So he thought he would throw out a
question. "Hey, what do you think of M?"
"M? He seems like a nice guy."
"Yeah... I wonder what makes him tick.
I've talked to him in the room and I know a few of the things going on in his
life but you know, he's hard to figure out."
"Why is that, Kusa? Do you have a
crush on him? You know, I didn't think you swung that way but now that I think
about it..."
"Very funny. I'm just curious what
your take on him is. You've always been pretty perceptive."
"Right. Hmm. Well, he wants to be a
novelist, that much is for sure. You might have noticed him asking me about the
books I've written and the whole deal behind that so he can get his own stuff
published."
"Right, and?"
"And I ended up giving him the contact
details for my agent. I figure, why not. If it's bad it'll just get rejected
and I can let him down easy afterwards."
"So what happened? He submitted?"
"Yeah he submitted and my agent loved
it. I'm really happy for him. It might end up published in the New York
Times."
"That's really good for him! So.. what
did you think of what he wrote?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, I mean, you're a writer."
"Well, I haven't read it to be honest.
Just my agent saw it."
"Really?"
"Yeah he had it for a bit and he had
it locked away the next. Ready to show to his friends on the newspaper.
Unfortunately it was too hard to get to me."
I've got you know, thought the mime. There
is no way that Calliope would not have read that story, that her agent, her
agent she had a five year relationship with with her own books, would not
forward her a copy of the story she had specifically told him to keep an eye
out for. But it wouldn’t be the sort of thing that would be passed onto an
operative. It would be like him being forwarded Okram’s mail, it wouldn’t be
seen as necessary.
He smiled a knowing smile at her. He
shouldn't have, but he couldn't help it. "Well I'm going to keep enjoying
your lovely party. You have a great time!"
"Thanks Kusa, you too."
He walked back to the food table and got
himself a cocktail sandwich. He took a bit out of it, hmm, pickled onion,
cucumber, slice of aged cheese. It was quite nice. The vinegar in the onion
gave it a nice kick too. He tasted an after taste of hot english mustard after
he swallowed it too, so there must have been just enough to produce that effect
without actually tainting the sandwich. He was impressed.
He turned and looked back at Calliope, who
was looking at him, hard. He waved. She didn't drop her expression but kept
studying him. He hoped this didn't turn bad. He wondered how many others like
him there were out there, playing roles for other people. He wondered how many
of them were for rich shut ins who liked to talk in chat rooms over the
internet but didn't like interacting with actual people in real life and had to
send out their surrogate? Really from what he saw of most of these people, they
probably wouldn't have minded if someone had turned up and just straight out
said, "Hi, I'm Kusa's surrogate and he'll he watching through this camera
here and listening through this microphone and telling me what to say to you
people. So just treat me as if I'm him " and noone would bat an eyelid. Or
would they? Maybe the presence of such a person would remind them of how close
to the razor's edge of social acceptance they were already, and drive them
away? Make them talk to the person differently in the chat room? He had heard
of the mentality where, when someone or a group of people considered
'unpopular' found someone less popular or stranger than they were, in a
fundamental way, they turned all their energy into bullying them, even though they had experienced it all their
lives. This was mostly in high school, of course, but with the stunted
emotional growth of most of these computer jockies, he could see those sort of
behaviours following them well into their 20s and possibly even their 30s.
Though really he would hope that most people had that epiphany at around 28
that told them that everyone was a human being. He really hoped so, anyway. And
thirty was normally when people had their lives figured out to a degree so there was no real need to find
worth by pushing others down any more. But there were always people who needed
that sort of power, people who were normally in power already. Big people who needed
to feel even bigger by kicking someone who was small even further down than
they already were.
Calliope had been distracted from her glare
by the little brunette who had engaged her in conversation again. This time she
was making sure she had her full attention by standing even closer to her,
forcing Calliope to bend down to talk to her properly. This also had the effect
of closing off the circle around their conversation, making it a much more
socially aggressive act to try and get the attention of one of them. She was a
smart thinker, she had probably been doing it all her life. The midget the mime
could be sure was "for real". He really wished he could be "for
real" here. He wondered how his face paint would go with his current
outfit. Probably not all that bad, though the blue might have clashed with the
tshirt. The white gloves could've looked a little out of place as well. Oh
well. Next party he went to would be for real.
--
Menelaus watched as Kusa talked to
Calliope. They seemed to be talking about him. He wondered if that was just
paranoia, surely it must be? And yet there was a point where Kusa had looked
over directly at him and then the conversation had become heated. There was a
couple of times that Calliope had glanced at him too, and not with the half
flirting look she had been giving him during their conversation either. She had
looked almost... scared? Why would she be scared of him? Scared of something
Kusa was saying about him? What reason would Kusa have to be spreading rumours
about him? This was getting stranger and stranger.. or maybe he was getting
more and more paranoid for no reason and it was time for him to leave. Yes,
that was probably it. He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair he
draped it on and put it on. He decided to down another dirty martini for luck,
those things were really good. He grabbed the glass and threw the liquid down
his throat. He could feel it radiate out to his muscles and his bones. It
showed him how much adrenaline he had flowing at the moment. It really was time
to leave. He grabbed a cocktail sandwich, waved a general goodbye to the room
and once again marched towards the hallway that contained the lifts. As he
pushed on the glass door, this time he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned
and saw Calliope. "Leaving so soon, M?"
"Um yeah. Tina wants me to go to her
house." He lied
"Aw tell her you're having fun
here"
"Nah I think I had better go. I want
to go to her anyway."
"ahh..." she raised an eyebrow.
Menelaus went red, even though he was lying. He still couldn't even think about
..that.. with Tina without getting flustered. She was ridiculous. He was
suddenly even gladder he was leaving, even if it wasn't to go to Tina's.
"I had a great night though" he said, "Did you?"
"Yeah my night has been great! It's
only just started really." She looked at him pointedly as she said this.
"Sorry I'm leaving so early. I did
have a good time. Well, goodbye, talk to you in the chat room, OK?"
He turned and went out through the door and
hit the button for the lift. He could feel her gaze on his back as he waited.
Hell, he could feel it on the ride down and going out to catch his taxi. He
felt a very weird feeling in his chest. What on earth was he supposed to do? He
knew one thing, he wasn't going to go to one of thse meet ups again. He was
really excited about the New York Times possibility though, he really hoped he
hadn't just messed that up. Hmm. Maybe he would have to go to another party,
maybe the next one he would try and get Tina to come along with him, just to
see these people were harmless. Although, now that he thought about it, maybe
they weren't. Okram seemed like a friendly bear, armed with a tactical knife.
Calliope seemed to have a mixture of predator and tragic heroine and Kusa just
seemed... off. Something wasn't right. It was all perfect but at the same time
he could see him snapping necks. Or at least he could see him acting out the
motions. Now he thought about it, he could see him acting out the motions of a
lot of things, the guy moved like a dancer. Now that was strange, did he get
dance lessons as a kid? While he wondered about this he felt his mobile phone
begin to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket expecting to see a call from
Tina, instead it was from an unlisted number. How strange. He wondered if he
should even answer it, and decided why not?
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