wiggins. You remember the good Councilman, don’t you?

Remember? She had to put salve on her nipples for nearly a week after the good Councilman displayed a tendency for toothiness. This memory too, though, floated away into the shimmering mirage of the drug.

—Certainly, Mr Banyon. What time?

—Say ten?

—All right. Ten it is. Usual place?

—Usual place.

—I’ll be there.

—I truly appreciate that, Jacks. I’ve got some really wonderful merchandise here that I had been hoping to share with you. I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity.

—I’m grateful for your indulgence, Mr Banyon.

—You’re a good girl, Jacks.

He clicked off. Jacki closed her eyes. She was deep into butterscotch warmth now and glorious waves of light and color filled her head. The anguish, thank the heavens, was winding its way clockwise down the drain, spiraling blissfully out of her presence.

God bless Forum. Forum’s name be praised.

9. Hospitality.

—Mr Noth?

Eugene Markham knocked again. After a lengthy pause, Tybalt ‘Jon’ Noth opened the door. He was wearing one of the Solari’s bathrobes. His hair was wet, and he held a towel in his hands. Still, he smiled when he saw Eugene.

—Eugene! What can I do you for?

—I was just checking to see if everything is to your satisfaction.

—Slow day for you then?

—Yes.

—And you still have yet to manage a proper smile.

Eugene almost smiled at this, but not quite.

—That was pitiful, Eugene. And enough of ‘Mr Noth'. I told you to call me Jon.

—All right, then. Jon. Is everything to your satisfaction?

—I’ve only been here long enough for a shower, but the bathroom fulfills most accepted definitions of nice.

Jon smiled again, more warmly this time. Maybe he was a preacher. Maybe that was it.

—Are you some kind of preacher?

—How is it that I just know this surliness is something you’re trying to overcome and that there’s a perfectly personable individual in there somewhere struggling to get out rather than just plain old dour Eugene?

—You smile a lot, is all I mean.

—Your perception is bizarre, Eugene, but somehow, perhaps accidentally, it may even be correct. Interesting.

Eugene blinked. He wasn’t sure if he was being agreed with.

—So …

—I have been called a preacher in my time, Eugene, but even then, it could have been wrong. As for now, definitely not.

Eugene blinked again.

—'Why don’t you come on in and talk for a while, Eugene’ is what you’re waiting for me to say, yes?

—I don’t mean in any male-male sex kind of way, but—

—I didn’t think you did. Why don’t you come on in and talk for a while, Eugene?

Eugene, surprising even himself, smiled, stepped over the threshold, and entered Jon’s room.

10. The Crash at the Bridge.

Once, early on in her time as leader, the search for food had forced her to take them across the bridge that flung itself over the bay away from the city, a difficult, frightening and lengthy journey. The whole way along she could only smell salt water and the noxious metallic scent of the boxes that the thin creatures rode in. The wind drowned out all sound as the herd picked its way through the stopped boxes, the thin creatures inside staring out impassively. It was slow going, with much nervous lowing and braying among the members of the herd until, perhaps inevitably, disaster struck. About two thirds of the way across, some of the older animals started to panic, the confinement of the bridge causing a claustrophobia unknown to them even in some of the city’s starker alleys.

She attempted to keep some sort of order, firmly shaking her head, stepping forward and back. She snorted and affected a prance to try to hold their attention, but the wind snuffed her out. An old male began to get aggressive in his fear, knocking some of the smaller animals out of his way. An old female stumbled, accidentally pushing over a pregnant mother. The final stroke was the appearance of a flying box carrying some of the thin creatures. (— … so avoid the Firth Roundabout if you can at all. And finally, it looks like we’ve got a serious traffic jam on the Harbour Bridge, caused by The Crash of all things. As you can see from SkyCam5, cars are just at a standstill. Looks like rush hour’s going to be even longer tonight all over the city. Back to you in the studio . . .) Hovering to the side of the bridge, the box brought a swirling roar that proved too much for the more nervous animals. They turned and charged, running full gallop back the way they had come, leaving her and more than half the rest of the herd standing near the far end of the bridge.

The herd must not divide.

She ran to overtake the fleeing animals, to try to get in front of them to lead them again, to get them off the bridge and back into a calmer state. She arrived too late for some. The aggressive old male had given himself a mortal wound charging into the scattered boxes over and over again, his horn cracked, his ears bleeding. The old female who had knocked over the expectant mother had been turned against and was being forced over the side by a cadre of enraged herdmembers blinded by fright. She reached the group only in time to see the old female vanish over the edge with a low, terrified moan.

She quickened her pace, passing charging herdmembers on her right and left, weaving through the thin creature boxes, some of which were trying to move out of her way and only causing more problems. Her mouth foamed at the effort, her ears filled with the roar of her blood, but near the end of the bridge, almost a mile later, she was in front of the herdmembers that were fleeing. Assuming her entire authority in what she did next, she turned, faced the entire herd, and stopped right at the line where the bridge returned to the soil. Astonished, the escaping herdmembers careered to a halt in front of her. There were pile-ups as those charging behind were slower to stop, but eventually she faced the herd in its entirety, save for the two now lost. Even stopped, chaos still rattled the members as they jostled and tussled, some still panicking to get off the bridge.

She paced in front of them purposefully, walking back and forth, back and forth, until all heads were turning following her movements. With a loud snort and without slowing her step, she turned and headed away from the bridge. The animals followed her in shaky unison. In a short amount of time, the bridge was cleared of all animals except for the dying old male, who thankfully had knocked himself into unconsciousness before he died.

It was difficult to lead, but she led them once more.

11. Orthopediae.

Thomas Banyon was born with legs so bowed he was said to have been straddling his mother’s womb rather than resting in it, that his mother had wished for a boy and had given birth to the wishbone instead, that his parents had copulated on horseback, in a tunnel, with pliers, et al. Fortunately, his parents had been – his father still was – very, very wealthy: erstwhile Hennington City Council Members, owners of the Hennington Hills Golf Course and half of everything else in Hennington, stables full of horses, maids in the houses, unused yachts. These remarks about his legs were never said to Thomas Banyon’s face. This did not mean he was unaware of them.

Before Thomas had been alive a year, his parents had paid for five surgeries to correct his legs. He had three more by the time he was six and had not actually learned to walk until he was seven. He attended rigorous physical therapy on up into adolescence with Joe. Joe, ‘Just Joe', the therapist, was a former soldier who had served with Thomas’ grandfather in the Gentlemen’s War nearly fifty years previous and was purported to be the best physical therapist in Hennington. But Joe, and there’s really no getting around this, was an out-and-out sadist. His stated goal from day one was to get Thomas to cry.

Said Joe, in that indecipherable accent of his: —No pain, no advancement.

Years passed, and Thomas’ pleas to his parents fell on four deaf ears. The sessions grew longer and longer, with Thomas holding out for as long as he could against the onslaught of drills, weights, endurance tests, water exercise, and on and on. If Thomas had been able to fake crying, if Joe had taken even one small modicum less of obvious pleasure in inflicting the torture, Thomas might have grown up to be an altogether different person. But being of a spiteful, resentful disposition, he had developed the two natural and inevitable results.

Thomas Banyon had grown very strong, and Thomas Banyon had grown very mean.

At sixteen he was asked, because of his family’s position, to escort one Rebecca Turkei to Rebecca’s coming-out cotillion. Thomas, whose now vaguely straighter legs had the muscular mass of an elephant, could not dance, would not dance, and scorned the very idea of dancing. Rebecca, being a nice girl if a bit unobservant of behaviours human, responded by smiling, saying things like ‘Oh, pooh', and ‘You old grouch', never imagining for one moment that Thomas might be serious. On the big night Thomas, thinking the matter clarified, squired Rebecca down the winding staircase to the adulation of the white-gloved crowd below. When, at the bottom of the stairs, the crowd parted, the music began and Rebecca turned to Thomas to begin the traditional dance, he was sure he had been duped. Thomas Banyon, already most of the mammoth size he was working to become, loudly yet clearly spouted at Rebecca Turkei a most foul four-letter word that reached the ears of every guest and sister-debutante at the cotillion. To punctuate the oath, Thomas took his boutonniere and crushed every last carnation petal in the palm of his hand. He left Rebecca standing stricken and alone. She moved out of Hennington not three weeks later. ‘Medical school’ was the given reason, but everyone knew the most Rebecca Turkei had ever expressed about medicine was ‘Ouch'.

As punishment, because cotillions – however ridiculous to even Thomas’ father Archie – were not to be taken lightly, Thomas was made a gardener at the golf course. Delivering an astonishing blow to precedent, Archie Banyon even declined to send Thomas to college. Said his father with a wan smile, —You can pick up the trade on the job. Externally at least, Thomas took the hint from the gardening assignment, but he knew just exactly how much he would pick up about business from tending to a golf course. Ever the surprisingly smart son, though, he kept his opinions to himself. Not coincidentally, this was the time Luther Pickett arrived on the scene. Suddenly, Thomas had a pre-teen younger brother, an orphaned son of some fucking shipping clerk in some obscure fucking Banyon Enterprises satellite investment. Luther was described by Archie to Thomas as having ‘promise'. The implication was obvious. Well, so fucking what? Thomas would learn all about fucking ‘promise'.

Despite the unstated intentions of his father, Thomas did learn quite a bit from the golf course. Important things like where and when to seize what power and for how long and just how to use it once you got it. Gardening turned into supervising turned into course designing at a rapid and bloody rate. Privately, Thomas’ father approved of the casualties left in Thomas’ wake, admiring the ambition of an otherwise thwarted youth, but Archie Banyon blanched a little at the glee Thomas seemed to feel in it. Publicly, though, the father simply smiled and kept promoting his son. Inside of ten years, brief but still too long for pretty much anyone but Thomas to work at a golf course, Thomas Banyon, bandy-legged, bad-tempered, debutante-insulting son of a billionaire, was CEO of Hennington Hills Golf Club and Resort and loving it. What should have been a dishonorable, low-salaried (for an heir), do-nothing job had somehow morphed into a private fortune and personal pleasure, because nepotism or no, Thomas was very good at what he did: mainly terrifying his subordinates and keeping his members happy. Surprisingly, Thomas found the latter as entertaining as the former. He gained a reputation for providing for the illicit tastes of the richer and seamier sides of Hennington, which as usual were often one and the same. Drugs? Thomas could purloin a selection to fill a convenience store. Inside information? Thomas could make and break fortunes simply by frowning instead of smiling. Sex? Now, sex was where Thomas flourished.

Sex, oh, could Thomas acquire all kinds of sex for whatever persuasion was requested. Whilst a mere gardener, Thomas had already seen the perks that a quick hand job received from a grateful married man in a sand trap. You only had to do the actual act a few times before the more delicious avenues of blackmail opened. Thomas didn’t need the money, but he discovered quickly how having power over someone turned into other advantages. When those men and women thought they were taking something from the bulky, muscular, smiling, friendly teenager, Thomas knew otherwise.

Nowadays, the locker-room jerkoffs and sauna blowjobs, the limousine pussy-eating and private apartment fuckings (of pussy and ass; opportunities were opportunities) were left behind as mere child’s play, the youthful desire to put in the personal appearance. Almost all of his employees at Hennington Hills had extra, special duties that Thomas required of them now and again. Peter Wickham, the waiter with the delightfully elegant sexual organ; Jacki Strell, the milk-bearing accountant; Maggie Bonham, the gift shop manager about whose head-giving epic poems should have been written; silver-haired chief chef Hartley Chevalier, who appealed quite dramatically to equally silver-haired women; Paul Beck, assistant mechanic, whose sad eyes and cunnilingual talents left him very little time to actually fix any of Hennington Hills’ vehicles; Tracy Jem-Ho, barmaid with a whip. And so on. All of these people owed Thomas something, and none of them would, should ever think of leaving. Besides, Thomas thought, he treated them well, paid them well, never asked them too far over the edge, certainly not to any point where they couldn’t come back. He cared about them, he thought. Any of the entertainment might disagree, but Thomas was sure that was beside the point.

Upon his perch in the golf cart from which he surveyed his grounds and shook the hands and caressed the egos of its utilizers, Thomas Banyon was offering JH Williams Roth VIII an imported cigar of the highest purity and utmost illegality.

—Taste good?

—Exquisite. Like a young girl just having smoked the finest cigar.

—I can arrange for you to make the comparison first hand, if you’d like.

—I was unaware that I had to ask any further than I already have.

JH Williams Roth VIII raised his eyebrows haughtily. Thomas smiled. This prick would get his cigar-smoking girl. He would also get a raging case of the Mud. Maybe Thomas was a gofer and a pimp, but you didn’t treat him like one. The mobile phone in the cart rang. He lowered his voice, turning away from the prying ears of the soon-to-be-oozing JH Williams Roth VIII.

—Thomas Banyon.

—It’s Luther.

—Hello, brother.

—I was wondering …

A long pause. Thomas liked making him wait.

—He’ll be there at the usual time, Luther.

—Thank you.

Luther hung up. Thomas smiled to himself. Wasn’t providing what people wanted all the power you ever really needed?