by Doucette, G
“Yeah, you know. I figured outside of the club, no masks, different rules, that sort of thing.”
“I’m sorry, that I can’t do.”
“Just for, like, coffee or something.”
“I understand what you’re asking, Ms. Burgundy, but the preservation of anonymity is very important to us here.”
“Here, yes but not… I mean, what if we left together, would that have been okay? We could go outside and take off our masks and trade real names then.”
“But you haven’t.”
“Yes, Mr. White, I appreciate that. But what if we had.”
“That would have your business. You could have also traded names and taken off your masks upstairs. Nobody would have stopped you. You didn’t, and now you’re here alone asking me for information I’m not allowed to hand out. You appreciate my dilemma.”
She was getting more frustrated as this exchange continued. What White had to say was probably the only answer she could have expected, but at the same time what he had shared with Mr. Mocha didn’t feel like a temporary thing and she wanted to find a way to make that clear, somehow.
“But doesn’t this happen?” she asked. “Like, a lot? I mean, you know what goes on in this club.”
“Of course I do. But Club Himeros isn’t for love, it’s for self-discovery. If you believe you found love while on that journey, you’ll find that love again. Only not here, and not with my help.”
“Right, sure, okay. Well can I come back? We’ll have to find each other again.”
“I can’t guarantee anything like that.”
“Great.”
“As I said, this is not how things work around here.”
“How do things work? How did you even find me? If you took that mask off would you be someone I know?”
He smiled, and stood up. She had forgotten how tall he was, and for the first time she took that height as an implicit threat. “How Club Himeros operates is a much larger secret than the identity of your Mr. Mocha. I appreciate that you have many questions but here’s the only truth I can offer you: I don’t know his real name, any more than I know yours. You are only Ms. Burgundy to me, and that’s all you will be. I also appreciate your desire to reconnect with this man, but I promise you, the universe isn’t so cruel as to keep you both apart if you’re destined to be together. You’ll find him if it’s meant to be. As for myself, if you don’t recognize me now you never will, because this is my only face. I’m not wearing a mask.”
He opened the front door, either ignoring her surprise or not caring about it.
“Now,” he said, “let’s get you to your car.”
* * *
By the time Lindy made it back home she had managed to convince herself of a number of things. First, Mr. White was surely speaking metaphorically, insofar as he certainly did have on a mask. Second, he may have been telling the truth about not knowing the true names of the guests. If she were putting together an arrangement like that she would probably keep the man at the door from having that information. Certainly she wasn’t the only guest asking those kinds of questions about the other guests.
She also talked herself into the idea that her connection with Mr. Mocha had been due largely to the nature of Club Himeros, and not because of anything genuine. And when she got her next invitation she would prove it. She would return to the club and behave as unabashedly carnal as Ms. Olive, and just enjoy herself with someone else the same way she had with him.
Yes, that was what she would do.
But in the days and weeks that followed, she found it incredibly difficult to get Mr. Mocha out of her head.
What stuck wasn’t even the sex—although that was certainly a powerful enough memory—it was the conversations between the sex. It was the way he played with her hair while they sat together and watched other people, and made quiet jokes about what they thought everyone did for a living. It was how they broke down each other’s failed real-life relationships: hers with Michael, his with some girl named Barb. And how after their first time together they decided, without words, to be monogamous for the rest of the night.
She wanted to find him, but didn’t know how. The city was too large.
She also couldn’t tell anybody. Michael, who formally moved out a week after Lindy’s night at Club Himeros, kept in touch often enough to make it clear he was interested in possibly reconnecting and repairing what they had, but she couldn’t even think about doing that. So she pretended she didn’t get the hints. And when Vivi showed up to drop the same hints she ignored her too.
“Is there someone else?” V asked one day. Lindy had to tell her no, both because she felt obligated to keep Club Himeros a secret and because the truth was so outlandish her friend would probably not have believed her. On top of which, there wasn’t anybody else. Just a man whose real name she didn’t know. She may as well have fallen for a fictional character.
* * *
Eventually, she stopped looking, having decided the universe Mr. White spoke of was much more cruel than he thought. And that was when she heard a familiar voice.
She was in a liquor store at the time.
One of the many, many things she and Mr. Mocha had discussed was taste in wine. This was likely triggered by the Burgundy portion of her name, and the discovery that neither of them much cared for burgundy. He was fond of tempranillo, a Spanish wine that was—she thought—rare. So she had developed the habit of searching liquor stores in the city for tempranillo, occasionally purchasing a bottle or two and finding she liked it very much.
Her hope had been that only a handful of places carried it, but that didn’t end up being true. It wouldn’t end up being that one sufficiently unique thing about Mr. Mocha that would lead her back to him.
She wasn’t at the liquor store for wine. She was looking for something stronger. It was a Saturday afternoon, and after a particularly rough Friday night in which she had foolishly dug up the burgundy mask and walked around the house all night with it on, she’d come to an important decision: it was time to move on.
Her plan was to buy an expensive bottle of something—scotch, perhaps—get drunk and burn the mask. No new invitation had come from Club Himeros, and she was nearly positive she would never see another one after all the grief she’d given Mr. White, so there was no reason to keep it any more except sentiment. But the sentiment was killing her.
The choker she wasn’t so sure she was willing to part with. Since the club, she’d made it a regular part of her wardrobe. Most of the time she forgot she even had it on.
He was at the register and chatting with the clerk, buying a six pack and not noticing her at all.
She’d had roughly ten million false sightings of Mr. Mocha in the previous two months, so at first she dismissed the voice, and that the height and build and hair were all about right. But he was in a tank top—he’d just come from the gym based on his clothing—and the Tweety Bird tattoo was impossible to miss.
She nearly dropped the bottle in her hand.
“Hi,” she said, only not very loudly and from about twenty feet away. He looked up, though, and saw her standing there in the middle of the aisle, cradling a $100 bottle of Glenlivet and looking stunned and probably very ordinary. No black dress or heels, not even any makeup.
Their eyes met, but then he looked away. He either didn’t recognize her, or was pretending not to.
* * *
She bought the bottle. The man at the register seemed pretty concerned about her, because she was trying very hard to hold back tears as she ran her debit card through the machine, and the more he asked how she was doing the harder it was to hold it together. And she still had six blocks to walk to get home.
Outside, she got to the edge of the parking lot and started looking around for vacant alleys where she might have a good, long, private cry, when she heard him behind her.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
She turned. Mr. Mocha was leaning up against a car, looking awkward, like
someone who wanted to look casual but couldn’t figure out exactly how to pull it off. It was the same awkward she had seen that night in the club, when he sat on the couch and couldn’t figure out what to do with his hands.
It was really him.
“Mocha?” she said.
“Burgundy.”
“It’s Lindy.”
He smiled. “Hank. That’s a nice bottle. Gift?”
“This? Oh, no, it’s… never mind, not important. How… how are you?”
“I’m good, I’m…” he trailed off just nodding his head up and down as if this completed the sentence adequately.
“You’re good, then.”
“Super.”
“Okay.”
They couldn’t seem to speak. There was five feet of air between them and it was as thick as concrete.
“So… I’ll be seeing you around, I guess?”
“Sure, yes,” she said. Her eyes were welling up again. Say something. “We could have coffee or—”
“Why did you leave?”
She blinked. “What? Why did I leave?”
“It’s just I woke up and you weren’t there, and that asshole at the door…”
“Oh my God.”
“…he wouldn’t tell me anything…”
“Oh God, I thought you left.”
“What? I woke up and you were…”
“…but no I woke up and you…”
Then they both laughed, which was fantastic, as Lindy was pretty sure she’d done none of that for two months. The wall of concrete air dissipated.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said. “I took up jogging!”
“I started drinking your wine.”
“I’ve opened ten bank accounts in ten banks.”
“I have six gym memberships.”
“That’s expensive!”
“What do you care,” she said, “you have ten bank accounts.”
“True, but—”
“Oh shut up and kiss me already.”
He laughed, and stepped closer. His eyes were blue, like she had imagined, and she liked his face very much. She still wanted to cry, but not for the same reason.
“Yes ma’am,” he said.
So he did, and it was nearly worth the two-month wait.
It was the kind of kiss people didn’t give other people in public, the sort where the whole body is engaged and the only reasonable thing to do next is remove clothing. It was the sort of kiss people stopped to watch, as the other occupants of the liquor store parking lot were doing. Lindy could feel their eyes on her, and didn’t care a bit.
Look all you want, she wanted to say, but don’t stare.
Also by G Doucette
Sapphire Blue
Has Mara lost control, or has it been taken from her?
Mara Cantor’s life is boring and uncomplicated, and she likes it that way. She has her internship at the museum—a job she shares with her roommate, Davis—and while it is low-paying and occasionally mind-numbing, it gives her all the free time she needs to finish her thesis. And that is just fine.
But when Argent Leeds, the internationally famous playboy and raconteur, visits Mara’s museum, he brings with him the most exciting archeological discovery in decades: the Pazuzu gemstones. Long assumed to be nothing more than a myth by most scholars, the gemstones are rumored to possess mystical powers.
Between Argent, his gemstones, and Davis, Mara’s boring life has suddenly gotten very complicated. Now she is caught up in a sexual adventure that is either the most exciting time of her life . . . or the most terrifying.
Buy Sapphire Blue
About the author
G Doucette is the pen name for novelist Gene Doucette. Gene is also an award-winning screenwriter, novelist, playwright, humorist, essayist, and columnist A graduate of Boston College, he lives in Cambridge, MA with his family.
His standalone novel Fixer and the books in his critically acclaimed Immortal series – which follows a sarcastic, alcoholic, 60,000 year old man named Adam – are his publisher’s top sellers, and have spent months at a time respectively on Amazon bestseller lists. The third installment in the Immortal series – Immortal at the Edge of the World – is available now.
Books by Gene Doucette
Immortal
“I don’t know how old I am. My earliest memory is something along the lines of fire good, ice bad, so I think I predate written history, but I don’t know by how much. I like to brag that I’ve been there from the beginning, and while this may very well be true, I generally just say it to pick up girls.”
--Adam the Immortal
Surviving sixty thousand years takes cunning and more than a little luck. But in the twenty-first century, Adam confronts new dangers—someone has found out what he is, a demon is after him, and he has run out of places to hide. Worst of all, he has had entirely too much to drink.
Immortal is a first person confessional penned by a man who is immortal, but not invincible. In an artful blending of sci-fi, adventure, fantasy, and humor, IMMORTAL introduces us to a world with vampires, demons and other “magical” creatures, yet a world without actual magic.
At the center of the book is Adam.
“I have been in quite a few tight situations in my long life. One of the first things I learned was if there is going to be a mob panic, don’t be standing between the mob and wherever it is they all want to go. The second thing I learned was, don’t try to run through fire.”
--Adam the Immortal
Adam is a sixty thousand year old man. (Approximately.) He doesn’t age or get sick, but is otherwise entirely capable of being killed. His survival has hinged on an innate ability to adapt, his wits, and a fairly large dollop of luck. He makes for an excellent guide through history . . . when he’s sober.
Immortal is a contemporary fantasy for non-fantasy readers and fantasy enthusiasts alike.
Buy Immortal
* * *
Hellenic Immortal
“Very occasionally, I will pop up in the historical record. Most of the time I’m not at all easy to spot, because most of the time I’m just a guy who does a thing and then disappears again into the background behind someone-or-other who’s busy doing something much more important. But there are a couple of rare occasions when I get a starring role.”
--Adam the Immortal
An oracle has predicted the sojourner’s end, which is a problem for Adam insofar as he has never encountered an oracular prediction that didn’t come true . . . and he is the sojourner. To survive, he’s going to have to figure out what a beautiful ex-government analyst, an eco-terrorist, a rogue FBI agent, and the world’s oldest religious cult all want with him, and fast.
And all he wanted when he came to Vegas was to forget about a girl. And maybe have a drink or two.
“I am probably not the best source when it comes to who invented what. For a long time I thought I invented the wheel.”
--Adam the Immortal
The second book in the Immortal series, Hellenic Immortal follows the continuing adventures of Adam, a sixty-thousand-year-old man with a wry sense of humor, a flair for storytelling, and a knack for staying alive. Hellenic Immortal is a clever blend of history, mythology, sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, mystery and romance. A little something, in other words, for every reader.
Buy Hellenic Immortal
* * *
Immortal at the Edge of the World
“What I was currently doing with my time and money . . . didn’t really deserve anyone else’s attention. If I was feeling romantic about it, I’d call it a quest, but all I was really doing was trying to answer a question I’d been ignoring for a thousand years.”
In his very long life, Adam had encountered only one person who appeared to share his longevity: the mysterious red-haired woman. She appeared throughout history, usually from a distance, nearly always vanishing before he could speak to her.
In his last encounter, she actually did vanish—into thin ai
r, right in front of him. The question was how did she do it? To answer, Adam will have to complete a quest he gave up on a thousand years earlier, for an object that may no longer exist.
If he can find it, he might be able to do what the red-haired woman did, and if he can do that, maybe he can find her again and ask her who she is . . . and why she seems to hate him.
“You are being watched. Move your loved ones to safety . . . trust nobody.”
But Adam isn’t the only one who wants the red-haired woman. There are other forces at work, and after a warning from one of the few men he trusts, Adam realizes how much danger everyone is in. To save his friends and finish his quest he may be forced to bankrupt himself, call in every favor he can, and ultimately trade the one thing he’d never been able to give up before: his life.
From the author of Immortal and Hellenic Immortal comes Immortal at the Edge of the World, the breathtaking conclusion to the best-selling trilogy. Will Adam survive?
Buy Immortal at the Edge of the World
* * *
Fixer
What would you do if you could see into the future?
As a child, he dreamed of being a superhero. Most people never get to realize their childhood dreams, but Corrigan Bain has come close. He is a fixer. His job is to prevent accidents—to see the future and “fix” things before people get hurt. But the ability to see into the future, however limited, isn’t always so simple. Sometimes not everyone can be saved.
“Don’t let them know you can see them.”
Graduate students from a local university are dying, and former lover and FBI agent Maggie Trent is the only person who believes their deaths aren’t as accidental as they appear. But the truth can only be found in something from Corrigan Bain’s past, and he’s not interested in sharing that past, not even with Maggie.
To stop the deaths, Corrigan will have to face up to some old horrors, confront the possibility that he may be going mad, and find a way to stop a killer no one can see.