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And he thought about what his parents would say and his teachers, too, and how he’d brought this on himself, thinking that he could be a big man in the world, that he could have this much fun without consequences, and it was all so dirty and awful. And it was his fault for catching a ride to God knew where on the word of some girl he only half knew, and he’d taken all sorts of shit into his body without thinking about it, and now he was getting what he deserved.
Disoriented, he staggered from room to room but didn’t seem to get anywhere. The mansion was like one big maze where everything led to everything else. And he was crying now and thought about how he couldn’t tell anyone what had happened and he wouldn’t want to drink ever again or see people and he couldn’t go home and face his parents and partygoers were looming before him on the stairs, their faces ballooning. A woman in a platinum-blond wig ran a fingertip down his cheek and then sucked his tears off her print, and then he was running up instead of down just to get away from her.
Two security types on the landing of the third floor—one obese and sloppy, the other gym-hardened with pristinely coiffed hair—were distracted with a woman vomiting pyrotechnically into a floor vase. Johnny slipped past, unnoticed. He blacked out a moment and then …
… the artwork sliding off the walls, but it was quiet at least. He just needed to catch his breath. He realized he was probably near the master suite—wing?—of the house, since no one was up here, and he felt his gorge rising suddenly. There was a big door with no handle that was upholstered with fancy scarlet fabric like a couch, and he figured it might be a rich-person bathroom, so he shouldered into it, but it didn’t open and he didn’t want to barf on the marble tiles, so he hit it again hard, and it popped open and he spilled inside, landing on a shag carpet and …
… couldn’t believe what he was seeing, a man cocked back in his chair, head thrown back, lips rouged with pleasure, bathed in the light of a hundred sins …
…
… spinning around in the chair, face twisted with fury …
…
… like a punch that went straight through his shoulder blade and out the front …
…
… spewing vomit as he stagger-slid down a tight servant’s staircase …
…
… someone chasing, shouting …
…
… tripping and then falling down step after step …
…
… memory of stumbling into the wrong room, what he had seen there, no one was supposed to see …
…
… fresh air hit him, and he mostly woke up.
Blood trickling from his ear, left knee staved in, crimson blotch spreading at the breast of his cheap button-up shirt, Johnny gasped for oxygen as he tumbled out through French doors to the side of the mansion, his Vans skidding on a stretch of curated Bermuda grass.
The desolate side yard was unlit—no doubt by design.
No signs of life, the mansion so large that the backyard was a good quarter mile away. The cover band was giving the Boss a run for his money.
—liddle gurl is yer daddy home, did he go ’n’ leave ya all alone—
He couldn’t go there. He couldn’t trust any of these crazy rich people.
Help, he said, or at least he thought he did, but the word was still inside his head.
His belt remained unbuckled, and the shame of what he’d allowed to be done to him swelled up like a wave, threatening to pull him under. He couldn’t get help, couldn’t talk about this ever.
Ahead, a rise of trees partially blocked the putting green of the neighboring estate. The house looked a mile away, as distant as a castle on ahill. The wind had shifted from the north, bringing from the bay and marshland the stomach-turning stench of low tide, fresh salt air turned rotten.
Drunk with pain, Johnny swung his head toward the front of the mansion, his vision bright and woozy, the edges of things blending together. A spill of light glowed around the side from the massive circular driveway.
The valets. He could trust the valets.
Footsteps behind him, hammering down the stairs, approaching thunder.
