Ted of the d'Urbervilles by Rob Rosen

Author:Rob Rosen [Rosen, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2019-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

Part 2

Chapter 6

The door closed behind us. I thought to reach for Benny’s hand, then thought the better of it. Or the worse of it, as my hand without Benny’s hand made my head hurt. Pound it went. Or maybe that was my heart. Either way, something was pounding and hurting.

The lawyer held out his own hand, so mine, at least, had a brief companion. “Maximillian Ditmore,” he said.

“Ted d’Urbervilles,” I replied. My last name suddenly sounded strange to me, at least in that setting. I felt like I was at the White House—if the White House had taken steroids and was now every shade of color and ten times larger and seemed at any moment to crash down upon me. I think I might have been hyperventilating. I know my hand was shaking as it shook his. It’s weird to want something so badly and then get that something and then be terrified of it. Ergo the hyperventilating and shaking.

Maximillian seemed to ignore all of this and shook Benny’s hand next. I looked at Benny, Benny who was dressed up so nicely and cleanly shaven and handsome as all fuck, Benny who was grinning as always as he seemed to try and take everything in at once. “A pleasure, Mister Ditmore.” I blinked. The pounding stopped. Benny would be my savior, yet again. I knew it as sure as I knew my own name.

I blinked again, my eyes moving left and right, up and down. We were in an enormous entryway, the floors marble, the walls a gleaming white, a massive chandelier above our heads dripping with crystals, a staircase in front of us that split to either side, one taking you east, the other west, and behind that, a wall of glass and then nothing but blue sky and ocean. Everything dripped of wealth. Me, I dripped of sweat.

“How many people live here?” I asked, my tiny voice echoing out in all directions, making me jump in place.

Maximillian again turned my way. Maximillian looked like a movie star, like an action hero, and not at all like a lawyer, or at least what I thought a lawyer should look like, which was not at all like Maximillian. “Mortimer’s sister, Matilda,” he said. “Of course.” And then he seemed to do some sort of calculation in his head. “So, ten. Ten people live here.”

He’d lost me. He listed one and counted ten. Benny tapped my shoulder. “The staff, Ted. There are nine of them.” Benny no longer sounded like Benny. This was the stage version. The stage version was just as hot but more a fun-house-mirror version. I liked this version because I was getting two Bennys for the price of one. Plus, at least one of us sounded sure of himself.

“Right,” said Maximillian, his hands lifted up as he counted on his fingers. “Two maids, the butler, the chauffeur, the chef, the pool boy, the gardener, the estate manager, and me.”

“You live here, too?” I asked. “Is that, you know, normal? I mean, do lawyers usually live with their clients?” My voice still echoed.

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