I hadn’t. It had been too late, and an unexpected call, to ask a favor, after seventeen years of silence … probably wouldn’t be appreciated.
I roll on my side and turn my pillow, trying to calm the knot of emotions in my chest. It is exhilarating, the thought that I have finally found my father. Vince Horace is someone everyone knows, even me—a girl who shops without thinking, and dresses without concern. He is huge. Famous. Talented. Revered.
If Vince is my father, then I am someone special. I was born from someone great, I have special blood in my veins and fame in my history. Screw Kirk and Bridget McKenna and their country club and linen napkins. I am a motherfucking Horace, and my father dined with Presidents, and partied with rock stars, and created a billion-dollar empire from pure talent and grit.
And… if Vince is my father, then my father is dead. Just like my mother. And I am discovering all this, two days too late. Two days to separate hugging my father versus visiting his grave. Two days to separate a memory versus mourning. Maybe, if he’d known about me, he might have lasted a little longer. Maybe, if I’d known about him, I would have lived my life differently.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, watching the slow turn of the fan. When I was a child, I used to go to bed as early as possible. Sleep, for most of my adolescence, was my escape. I once told that to a psychiatrist and immediately felt stupid for it. What did I have to escape from? I had a room filled with anything a girl my age would want. At twelve, I had a horse, kept at the best riding academy in town. I had everything except the feeling of a family.
It wasn’t their fault. For one, I was a spoiled pain in the ass. For two, I don’t think that Kirk and Bridget are the molds that families are built from. They loved each other in the narcissistic way that a man loves his first sports car. They were a status symbol for each other, a way to impress, a way to remind themselves that they have succeeded. They were each other’s perfect embodiment of a spouse, and I was the loose thread in their seamless life.
When I was seven, I trained myself to fall asleep by reciting the list of Presidents. If I made it from Washington to Clinton, then I started again, this time working backwards, counting them down and imagining each of their faces in my mind. If that didn’t work, I started back with Washington and made myself recite an interesting fact about each of them as I went.
George Washington’s ‘wooden teeth’ were actually made of hippopotamus ivory, bone, animal and human teeth, lead, brass screws and gold wire.
John Adams blamed a day of fasting for his reelection defeat.
Thomas Jefferson was one of the first American farmers to employ crop rotation.
For the purposes of this exercise, I’d spent an entire summer, memorizing two interesting facts about each president. It was the summer before fifth grade, and if that sounds like a bleak summer activity, it was. But, it was worth it, arming me with the ability to bore myself to sleep, an ability I’ve used ever since.
I start with Washington and only get to Grant before falling asleep.
* * *
“I’m not a taxi service, Kate.” I rip open the pop tart package with my teeth. “This is why I have a shuttle. If you missed that, use one of the bikes in the lobby.”
“Anna said girls on bikes get knifed.” The wisdom is delivered in the halting English of a fresh Russian, and I break off a piece of the pastry and stick it in my mouth.
“Ignore Anna.” I sit on a barstool and pull a sock on. “She lives in Herman Gardens. Everyone gets knifed there.”
“Can’t you just pick me up?”
“No.” I glance at the clock, and yank the second sock on, pushing off the stool and working my feet into tennis shoes. “I’m late. Either hop on a bike or catch a bus, but I need you there.”
I end the call, mutter out a string of curses, and grab my keys and wallet.
Money laundering is a simple enough game, assuming, of course, that the people—like Kate—keep their jobs. High turnover increases my risks, and disgruntled employees tend to talk, which isn’t good for anyone in our business. So, while laundering is my primary business, I’m actually just a glorified babysitter. A well-paid, highly illegal, babysitter.
There are a dozen ways to wash cash, but mine is fairly simple. I own an employment company, one that provides legitimate short-term employment visas under the guise of American internships. I have partners in Russia and the Ukraine, and bring over four hundred girls each year. Four hundred girls who live in three different apartment complexes which I own, the mortgages paid for by my clients’ dirty money. The girls work in a variety of jobs, mostly in retail centers, all owned by my clients. According to accounting and tax records, the girls work as unpaid interns, with a stipend of two dollars per hour to cover their rent. In actuality, and according to the cash included in my Chinese food deliveries, they earn ten dollars per hour. Four hundred girls, fifty hours per week, ten dollars an hour. Two hundred grand per week of off-the-books expense for my clients. Almost eleven million per year of additional income for their front businesses that they can claim, pay taxes on, and account for.
The two dollars per hour stipend - the one that’s on the books? That’s my cut, transferred legitimately into my bank accounts and covers the apartment complex costs, plus the shuttle bus and security, leaving me with a profit of about four hundred grand a year. It’s not Vince Horace money, but in Detroit? I’m balling.
Stepping into the car and hitting the garage door, I start the SUV and shift into gear.
Chapter 7
MARCO
I lay naked on the table, cucumbers and a scented towel over my eyes. In here, behind the stone walls and noise-deadening construction, the music outside is inaudible, and all I hear are the grinding of salts, and the soft patter of feet against the spa’s stone floor. I inhale deeply, the stress from lunch already seeping away, even before the first drop of the scrub hits my skin.
“Who is that?” I ask, the hands beginning at my ankles, a second pair drizzling the scrub along my chest.
“It’s Rocco and Andy, sir.”
I say nothing, the names familiar, my favorites out of our spa team. There is the gentle massage of sugar and oil into my feet, talented digits working the pressure points of my soles, and I forget, for a moment, the GQ interview and the questions I had struggled with.
“Do you have a problem with a man touching you?” Vince stands next to me, watching critically as I flip the tie over itself, knotting it with perfect precision.
“You’re going to have to clarify that,” I say, reaching my arms out and letting him pull the jacket on.
“In public, I will rest my hand on your arm, hug you, hold your hand.” He pulls the jacket tight, too close to me for comfort, and faces me squarely. “I won’t kiss you, not right now, not until you are comfortable.”
“I’m not sure that I’ll ever be comfortable with that.”
He smiles in a way that isn’t a smile, but more of a threat. A reminder that this situation is one I am lucky to be in, and I need to remember that. “You’ll learn to be comfortable.” He squeezes my shoulders with both hands. “It’s lips brushing. It’s nothing. But I’ll give you a few months to adjust to the idea.”
My lips, brushing against another man’s. My skin crawls at the thought.
Talented fingers run across my thighs, spreading the exfoliator across my muscles, working the oily mixture in. I don’t flinch when they come near my cock, don’t think twice about their journey, or the fact that I am bare to their eyes. There had been several factors that had contributed to my slow acceptance of Vince’s lifestyle. He certainly hadn’t been gentle in my immersion. Moving into his home had been a dunk into the deep end of a very gay pool. Working in the fashion industry had already exposed me to being around gay men, and getting hit on had become as commonplace as ripped seams. But the exposure I’d received in the workplace and fashion school … it had been a sunburn compared to the bonfire that existed in Vince Horace’s
world. A bonfire of hedonism, exhibitionism and boundary-crossing behavior. It would have been tempting if there had been women involved. But it was always men. Only men, everywhere you looked.
“We won’t be long.” Vince leans forward, pulling a pair of shot glasses out of a side compartment and setting them out on the Rolls’ tray tables. “Fifteen minutes. Long enough to be seen, then we can escape into one of the bedrooms.”
I watch him fill both glasses and grab the one closest to me, downing it in a hearty sip. I lift the glass. “Am I going to need this?”
“Probably.” He sits back, crossing his legs at the ankle and glances out the window, the palatial Hamptons mansion lit in red, the yard already dotted by black suits. “Just prepare yourself for dicks.”
I chuckle, pushing the shot glass forward. “As long as they aren’t reaching for mine.”
“Stick next to me and you won’t have anything to worry about.” He swallows the vodka with the leisurely air of a man with no taste buds. Swallowing the liquor, he passes me the glass. “Fill us back up.”
I watch a couple kiss against one of the columns. “You miss this?”
He smiles. “A little. To be honest, I’m getting more attention with you. Turns out, it’s rather attractive to be unattainable.” He follows the rise of liquor in his glass and holds up his hand when it is half full. “That’s enough.”
I move the bottle to my own glass and am recapping the bottle when he speaks. “You ever been in love, Marco?”
“Can’t say I have.” I set the amber bottle down and regard him.
“That’s good.” He runs his hand along his thigh, smoothing the lay of the fabric. “It’ll make it easier to keep you if you don’t know what you’re missing.”
He’d been in love before. I knew the story of his three-year affair, one that had fizzled out unexpectedly, aided by Vince’s pre-surgery desire to fuck anything that moved.
I grin against the edge of the shot glass. “Hard to fall in love when there aren’t any women in sight.”
He shrugs good-naturedly. “I always stack the deck in my favor.” He picks up the shot and gestures to mine. “Let’s take these and go inside. Get this over with.”
He lifts his in a toasting fashion. “To my fake lover, and a true friend.”
I touch my glass to his and pour the fire down my throat.
Hands, roaming across my shoulders, gently knead the area that they will, over the next few hours, work every kink out of. Another set, at my calf, work their way higher. That night in the Hamptons had been my first party, my first real exposure to what happens when zero inhibitions and alcohol meet. I’d stuck close to Vince, glared at any man who looked my way and let Vince paw me without complaint. We’d circled the room and I’d met some of the most influential men in the fashion world. We had retreated to an upstairs bedroom and conducted a boring, two-hour conference call with Vince’s factory head in China. Afterward—my tie undone, my shirt’s top button artistically ripped off, and my hair mussed—we left, a brick of the Vince Horace legend added to the stack.
It was sad, his dogged pursuit of a reputation.
It was pathetic, my agreement to participate.
But back then, it hadn’t felt that way. It had felt reasonable. It had made sense. And with each performance, it had become easier.
Everything I knew eroded, my standards and normality dissolving. A year passed, and he kissed me, our first brush of lips in front of a crowd-full of gay pride protestors, and it felt almost natural. Another year passed, then two, and the first time a man knelt before me, I almost let it happen.
Candlelight. The sweep of a breeze, the sounds of Amsterdam following it inside the balcony door. Vince undoes my shirt, pulling it open, and I allow it, a shot brought to my lips by the man to my right. I’ve drunk too much, smoked too much. Everything blurs, and I snap my fingers at the model to our right, who tugs on Vince’s belt. “Get the fuck away.”
Even with the alcohol, I keep the slur away from the vowels, the order coming out strong, and he glares at me but obeys, moving away. The Dom. That’s what they call me, that’s the nickname all the queers have come up with. They think I’m a top, which I sure as fuck would be if I had their inclinations. They know, from three decades of Vince’s dick dancing through America, that he’s one also. Two tops don’t make a right, and I’ve heard the whispers of speculation and enjoyed their attempt to figure out our fuckery.
There’s a woman here. A sister to one of these French boys, and she’s eye-fucked me since the minute we walked in. I find her, watch her lean forward against the balcony rail, her ass stuck out, waiting for a pounding, and feel my cock harden. The musclehead to my left notices, his hand drifting along my thigh, and when his fingers brush over the bulge, it reacts.
He says something, moves closer, and I watch her breasts sway, heavy against that tight sweater. I want to fuck her. God, I want to get behind her, grip those breasts in my hand, and shove myself inside of her. I’d come in a minute from her moans, from the sweet feminine sounds of her orgasm. Her body clenching me, hot and wet and perfect.
My cock is rigid, pushing against my slacks, and I don’t notice the hand, the grip of it on the outside of the fabric, until it is too late. I yank my eyes off the bubble of her ass, snap them to my cock, and see the man in between my legs, his hand on my zipper.
I kick his chest, a hard shove of Italian leather against cheap cotton, and he falls. I stand, my hands pushing my sleeves up, my open shirt gaping, and will my cock to soften. Will the room to stop spinning. Will that woman to get the fuck out of here before I screw up everything.
“Vince.” I speak loud enough to get the attention of everyone in the room.
“Yep?” He drawls the words but I hear the hint of the warning in them. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t blow your cover. Don’t lose your cool.
“I want you naked, right now.” The words are for her and they fall as convincing as a silk sheath under cashmere.
Vince brushes off his suit and stands, his hand clamping on my shoulder with a possessive grip. “Sounds good to me. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
That night, I’d stood in the shower and jacked my cock until it was sore, thinking of her. That day, I crossed a line I never came back from. That day, after that party, the rumors started, stories of our sex grew, and the legend of Vince Horace and Marco Lent took flight.
That day, I lost my old life and turned myself over to him.
I roll over on the table and wonder if I’ll ever get it back.
* * *
Two hours after my massage, the will is read. The event takes place in our attorney’s office, a large room with a view meant to impress, the long walnut table filled with black suits and somber faces. I nod to the lot and take the chair at the head of the table, settling into it with a sigh.
The contents aren’t a surprise. As with every other action in Horace’s life, I had been beside him when he’d created the will, been present in meetings where assets had been cataloged, documents signed, and trusts established. I am already aware of the estate taxes I will be responsible for, and the full bulk of the empire I am inheriting.
It takes hours for the attorneys to move through the document. Hours to explain that I will receive eighty-eight percent of the Horace Mann estate. Ten percent will go to various LGBT organizations, fashion programs, and libraries. Two percent is headed to faithful staff and houseboys. The rest, to me. For a man who touched so many, he loved so few. No children. No family. Only me.
When we finish, I push away from the table and stand, my back stiff as I shake hands with strangers and take copies of the documentation.
Three and a half hours. Eight hundred and fifty million dollars richer. I loosen the top button on my shirt and walk out of the room, flanked by a sea of suits.
Chapter 8
AVERY
There’s no mention of the LiveAid concert in 1985. In fact, from 1984 to 1986, Vince Horace was in Miami. If he we
nt to Philadelphia during those years, there’s no notation of it. The book skims over his time in Miami with few details, and I open the photos at the end of the chapter with a reluctant fear. Maybe I’m wrong, so anxious to find my father that I’m chasing blind leads. Vince Horace looks like a photo from the eighties, and suddenly I think he’s my dad? I’ve been stupid. The first photo loads, a worthless shot of a Miami apartment building, and I scroll to the next, zooming in on a blurry side profile.
“These are four-hundred-dollar seats, and you’re reading.”
I grab a handful of peanuts without looking up from my phone. “What’s to see? No one’s on base. Two outs. Kinsler is up.”
Andrei sighs, slouching back in his seat, and lifts his beer. “Screw you.”
I give up, locking the phone and pushing it into my jacket pocket. “There. Happy?”
“Yes.” Kinsler swings and we watch a foul ball skid past us. “What were you reading?”
“Something dumb.”
The book is dumb. The fawning way it describes Vince Horace is all fanboy. And Horace is clearly gay. Every interaction, from his first kiss in sixth grade, to the high school fling with the football player, to his relationship in the early eighties with his Creative Director … they all had one thing in common. Gay. Homosexual, penis-loving, gayness. I haven’t read a word that has hinted at a flirtation, a confusion, or a tryst with a woman.
And again, no mention of Philadelphia. No LiveAid. No concerts at all.
The book sucks. My hopes were stupid. All of this, a giant waste of time and energy.
I reach for my beer, slump in my seat, and watch Kinsler strikeout.